Hard drive not detected after a (strange) restart.

2599 Views 2 Replies 2 Participants Last post by Jewels, Mar 14, 2009

Jewels

Discussion Starter · Mar 14, 2009

My current system has two physical hard drives, one with Windows installed (IDE) and the other used for storage (SATA). I have an external hard drive for backup purposes (USB).

I was just going about my usual business when my computer restarted itself, though I'm not sure if this was a random restart as my router also happened to restart itself for some peculiar reason. Whilst restarting, the POST took far longer than usual, and when I finally logged into Windows, the storage drive was no longer detected.

I rebooted to enter the BIOS (again the POST took a while to process) and the first page read:

Primary IDE Master: [optical drive name]
Primary IDE Slave: [not detected]
Third IDE Master: [IDE drive installed with Windows]
Third IDE Slave: [not detected]
Fourth IDE Master: [not detected]
Fourth IDE Slave: [not detected]

Shouldn't "Second" be present? Under the Boot section of the BIOS the drive does not appear under any menu. Even my external drive appears there as a bootable option.

What's even more perplexing is that the external processor light on my computer (the one that lights up whenever there's computer activity) is now permanently lit.

The only conclusion I can come to is the hard drive having some physical problem, but I can't imagine why, and the processor light is beyond me. I haven't overclocked any part of my system, and if it's down to a weak power supply, why would my separately powered router restart itself? If it was a power cut the computer shouldn't have even restarted, and other electrical devices in my house should have shown problems too.

Now whenever I restart my computer the POST takes significantly longer than usual to process, the processor light is permanently on, and the drive is not detected by the BIOS.

Due to the drive's size I only have backups of the more important files, but I'd still prefer to recover the other data if possible.

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The Duke

· #2 · Mar 14, 2009

Frankly, the SATA HDD would make for a better primary drive.

Back to your problem...
Since multiple drives are having issues.
1. Recheck BIOS config of drives
2. If the MB battery is low it may have issues sustaining the BIOS settings.
3. Check the PS, a weak rail will screw with HDDs and with time even damage them.

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Jewels

Discussion Starter · #3 · Mar 14, 2009

I installed the SATA quite a while after to increase storage space, but yes it obviously would make a better primary drive.

Only one drive is having problems; the others are working fine. Is it possible the forced restart caused some physical damage to the drive causing it to not be detected at all, not even in the BIOS? The long POST and permanently lit light are other problems too, though I don't know exactly how serious they are and whether they're merely symptoms of the drive problem. The router restarting also remains a mystery to me.

As it stands now I have a 500 GB drive sitting in my computer properly connected, remaining completely undetected.

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