Member Avatar for gallocs

Ok, I used to have my pc all nice and happy, then when I reformated my PC today, (Which I do about once a month due to lots of issues) Windows is showing up with only 2 harddrives, yet I have 4. Please help me, all my reformatting tools are on that drive!

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Dani AI

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A short, practical summary for future readers: this thread shows a classic XP-era symptom — a drive that’s physically present but not visible to Windows because of which IDE port/controller or cable it was attached to. solved it by moving the IDE cable, and ’s reminder about jumpers and Device Manager was a good quick check that often helps narrow things down.

Basic troubleshooting checklist (in order)

  • Reboot and check the BIOS/firmware to see whether the drive is detected at hardware level; if the BIOS doesn’t list it, focus on power, the ribbon/cable, jumper settings, or the controller hardware.
  • If the drive is on an add-in IDE controller (e.g. Promise Ultra133 TX2), make sure you’re using the supplied 80-conductor cable and the correct controller driver — XP-era setups sometimes need the vendor driver loaded during text-mode setup (press F6) or installed after Windows is up.
  • If BIOS sees the disk but Windows does not, open Device Manager (look under Disk drives and IDE/ATA controllers), uninstall any unknown/ghost entries, reboot and rescan. Use Disk Management to initialize/assign a letter only if you’re sure the volume doesn’t contain needed data.
  • If data is important, do not format; test the drive on another system or with a USB-SATA/IDE adapter before destructive steps.

Notes and resources

  • The Promise Ultra133 TX2 is a dual-channel PCI IDE controller that originally shipped with an 80-wire cable and drivers on disk; add-in controllers expose their own BIOS and may need vendor drivers for full functionality (Ultra133 TX2 manual). (manualmachine.com)
  • ATA/UDMA133-era controllers require 80-conductor cables for higher transfer modes. If an older 40‑wire cable is used the controller may fall back or fail to negotiate. (Parallel ATA overview). (en.wikipedia.org)
  • For loading third‑party storage drivers during XP setup (F6 text‑mode), see XP setup guidance; if you lack a floppy you’ll need to slipstream drivers or install them after Windows boots. (rmprepusb.com)

If the drive fails across multiple ports and systems, suspect a bad cable, failing controller card, or a dying drive — run vendor diagnostics or test the drive externally before reinstalling or repartitioning. (techyorker.com)

Member Avatar for zach_boyce

Did you check the jumpers? if your jumpers are good then check your device manager and if it is listed in the harddirve list remove it and re-install it and then format it with windows by going in MS-DOS prompt


Hope This Helps
-Zach Boyce

Member Avatar for gallocs

Well, erm... everything is fine now, I have my 2 hard drives in a, oh, whats is called......I think it's a "WinXP Promise Ultra133TX2 (tm) IDE Controller", I just pulled out the IDE cable, and put it in the other IDE Port, and now It see's my other drives (YAY!). Well thanks for (erm nothing?) lol.

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