thanks. Figured it was THAT drive. The MBR assumption makes a lot of sense.
drive was data only.  I will try it on a different PC, but I suspect 
that will lead to looking into recovery software, and then to try a 
reformat, as you suggest.

jokester wrote:

> Tim:
>
> It seems to me by your own troubleshooting that the E: drive which is 
> your second maxtor, is the issue.
>
> By your own results, all the drives show up unless E: is connected.  
> To me that would signify a problem with that drive.
>
> Is that a data drive only or is there a OS on it?  It you were to 
> connect it by itself, could you install an OS on it?  Have you tried 
> that specific drive in another system?  If so, what were the results?  
> I suspect that even though the bios detected it, there is something 
> wrong with the drive or the MBR.
>
> Do you need the data on that drive or can that drive be formatted?  If 
> the data is disposable, and no other solution, then you may want to 
> consider a format.  The only other option is I have had when this 
> occurred to one of my drives is a drive recovery software.
>
> I did purchase my copy, and it was not cheap, nor was it quick...I let 
> it run overnight and then some.  It was a lot cheaper though then 
> sending it out for someone else to do it and did recover the data off 
> my drive where then I reformatted and continued on.
>
> HTH...YMMV
>
> Sam
> At 07:05 PM 05 06, 2008, you wrote:
>
>> I have a hard drive that used to work, but recently does not.
>> It IS recognized by BIOS, but not by Windows. Here's the setup
>>
>> Intel Core2 Duo (E6750 @ 2.66GHz)
>> Motherboard Asus P5N-E SLI
>> NVIDIA nForce 430 Serial ATA Controller onboard
>>
>> c: WDC hard Drive = bootdisk (SATA)
>> d: Maxtor drive (IDE) [formatted NTFS]
>> e: Maxtor drive (IDE) [formatted NTFS]
>> f: CD-ROM drive (SATA)
>>
>> BIOS finds all these devices at bootup. no problems with c: and f: in 
>> Windows
>> if both d: and e: are connected, Windows XP Pro SP2 reports only c: 
>> and f:
>> if only d: is connected, Windows reports c: d: and f:
>> if only e: is connected, Windows reports c: and f:
>>
>> all drives worked at one time in this computer. suspect the trigger 
>> was failure of old CD drive and multiple connects/disconnects
>>
>> Notable:
>> - same power plug and data cable plug from d: only test were used to 
>> connect e: only
>> - no difference if jumper on e: is switched from CS to Master (both 
>> d: and e: previously jumpered CS, and only e: connected)
>> - no difference if e: is connected by either A or B on IDE cable
>>
>> -TIM
>>
>>                         PCBUILD's List Owners:
>>                      Bob Wright<[log in to unmask]>
>>                        Mark Rode<[log in to unmask]>
>>
>
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