HELP!! No fixed disk drives recognized. [Archive]

Click to See Complete Forum and Search --> : HELP!! No fixed disk drives recognized.

v6chev

07-08-1999, 02:29 PM

HI, I was in the process of reconfiguring/reinstalling everything from scratch. I had just gotten Win98 installed and was rebooting after installing the video driver. THe next thing I know the BIOS can't see any of the 4 IDE drives I have connected where it was seeing all of them before. The motherboard is a DFI with an Award 2A59 (Intel Neptune) chipset.
Is the Bios chip fried? SHould I just go get another board?
thanks a lot,
js

fishboy

07-08-1999, 03:17 PM

Try booting up with just one drive and make sure the IDE controllers are enabled. Maybe you could try resetting the BIOS or take one of the drives and put it into another machine to rule out its not the drive. I had the same problem with a Maxtor and I had to get a new HD.

v6chev

07-08-1999, 03:27 PM

thanks, I checked all the settings in the bios and everything pertaining to the IDE channels is enabled (man, these new bios' keep getting more complicated). The primary drive on channel 1 is a WD 6.4GB, 2nd-ary is a WD 3.1GB. Channel 2 has a Yamaha 2216 on primary and 24X CDRom as 2ndary.
The only thing I had done between the times it worked and didn't was just move the CD drives to different bays and replace the IDE cable for their channel (longer cable for my full tower). I guess I could try putting the old IDE cable back.
thanks again,
js

toms111

07-08-1999, 04:00 PM

A bad IDE Cable is very possible.

fishboy

07-08-1999, 09:34 PM

I agree with toms111. Start basic. Just hook up the primary HD to the original cable and see what you get.

v6chev

07-09-1999, 07:26 PM

thanks for your help, it turns out I made the age-old mistake of plugging in one of the IDE cables backwards on the 2nd channel. Apparently, this messed up EVERYTHING.
Feeling pretty dumb, been doing this for 6 years. I guess that's what happens when you don't have that little center notch on your IDE cable, DOH!!! http://www.sysopt.com/forum/smile.gif
It's all working again.
js

gER0NIMo

07-10-1999, 01:29 AM

try switching yer cables around. you might have cables backwards.

oops *kneeslap* they already figured it out :P

[This message has been edited by gER0NIMo (edited 07-10-99).]