Computer Hope

Hardware => Hardware => Topic started by: cenges on January 22, 2006, 05:39:03 PM

Title: Computer won't recognize primary hard drive
Post by: cenges on January 22, 2006, 05:39:03 PM
I have a Asus A7N8X Deluxe motherboard with a WD 36 gig Raptor SATA hard drive as primary using SATA pins in motherboard, running Microsoft XP, with service pack 2. I installed a Seagate 160 Ultra ATA/100 in the primary IDE slot and set it up as slave. First the computer would not recognize the Seagate. BIOS wouldn't automatically recognize it either. I finally installed the Seagate Utility Discwizard. It told me that my motherboard wouldn't accept the large size of the Seagate 'do I want to have the utility fix it' (paraphrasing). OK. Then it partitioned the Seagate, but only to 148 gigs. All was well. My computer recognized both hard drives. I then decided to move some files (I am a photographer with hundreds, if not thousands of images) to the Seagate. No problem. Copied and moved over to the new hard drive. I did this all prior to restarting my computer after setting up the Seagate. I then restarted my computer. At the DOS prompt it said there was an error in the OS and wouldn't boot. The BIOS showed that I have no primary hard drive. It shows the Seagate however . I took the Seagate out and the now I can boot up XP. BIOS still shows I have no primary, but it boots and I still see it in My Computer under C drive. However, everytime I put the Seagate back on line it won't let my Raptor boot.
My question is because I have the SATA drive cabled to the motherboard, instead of inline on the wide cable to my primary IDE slot with both drives on the wide ribbon, is this somehow overriding my primary? I believe I have all the jumpers in the right spots (master/Raptor/slave/Seagate). I should have copied all my files to the Seagate and then made it my primary, put I screwed up. Now I have irreplacable photos on the Seagate and don't want to lose them. HELP. Thanks up front for any help that you might offer.  :-[
Title: Re: Computer won't recognize primary hard drive
Post by: GX1_Man on January 22, 2006, 06:21:33 PM
XP wih SP2 should recognnize the full size of the Seagate if you are using NTFS. Because of the nomenclature of disc size that 148 gig is the full amounnt of the 160 gig drive. (I'm sure Mac will be along to explain, but that is correct.)

How are the drives set up in he BIOS? What if you put the Seagate on the primary channel and the optical drives on the secondary IDE channel? Be sure the IDE drives are jumpered correctly for how they are located.
Title: Re: Computer won't recognize primary hard drive
Post by: cenges on January 22, 2006, 09:01:31 PM
Thanks for the reply. Both of my CD and CD writer drives are on the secondary IDE channel and jumpered as master and slave and work perfectly. The primary channel has the new Seagate 160 on it only, with the Raptor on the primary SATA drive located on the motherboard. The SATA drive jumper is activated. I believe according to the jumper setup on the Raptor it is designated as master, while the Seagate on the primary IDE channel is designated as slave. (I looked at both carefully) The Raptor has no wide ribbon connector in the back of it to put on the primary channel along with Seagate, only the narrow red cable that attaches to the SATA pin slot.  So they are independent of each other on the motherboard. I don't know if the Asus motherboard has a problem identifying the master/slave combination because they are not on the same cable. Does that make sense? Thanks again, Chris