Thread: Cannot access hard drive

Hello. I am totally stumped. I have an additional hard drive that I have added via a pci card that has given me an additional 4 ide devices if I wish.

The system recognises both the card and the drive and says they are present with no conflicts or driver problems. Although it shows them as scsi controller/device when in fact both are ide ata133 devices. However I cannot access the drive. Not via my computer or any other means. Basically it is not showing up at all so no drive letter. The card works fine and is showing the DVD RW on the other channel ok.
Any ideas.
Thanks.

Hi,

ok, im assuming this is a new drive, if you havent done so already have a look in disk management, one way to get to it is to Right-click my computer, select manage, then disk managment

It should now prompt you thats it has found a new drive, probably called drive 1 ,from here you can partition and format the drive , it should now appear as a drive letter.

If you have already done that and you still cant see the drive then let me know the make and model of the controller card you have.

thanks, hope this helps

Thanks for coming back so quickly. I have tried it but Win2k just hangs while trying to access the folder. Logical drives shows the c drive and the cd and dvd drives. The DVD is on the pci card as well.

The brand is TKI Ultra 133 pci ide card. Came from Maplins. It has the latest driver.

Since I mailed you I tried to update windows on that machine. It kept cancelling itself. I think it may be the installation. It was a fresh windows installation and I think I will have to do it again.
I wanted to get it done before I go on hols for a week. But it will now wait till I get back.
Any further help and assistance will be welcome.

Thanks.

Hi,
Ok assuming your going to re-install windows 2000, i would see how that goes, if your still having problems try the following:-

How many devices have got in your system?, 2 x Hdd, 1 x CD, 1 x DVD, if its only 4 then you could get them all running without the extra pci card.

You could also try putting the cd and dvd on the pci card and the hard drive on the internal ide and see if that works ok?

Does your pc hang without the pci card installed?

try a few of those combinations and let me know how it goes.

thanks