Storage hard drive not recognized

[TimNC]

Hello,

I just completed changing my 2 hard drives from an older system to a newer Pent D bare bones kit. I did the recovery process on the old OS to update XP. XP is up to date. I installed my storage drive which I have had no problems with. The Bios does not detect it. I changed cables, change IDE ports but it just doesn't do anything. All I did was unplug it and move it to the new unit. Its a Maxtor 5T020H2. I have had it about 3 years with no problems and no noises. I even transferred some of my files to it incase I had to perform a total restore on the OS drive. Any ideas? I even put it bak in the old unit just to see if I could hear it run or to see if the Bios would recognize it. Nothing. It's definitely the drive but what could have happened? Can it be recovered?

Thanks, Tim

[fffreak]

How are the hard drives jumpered, are you sure they are jumpered correctly? Do the hard drives use IDE ports(PATA), SATA, or SCSI? If it's PATA and you're using the same ribbon cable than you need to make sure that hard drive with your OS on it is set and jumpered to master, and that your secondary drive is set to slave.

[TimNC]

They are ATA IDE Ports. The jumpers are set on master for my OS which is working and no jumpers on the storage drive I am having trouble with. I set the jumpers to slave and even tried the IDE port used for the CD drive. There is no action at all from the drive. Not even the cycling when first started.

[patio]

Unhook everything on IDE2 and hook up the HDD jumpered as master and connected to the end connecter of the IDE cable.
Power up and enter the BIOS setup and see if the drive is detected...if so run autodetect on the drive PressF10 to exit and save changes,
Theb after Windows boots see if the drive shows up in Explorer...
If the BIOS does not detect the drive this way then the drive is probably dead...

[TimNC]

Ok, I have tried that and the bios will not recognize this drive. I tried it in another computer and nothing there either. I will have to look into recovery of the drive. The worst part is when I was putting the bare bones kit together I transferred all my documents to the storage drive to protect then should I had to reformat the OS drive. I guest I need to get an online backup service to depend on. Hind sight is 20/20! Thanks for your assistance!