I just had an interesting problem with an older 20G drive (ATA 33).

The computer would not detect it and booting was stalled.
It was also clicking slightly as it tried to initialize.

I went into the BIOS and forced a manual Auto Detect.
(It had been set to AUTO, but was not "doing it".)
It has worked perfectly since.

I did a long format on it in WinXP to be sure.  (This was before the
"time-it" question, so I have no idea about that... Sorry.)


From: "Joe Lore" <[log in to unmask]>
> If the BIOS can not detect the Hard Drive you have 2 choices, assuming
> all jumpers are set correctly and the cables are properly installed.
>
> 1) the drive is bad
>         a) try the drive in a machine that you know will detect that
> size drive and see if it                reads correctly.
>         b) swap the drive from your supplier and retry in your machine.
>
> 2) the bios does not support it;
>         a) FLASH UPDATE THE BIOS to latest version that reads large
> HDD's or
>         b) Use a disk overlay program from Maxtor to install the Drive,
> obtainable from their web               site.  If the drive does not
> respond to this, see #1.

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