bios recognized my primary slave hdd and second master hdd but upon clicking on my computer it was not there?

Question

my bios recognized my primary slave hdd and second master hdd but upon clicking on my computer it was not there, but when i go to my device manager its there.how come? how to troubleshoot this?

Answer 1

Are the hard drives new? If so, you may need to place partitions on each new drive.

Partitioning is different among the operating systems. Back in the Win98 days is was fdisk.

Answer 2

Its recognizing that you have a device that is a hdd, but the hdd is not working as it should and therefore "my computer" is not recognizing it.



Can you hear it spinning and a slight clicking (reading the disk)? If not you may have shorted out the controller card on the hdd and need a new one. I had the same prob with a hdd that was old. It was a pain in the a hole to get an exact match for the controller card. If it is an internal hdd, try getting an external usb enclosure and try it that way too. If the actual hdd inside is messed up I can only hope you didnt have important files on there.

Answer 3

Maybe they are not partitioned and formatted. In other words completely empty?



If you think this is a possibility - perhaps they are new disks - then go into the disk management console.



Right click the 'computer' icon (or 'my computer' in XP) and choose 'manage'.

In the management console that appears select 'disk management' in the left column.



If the hardware is present but blank it will show up here and you will be able to partition and format it for use. It will then show up in Windows file browsers.

Answer 4

Ok a bit confusing.



Primary Master-->Hdd

Primary Slave --> Hdd

Secondary Master-->Hdd

Secondary slave?



Is this correct?



If so, then a few questions, including which OS are you running?



1. Are these new drives are ones you have been using for awhile or are they brand new?



2. Do they show up in disk management?



3. Are they backup drives only or is either of them also have Windows on it (are they bootable)?



--Will watch for Additional details.

Answer 5

You need to format it and/ or partition and so that Windows sees the space as available. BIOS recognises the physical device but Windows needs to know what space is available etc and this is achieved by reading the MBR and boot sectors which are established during a format.



Knowing the Operating System would have been useful for more specific advice.

Answer 6

what os ?

any (!) on this drive check properties

disk management select drive and format