primary/secondary IDE slaves not detected

my pc crashed and I'm able to get to (bios)cmos menu, if I let it run on it's own otherwise it gets to the windows loading screen then restarts....

anyways from cmos, I can see that the prim and sec ide slaves are not detected, all channels are on auto and transfer is enabled...

I'm not that tech savvy so I'd rather not get in there and see if the jumpers/connectors are good cause I probably wouldn't know the difference!?

does anyone have any advice for me, pllllllllllleeasssssssssse?!

 

thats sortof a contradictory statement. if neither of your hard drives are being detected by the bios, then your computer certainly would not be able to boot to the hard drive and begin to load windows. it sounds more like your OS has gone to hell and needs to be reinstalled. do you get a blue screen when this happens?

 

how can it be contradictory when thats exactly what's happening...it starts up and if i hit f8 or del right away then i can get to cmos or choose boot if i let it run it'll run through to the loading windows screen then restart itself.....

but no


no blue screens

 

well your bios is definitely detecting your drive, otherwise it would go to a black screen and say "operating system not found" or somthing of that nature rather than attempting to boot windows. you might try booting into safe mode and see if it will complete booting that way, if so you might be able to start recovering the system from there. when you power on the computer, just press F8, about every second until you get a black and white screen with some text, with options like "boot windows normally" "boot safe mode" "safe mode with networking", try booting into regular safe mode and see how that goes. but, IMO, i would format the computer and start anew; of course after backing up all of your files.

 

how many hard disks do you have? With IDE you can have up to 4:

Primary Master
Primary Slave
Secondary Master
Secondary Slave

If Windoze is starting then the drive it's on would have been detected, as coders says. Are you saying you have another drive which isn't being detected? In general, if you haven't changed any jumper settings or cables and a disk is no longer detected that means it's kaput, unless your onboard IDE controller has had it.

What version of Windoze are you using? If it keeps restarting you may have a virus... we need a bit more information to go on.

 

Sounds like the jumpers are off. I've seen that and other strange problems from incorrect jumper settings.

The jumper options should be on the hard drive label or etched into the case somewhere. Jumpers are just as important as plugging it in (with IDE). The only shortcut might be to completely remove both slave jumpers. Make sure you write/draw a note as to where the jumpers came from before removing.

 

yes i have all 4 of those....

im using windows xp

and i havent changed any jumper settings or cables

I read somewhere else that replacing the cables can fix this problem

the computer restarts everytime it gets to the windows loading screen unless i hit f8 which takes me to a screen that allows me to choose what to reboot with, i've tried all options none have made a difference...

when i hit delete it takes me to "cmos setup utility"

 

when you say remove both slave jumpers do you mean replace them or just remove and re-insert?! or neither?!

 

i'd also like to add that every third or so time i turn it on it takes me to a screen that has different options to reboot in (safe mode, safemode with networking and safe mode with command prompt) but i cant change the option for some reason?!!? its like the screen is frozen but its not cause it counts down to just start normally

 

Did you split your windows install across 2 disks? It sounds like the boot partition (which microsoft calls the system partition) is ok, as you are getting the boot menu. If you put the system partition containing the \windows directory (which microsoft calls the boot partition) on another disk which has now failed that would cause windows not to load.

I haven't used xp much, but you can boot off an xp cd and do an automated system recovery - if you have an automated system recovery floppy (I imagine this is a backup of your registry)

How many disks is it detecting? Have both slaves failed and you just have the 2 masters? Or only 1 master?

In any case you could try different cables, and / or hooking the disks up in another computer and seeing if that detects it. Set them as slaves and boot off the other computer's windows install, and you may be able to read and copy the data off them to back them up. It's a case of using a process of elimination.

 

Bad cables are a possibility. Usually only one cable will die at a time.

When I say remove the jumpers, I mean just pull them off of the slave drives only. Just pull the jumpers and put them somewhere you won't lose them. Try booting without those jumpers. Leave the master drive jumpers in place.

Tell me, what exactly was changed on the machine when this problem occurred? Did you install extra hard drives into the computer and now it won't work?

 

nothing at all has been changed on it....I shut it down to go to bed, and the next morning it wouldn't restart and now here i am....

im going to try the suggestion with the cables

in the event that its a virus, could anyone assist me in removingg it? is it possible to remove it?!