2nd Hard drive visible for a while - then not!

[RTL]

I have a DAN PC from about 2000 running Win98 SE.  The Hard drive is a Maxtor 32049H3 20GB.

I now have a Dell Dimension 8100 running XP SP2 with a 20GB Western Digital WD200 hard drive.

The idea was to add the Maxtor HD to the Dell, complete with all my old data and transfer stuff across.  Checked online, reset the Maxtor's jumper to slave and attached on to the grey connector on the ribbon cable with the existing WD HD on the end of the cable on the back connector.

Booted up and to my considerable surprise, all worked without even having to go into the BIOS. The Maxtor HD showed up on the Windows Explorer with its drive name as designated when it lived in the DAN. Could even run my database programme from the WD HD, using the data set on the Maxtor.

Then, a couple of hours later (after I had re-booted a couple of times) found that the Maxtor HD was showing on the Windows Explorer as 'local disk' with no capacity figure showing and if you click on it, it says 'Drive is not formatted, do you want to format now' which of course I don't until I've got my data off it!

I then discovered that the WD HD is set to 'cable select' (Why did the Maxtor work set to slave?) so I reset the Maxtor to CS but no change.

I have tried running both drives on different cables, pairing the WD HD with the Maxtor in the DAN, both CS and master slave, but the WD HD doesn't show up at all on the DAN and yes at all stages I've gone into the BIOS and tried various settings, but generally setting both to AUTO.

I'd really like to be able to run the two HD's side by side and its particularly frustrating as it worked perfectly to begin with - wish I'd made a copy of one HD on the other when I'd had the chance.

Any ideas?

Thanks in advance for any wisdom.

[patio]

Recheck the WD as some models also have a "master w/slave present" jumper setting as well.
Make only one change at a time...BIOS's can get confused sometimes.

[RTL]

Recheck the WD as some models also have a "master w/slave present" jumper setting as well.
Make only one change at a time...BIOS's can get confused sometimes.

Yep, its set to what WD website calls "Dual (Master)" as opposed to "single".  Doesn't work.

Thanks for the idea 'though.

[GX1_Man]

Sometimes you can screw up the MBR in the new slave drive, especially if it was previously formatted as a primary OS. Disconnect the slave drive and restart, then connect it back, jumpered correctly, and see if it is found in the BIOS and identified.

When you right click on the 20 gig drive in Windows and choose properties, what does it say?

[RTL]

Right clicking on properties has always shown the same (saving for when all worked):

Type:Local Disk
File System: [highlight]RAW[/highlight]Used Space: 0 bytes
Free Space: 0 bytes
Capacity: 0 bytes

What do you think, Dr. Patio?

I think you may want to try something different.

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