Member Avatar for shytilwet

:cool: This is so weird. I have one hard drive which is C drive, one that's D drive and a cdrom that's E drive. For weeks D drive has just been missing. It's not in My Computer. I've looked in the bios. Think I set all to auto. Tried installing a driver in control panel----add new hardware. Nothing. Then yesterday I had a cdrom in cdrom drive as I booted up and D:\ DRIVE was there!!!!

So what's happened. Something to do with slave and secondary master using same something?

If you can help please talk slowly.....like in hardware for dummies.

Thanx, folks.

Pentium 11 266MHz Win98SE :cool:

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This pattern — the second hard disk vanishing from My Computer except when a CD is present at boot — points to an intermittent, BIOS-level detection problem rather than a Windows-only issue. Hardware-level causes (jumper/cable configuration or a flaky power/IDE connection) and early mechanical failure are the likeliest explanations. The posts from , and already steered the thread toward BIOS/devicemanager and cable/power checks; the notes from about bearings are worth keeping in mind because intermittent visibility is a classic sign of impending drive failure.

Practical, ordered checks to run when the D: drive is visible:

  1. Back up everything on that disk immediately — intermittent detection can turn into permanent loss.
  2. Power down and inspect connectors: confirm the ribbon cable’s red stripe is at pin‑1 on both drive and motherboard, swap the IDE cable with a known-good one (prefer an 80‑conductor cable for UDMA-capable drives), and try a different Molex power lead.
  3. Verify jumper settings on the HDD and the CD-ROM (Master/Slave vs Cable‑Select). If both HDDs share one cable, set one explicit Master and the other Slave or move one drive to the secondary IDE channel to remove contention.
  4. When the drive is seen, run Scandisk/chkdsk and the drive maker’s offline diagnostic to check geometry and surface/SMART errors; listen for abnormal clicks or grinding.
  5. If the problem persists after swapping cables/jumpers and testing power, treat the drive as unreliable and replace it.

If BIOS reports the drive only intermittently, Windows will not mount it and the letter disappears — that’s expected behavior. Immediate backup and isolating the fault by swapping cables/jumpers will diagnose whether it’s a simple wiring/jumper conflict or a failing drive that needs replacement.

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Member Avatar for Puckdropper

Can you repeat the process on the computer?

I would guess you've got some conflict with your drives, so try this:
Go to Start> Run
Type "command" and press ok.
type "FDISK /STATUS" and write the information down. Post it here.

Member Avatar for shytilwet

Well, it says:

Fixed Disk Drive Status

Disk Drv Mbytes Free Usage
1 2946 100%
C: 2946

Member Avatar for BlackSheep

Wondering if you have one drive partitioned (split) or two physical drives? You can find out by finding your "My Computer" icon, then "Right-Clicking" on it and selecting "Properties" from the pop-up menu, you should get a System Properties Window. From there, select the Device Manager tab at the top, and then scan down the list and click on the plus sign beside the icon that says Disks Drives.

If it is two seperate drives and you only see one icon (Ignore The Floppy), chances are you could have serious problems.

Also next time you're in your CMOS setup, try Auto-Detecting your Hard Disks just to be sure...

Hope This Helps!!!

Member Avatar for nanosani

what is the file system on the d drive ... and what operating system are you using...?

Member Avatar for shytilwet

Thanks everyone. Mr.Sheep, I have two physical hard drives, neither one is partitioned.

In CMOS I have User for Primary master and Auto for the other three.

My Computer just shows C:\ and cdrom and floppy drive. It's only showed my 2nd hd twice now and I was able to copy some files from there to C:\

Both times I had booted up with a cd-rom in the drive. Co-incidence? I don't know.

Actually, I think that at least one of those 2 times, I couldn't see the cd-rom drive in My Comp.


O.S. is Win98SE on C:\ and Win95 on 2nd hd. Not sure what you mean by file ststem, sorry.

Member Avatar for dlh6213

Open My Computer and right-click on the C:\ drive, click on Properties. In the window that pops up, select the General tab. There will be a couple of lines near the top that say:
Type
File System
Most likely you have FAT32 (but may be FAT16). Check the D:\ drive also (when you can access it)

Member Avatar for shytilwet

C:\ is FAT32. That's the drive with Win98SE on it. The other drive, D:\ just says FAT but as it has Win95 I guess it must be FAT16.

Am madly copying all the files from D:\to C:\. Haven't turned the comp off for 2 days in case I can't see D:\ again. :D

Member Avatar for dlh6213

Am madly copying all the files from D:\to C:\. Haven't turned the comp off for 2 days in case I can't see D:\ again. :D

Good idea! :) Is there a reason you still have Windows 95 on your computer? If not, after you get all your data copied, you could format it (use FAT32) and use it to store all your data -- away from your C drive (which is more likely to be attacked by intruders). You should still have backups somewhere else though!

Member Avatar for shytilwet

Only reason is that my comp came with win98SE installed and a techie put in my old hd which was running win95.

To format it, do I do it through dos or how please?

The D:\ is still there now although I haven't done anything that worked. So, I guess it's a bit of a mystery....why it should disappear for a while and then come back.

Member Avatar for dlh6213

That is weird how it comes and goes. It could have a bad connection, bad ribbon cable, or even a bad molex (power) connector. Try replacing the ribbon cable and connect it to a different molex.

To format, just right-click on the 'd' drive (that's the one you want to format, right?), and in the menu that drops down, select Format. Make sure you don't format the wrong drive!

Member Avatar for Real-tiner

The motor bearings in D: may have failed too.

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