Hard Drive Bootup Problems

[stueyg]

Hi,

I am in the process of doing a clean re-install of Windows XP for Home on my PC. I have 3 hard drives:

c: 200gb Maxtor SATA drive - bootable with Windows XP (existing Windows install)

d: 20gb Maxtor IDE drive - non bootable data drive

g: 160gb Maxtor IDE drive - bootable with the clean install of Windows XP for home on it

Windows is not seeing all the sizes quite right yet but I will tackle that when I have solved this major problem that follows:

If I boot from the C drive - I have no problems at all. Windows will see all the different drives as it should do, I can access them all and they all work fine.

When I come to boot the clean install on drive G windows changes the drive letters - G becomes C, D remains as D but the 200gb Maxtor SATA drive isn't seen at all and might as well not exist.

Disk Management within Windows is no help as it can't see the drive, Maxtor software MaxBlast 4 is also no help as it can't see the drive on this install either.

I have checked and rechecked the BIOS but have pretty much discounted any issues here as it clearly shows all 3 drives and all 3 drives are listed on boot up. It's just when Windows kicks in that I have the problem.

I guess it's a simple setting somewhere, but I am pulling out what little hair I have left trying to think what it is - so any ideas would be very gratefully received.

Thanks in advance and kind regards

Stuart

[Alan2273]

I am confused. do you mean you have the XP OS on two hard drives in the same computer?.

[stueyg]

Yes - I do have 2 complete XP OS, 1 on each of the 2 big hard drives on the same PC - one being a fresh install, so I could format the other drive with the original install, having first moved all my data to the fresh install.

The new install doesn't see the 200gb drive, but the old install does.

Hope this clarifies it.

[pwp]

Control Panel

Admin Tools

Computer Management

Disk Management

the drive should show here.

you can format and enable it it, shoud then show in my computer.

[stueyg]

Hi,

Thanks for the suggestion of Disk Management - had been there already, but the drive is not listed.

[trackrat]

When you did the install to the IDE drive did you load the SATA drivers?,

if you did disconnect the sata drive and boot onto the ide drive then plug the sata drive in as they are supposed to be hot swappable and see if windows will pick it up.

[madboy33]

If you have an Nforce4 Mobo then you do not need to load SATA drivers

If you dont have Nforce4 then load the sata drivers as Trackrat has said

[ironman556]

I had the same problem. Not sure how to do it once you have XP running but...

Get the drivers from Maxtor (should be on their website) and put them onto a floppy/cd.

When the XP install is starting up there's an option to load drivers (watch the bottom of the screen, i think it's F8 or F2 you have to press)

Then direct the setup to your floppy/cd drive and select the drivers.

Once that's done XP should see the drive, you may then have to enable it in the Disk Management tool in XP.