Hi,
One of my friend's hard drives was playing up so I connected it to my computer to see if it would work. Now I've connected both plugs (long black one and white/clear one with red and yellow and black wires) and set it to slave by putting the little plastic thing on the two pins. Now everything starts up as normal but the drive is not present. I go into control panel, system, and click the device manager tab, and a drive appears under 'Disk drives' as 'GENERIC IDE DISK TYPE47' but the little icon next to it has a big red cross on it (which doesn't appear if the new hard disk isn't plugged in). If it click it, it tells me: "This device is not working properly because a device it depends on, Primary IDE controller (dual fifo) has been dynamically disabled." Now, this 'Primary IDE controller (dual fifo)' also shows up in device manager under 'Hard disk controllers' but its icon has a little exclamation mark in a yellow circle on it (which doesn't appear if the new hard disk isn't plugged in). Clicking on it tells me: "This device is either not present, not working properly, or does not have all the drivers installed. (Code 10.)" I have no idea if any of this even has to do with the hard disk drive but it only appears when it is plugged in. But as far as using the hard disk drive goes, its as if it isn't even there, however, I downloaded a drive diagnostic tester from the manufacturers website which DID detect it and ran a full test on it which cam up clean, but thats all.

Can someone please tell me if there is anything I can do to make the hard drive work, sorry about the length but I wanted to include all the details. If any more information is needed, just ask me. Thankyou very much for reading this, I would greatly appreciate it if you could help.

Examine the original hd in your pc and see how it's jumpered. If it's set to cable select then you must also have the slave drive set that same way (meaning you have a special ide cable). If your original hard drive's jumper is set to Master, then you should be able to make the 2nd hard drive work if you jumper it as Slave and connect it to the 2nd connector on the primary ide ribbon cable. This is providing it's a good drive. You must also insure the secondary ide port is enabled in pc bios setup.

Yeah, it's all jumpered properly and the original drive is set to master, not cable select. I've also got them connected in the right order on the ribbon cable. Now you said I didn't include any helpfull information.....then tell me, what would be usefull in helping solve this problem?? Like I said, just ask me anything and I'll tell you...

...also, how exactly do I check if the secondary IDE port is enabled in the BIOS setup? Could you (or anyone else) please tell me how to do this? Thanks...

Helpful information is giving us something to work with. Technical details of how the drive is installed, configured, pc bios settings, details from device manager, etc. are typical (and usefull) informaton.

I cannot tell you how to enter pc bios because you have not stated what pc or motherboard you have. It can be any number of keystrokes during bootup, depending on the model/brand.

del
f1
f2
f10
ctrl+esc
other

If you care to provide the necessary information, we might have a solution.

The most useful information of all is the fact that this disk was "acting up". There's a very good chance that it's now a door stop but if you really want to find out then set it to master and connect it in place of your own master disk. If it wont boot then boot from a DOS floppy and type DIR C: /P, though this will only work if it's formatted as FAT16. (If it's NTFS then you're on your own). Some useful DOS files to put on that floppy are FDISK and SCANDISK. If nothing works and you only want to salvage the disk rather than the data then you have one chance left. It involves using raw machine code to clean your disk all the way back to its 'as new' state. You will need the DOS DEBUG program on your floppy for this:

DEBUG (ENTER)
;ONCE YOU SEE THE DEBUG DASH PROMPT (-) TYPE IN THE FOLLOWING:

A (ENTER)
;DEBUG WILL NOW OUTPUT A SERIES OF LETTERS AND NUMBERS. NOW ENTER:
MOV AX,330 (ENTER)
MOV CX,1 (ENTER)
MOV DX,80 (ENTER)
MOV BX,3800 (ENTER)
MOV ES,BX (ENTER)
INT 13 (ENTER)
INT 3 (ENTER)
(ENTER)
G (ENTER)
Q (ENTER)

YOU SHOULD NOW BE BACK AT AN A: PROMPT.

YOU WILL NEED TO REBOOT, RUN FDISK AND FORMAT.

I've done this on two hard disks to get rid of EZ-drive and it works but I recommend removing all other hard disks from your PC first.

Send an e-mail to noemailaddys@allowed.com if you need more help because I hate to see good disks propping doors open.

Your h.d.d has a unrecognized Partition It could have been done with a non windows Partition setup program like Partition Magic "probably not Partition magic" It could have a Linux or Macintosh Partition or the other thing to consider is that the H.d.d was compressed or may contain a dynamic link compression if it has a NTFS Partition.

Sharp

Most new motherboards have BIOS feature in the Standard CMOS BIOS which can be set to Auto to detect IDE devices. Otherwise use the Auto Detect Hard Disk feature to detect your drives. If your motherboard does not have these features, it will be necessary to manually enter the Cylinder/Head/Sector information.