[Kiljaeden]

I have configured my 3 hard drives and 1 dvd-rw drive as follows:

- primary: WD 80gb / WD 120gb
- secondary: TDK DVDRW1616N / WD 320gb

Everything is detected and works fine while starting up. However, if I "restart" or hit the reset button, the WD 320gb drive is not detected. Nothing shows up when I go to BIOS setup. The only way to get it detected is to turn the computer off, wait for 1 or 2 seconds then power up.

I have no upgraded the BIOS since the day I bought it 4 years ago. How do I fix this annoying problem? Thanks in advance.

[Vitalix]

What motherboard do you have? You may want to check for new BIOS revisions as other people may have reported that issue and the mobo manufacturer may have fixed it in the most recent BIOS.

[Kiljaeden]

I use MSI Neo2 motherboard. I've checked their website for their BIOS updates and the changelog of the BIOS. There's nothing there about hard drive detection fixes.

Also I've never done a BIOS upgrade before. I've heard of horror stories about failed BIOS upgrades. In addition to that...

Quote

WARNING!!!!!DON'T FLASH FROM A FLOPPY DISK!!!!DON'T FLASH WHEN YOUR SYSTEM IS RUNNING FINE!!!!DON'T FLASH IF YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT YOU ARE DOING!!!!

This is the warning found in the "how to flash the bios.doc" file zipped with the BIOS update. I don't want to mess up my computer :|


Edit: My cousin suggested I switched the dvd-rw drive to slave and 320gb to master. I did this, and the detection failed.

This post has been edited by Kiljaeden: 18 January 2006 - 08:51 AM

[Grunth0s]

I have seen this in the passed, and it was down to the Power Supply not being big enough for all of the components.

At start up from cold, the devices will power up in a specific order, hence your drive is visible, however, on a restart or soft boot, there is no specific power up sequence, as the system expects everything to be powered, and it therefore does not supply the same 'jolt' of juice to the drives, and therefore the drive itself does not receive sufficient power to initialise correctly.

If you can post the specifications of your power supply, then this would help to confirm this.

[Kiljaeden]

my computer specs:

p4 2.8ghz-c processor
msi neo2 motherboard
kingston 512mb memory
wd 80+120+320 hdd
tdk dvd-rw 1616n
geforcefx 5600 256mb graphics
sblive audigy
hec 480w power supply

[LLXX]

Kiljaeden, on Jan 18 2006, 08:48 AM, said:

Also I've never done a BIOS upgrade before. I've heard of horror stories about failed BIOS upgrades. In addition to that...

Quote

WARNING!!!!!DON'T FLASH FROM A FLOPPY DISK!!!!DON'T FLASH WHEN YOUR SYSTEM IS RUNNING FINE!!!!DON'T FLASH IF YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT YOU ARE DOING!!!!

This is the warning found in the "how to flash the bios.doc" file zipped with the BIOS update. I don't want to mess up my computer :|

"DON'T FLASH FROM A FLOPPY DISK"?? Isn't booting from a floppy the standard way of updating the BIOS??

Disconnect all the drives except for your boot drive and the 320Gb one, see if that helps.

I doubt this is a power supply problem, 480W should be more than adequate for your configuration. The problem might be with your drive.

This post has been edited by LLXX: 19 January 2006 - 12:53 AM