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Hello
I have had a second HDD installed as a slave. It works fine in windows but my bios doesn't detect it. I can format it in windows but not in DOS. How can this be and how can I fix it. Thanks. Ford12
That's odd. If windows can see it then the BIOS is seeing it, otherwise windows could not see it. At first glance i would think maybe you used a drive overlay, then DOS booted from a floppy could not see it (the overlay soft is not loaded unless booted from the HDD).
What you describe is impossible, can you restate the problem?
Best
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Hi jubalsams,
I afree. Strangely, there is another 9x thread where the CD is not seen in BIOS, yet works.
Beats me.
M2
If at first you don't succeed, you're about average.
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It does indead seem imposible but we are talking about computers so any thing can happen.
When you try to format in dos what is the error ? After it is formated in Windows and some files copyed to it, can you then see the file in dos ? What size of HDD ? Does fdisk see the hdd when booting into dos ?
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Hello All
Thanks for your replys. In my bios IDE devices shows:
Primary drive 0-(shows 1st HDD details)
Primary drive 1-ATAPI device (CD rom drive)
Secondary drive 0 - not installed
Secondary drive 1 - not installed.First harddrive is 3gig Second is 2gig
In windows device manager Disk drive shows 2 generic disks - disk type00 & type01.I did start my computer from a floppy and I also went to msconfig and enabled start menu then I selected command prompt only. In both cases I get invalid drive specification if I change to the E drive which is what my second drive letter is assigned to in windows. So I can't do anything with it in dos. If I use the ms-dos while running windows in the background that will detect it. But not when I am outside the windows environment.
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Inspect the jumper settings on all drives and post back the results. The second hard drive should have been assigned drive letter "D".
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Have to figure out why E: is assigned to the 2 hdd in windows, as dave01 says it should not be, unless the 1st hdd has 2 primary partitions.
1) where is the 2 hdd connected, Secondary drive 0 ?
2) in a dos window run fdisk option #4 what is displayed for drive 1 and 2 ? (you have to use option #5 to change hd's)
3) if booting to pure dos, if you change to D: what do you get ?
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I agree with dave01 (#5) to recheck all your jumpers. Do you have any set for CS (Cable Select)?
It's a good day when you learn something
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Hello All
Thanks again for all your replys. I opened up my computer and was amazed to find the CD rom drive is set to Slave. I guess that explains its D drive letter. C drive has 4 pairs of jumper pins, not marked but shunt is across the second pair closest to the cable. The 2nd Hard drive (E) has no shunts on any jumpers.
C drive has only one primary partition as does E drive.
I can display a directory of D (cdrom)drive in true dos which shows entries like attrib, chdsk,command, debug etc. even when there is no disk in cdrom drive. If I change to E drive I get 'invalid drive specification'. I can only change drives in windows dos. Option 5 is not available in true dos. I have previously formatted the 2nd hard drive in windows and can save data and read it perfectly. So it works like its supposed to, just not outside the windows environment.
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"C drive has 4 pairs of jumper pins, not marked but shunt is across the second pair closest to the cable. The 2nd Hard drive (E) has no shunts on any jumpers."
If there is no Legend on the hard disk label for jumper placement, here's a link for jumper settings according to the (major) manufacturers. Ensure all hard disks are set correctly.
I don't understand how you can be getting any information from a cdrom drive with no cd in the drive. Are you sure it's not a ramdrive or another drive you're "reading"?
It's a good day when you learn something
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Hello
Thanks for the link to the jumper settings. However I decided to do it myself first. I swapped the jumper settings for the 2nd Hard drive and the CD rom drive. That appears to have worked. D drive is now second hard drive and E is cd rom. My bios also detects the second harddrive now- secondary drive 0= (D drive details). C drive is Primary drive 0 and CD Rom drive is listed in Primary drive 1.
Dan you mentioned something about a ramdrive. Yes I get that message if I use a boot disk to start my computer and select 'start with CD rom support' It says something about virtual...
then later another message - volume in drive E is MS ramdrive. If I start the pc without a boot disk I can only list the directories of c drive & D drive. E drive is 'invalid' even if there is a disk in it. I guess it must have something to do with it being a cd rom drive? All drives are operational and appear to be correctly set up.
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OK, all appears to be good now. I had thought that you were maybe/somehow getting a ramdrive created, which if both hard disks were recognized, it would be assigned to E: and you were getting a dir listing from that thinking it was your CDROM. (Which would become F:.)
The CDROM generally doesn't work in raw dos without cdrom drivers loaded at boot. (With most systems today you can boot from it, but other than that the above applies.)
It's a good day when you learn something
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