Hard drive not showing up

[Heatz123]

Good day.

I recently removed my computer drives - master and slave- when i went on holiday. I put the system back in order and recently noticed my slave drive has not shown up in "My Computer" list. I tried swapping the ribbon cables with no changes. So i swapped the position of both drives in case it was the power cable. Both are SATA so they use the same power cable. But still no changes. I removed the slave drive (F Drive) and placed it into an external caddie and booted up. It started to install driver for it and is running fine from there.

I can not run it from that location for a number of reasons i can not go into right here. So after that, i re installed it into the PC and still no change. It simply does not exist. I have run the boot set up on startup and it is not listed there. It is simply a ghost to the PC.

Any ideas what it could be or how i could sort this issue out?

Also, in hardware profiles under show hidden drives, it is listed and clicking this states it is not connected.

Thank you in advance.

[DavisMcCarn]

SATA drives do not have a master or slave setting!  But; if its an older Dell, you may need to change which ports are enabled in the BIOS (F2).
What is the make and model of the PC?

[Heatz123]

Hello. Thank you for the reply. It is a Dell Inspiron I core 3. Since i changed the ports around and there is no issue booting up windows and no other issues, i do not see it being anything related to BIOS settings. I have already looked in boot set up and there is no Hitachi drive listed there to set in boot order. It is only listed in hardware profiles when i set to "Show hidden drives) All my other drives that are not hooked up are listed there, too. That is just the drivers until i hook them via USB. But this drive works externally but not from inside the PC even though i have swapped ports and cables in both orders. Nothing changes. The PC boots as usual but no F drive.

I have also Uninstalled the driver and tried a reboot but it simply does not install. Clicking the driver from Hardware profiles tells me the drive is not plugged in. It is just the driver for it. The boot order would not change anything except cause the system to not boot from the master anyway even if it was listed which it is not.

I have also run All in One repair with every fix checked (Took hours) and nothing changed.

I must state that i have removed the drive before when i went away and F drive showed up fine.

[DavisMcCarn]

What is the service tag number of that Dell? (It will let me see what you have, exactly)

[Heatz123]

Good day.

What the heck has the service tag got to do with this? It is clearly nothing to do with the system but indeed a software issue. If i wiped the drive and run a fresh install, it will be fine. But that option is not an option for me. It can not happen.

There is nothing wrong with the PC itself or else the master drive would also have issues. The software has been corrupted many times.

It is a Dell Inspiron 620 i bought direct from Dell. I have run a system scan from Dell and there are no issues.

[Julian]

Have you tried a different sata cable?

[jraju]

Hi,  From what you explain, it seems weird. As davis, said there is no slave in sata drive.
           You would have connected the other drive in the same computer, as another drive which is not recognized by your computer. If it is recognized by the other computer, it is definitely connection failure and fault may lie with the connections, or power cable failure.
                  There is no other explanation possible. May be hardware change service is not started. pl check the service in services.msc. I know that this may not be the case also.
                   How there is slave adjustment in sata, that i never heard  of

[Heatz123]

Hello. Thank you for the replies.

If you read my original post, i do state that i have used the cables in different orders. In other words, the cable used for the main master drive running my OS have been switch and connected to the backup (Slave) with the cables previously used on the backup being hooked to the master. If they was the problem, then my PC simply would not boot into windows. I even swapped the ports and still no luck.

I have not run the slave on another computer. I run it in this computer externally from a caddie which installs and runs on this system fine. Hence why i am baffled as to why it refuses to show up when installed internally regardless of what cables i use. All the cables are working.

Removing the driver and installing does not cause it to install so it is simply not working from within the PC. I have run a lot of diagnostics with no results. I feel there is a registry issue at play, but the drive is not listed in the BIOS setup, either. I have had it running for quite a few years, too.

[jraju]

Hi, then it is not a slave drive , it is another internal drive.  In Pata, there is master and slave, and in sata there is no such differentiation.
                        The system will boot from your Main drive which has been recognized , and which contains the OS and boot sector.
                        The internal drive, as you christened as slave does not have this Boot files and hence will not boot.
                          If the internal drive or the extra drive is shown in other computers and not in your bios, certainly it is having either a driver problem or Hard ware not detected problem.  will try further to give solution to this .

[Heatz123]

DO you argue semantics here or do you understand what is actually happening and what my issue is? Master or slave is just a term here. I have also stated it as being a backup drive, too. It is just a damn drive run internally that is NOT used as my main drive. To me personally ( And i care not what YOU call it) the second drive is a slave drive. But WHAT does this have to do with the issue i have? No wonder this board has gone down the dump!

I do not need your help as you clearly have an issue with your ego.

You have no idea and that is the top and bottom of the fact. A simple admission to that fact would have been more suitable.

[Heatz123]

Also, i have stated many times that the drive is NOT being used in ANOTHER computer and being seen It is being seen by THIS computer but from an external drive caddie . Jesus Christ ! If you took in the information, maybe you could help . Not at t hat rate you can't .

[jraju]

Hi, Boggin,
                 I do not understand what the OP means. I try to understand his problem to atleast get the thread get the solution. Unwanted jargons that is not admissable to fourm have been found in his reply. The threader should think that we are trying to give solutions to him.
                      i do not want to add more to this

[Boggin]

Regardless of terminology, it can be frustrating for an OP when they feel they have explained the problem just to be kept going around in circles.

I don't have any experience of hardware of this nature which is why I've kept out of this discussion, but as the HD is recognised from a caddy but not when plugged into the motherboard and the cables have been proven serviceable, logic would suggest that the fault is with the motherboard and I would suggest taking the machine into someone who could test this.