computer doesn't recognize hard drives

skinnybenny

i'm typing this on a knoppix os. half the time i boot up my system it says "invalid boot diskette - please insert diskette into 3 1/2 A:" i've looked into my bios and the boot list is correct with my floppy being first, cd second, and 1st and 2nd hard drives are last. i looked at the ide fields, and it claimed that the hard drives where not installed. one time my primary HD was recognized and so windows booted up, but the second HD with all my media was not recognized. in a nutshell - things are very strange with my computer. i bought a new ide cable just because it was cheap and i figured i could atleast mark it off the list. ofcourse, this wasn't the problem and next on the list would be the actual hard drives, but i'm not going to be willing to by new HDs unless i'm positive. any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.

Donut

Have you tried a thorough scan-disk on these drives? Also you could try the manufacters diagnostic software to test the drives. (Download from manufactures web site)

Could you give some system specs also? A flaky psu could cause these problems also.

skinnybenny

okay, i haven't been able to do any diagnostics because my neither of my hard drives have yet to be recognized by now. i opened up my pc and the PSU is a foxconn. the primary HD is a western digital 20 gb and the secondary is a western digital 80 gb pulled out of a tivo (ebay). i don't know much of anything about computers, but could the PSU affect what the bios reads? as of right now under both ide drives in my bios it reads NOT INSTALLED. i really would hate to have to buy new hard drives. can anyone tell me if they've experienced a hard drive to one smooth with no problems one minute and then be as if it is not connected at all the next? again, thanks in advance and any ideas at all would be greatly appreciated.

skinnybenny

by the way, the computer is an old dell dimension 4100