BIOS/CMOS can find my second hard drive but Windows cannot

drummerdan · #1 Sep 22, 2006, 07:29 PM

Hey all,

I installed windows on a 1GB primary master hard drive and that is working fine. and now I am trying to attach a 40GB Seagate as a primary slave hard drive to put music and pictures and games and document etc on it.

But the screen that first comes up when you press restart (not sure if CMOS or BIOS) it says it is and 8GB drive not a 40GB drive but when I get into windows My Computer cannot find it, it has been partitioned and formatted and yet I cannot find it in Windows. I have also gone to "add hardware" but that cannot find anything.

I have CMOS/BIOS hdd on auto and it seems to find it.
Do I need to reset or update CMOS or BIOS or anything??

My hard drive details are as follows:
40GB
ST340016A
16,383 cyl
16 hds
63 sect

Would really aprecciate some help here.

Dan

Rmachines · Sep 26, 2006, 02:34 PM

Control Panel > Administrative tools> Computer managment, then go to disk managment, your seccond disk should be here, u can then give it a Drive letter and it will show up in my computer, same for CD/DVD drives.

drummerdan · Oct 1, 2006, 11:41 PM

thanks but it didn't work because i have 95.
but to solve my problem i just installed Windows 98 and it automatically found it.
but it still only finds it as a 8Giga instead of a 40Giga

But thanks anyway
Dan

matty1 · Oct 6, 2006, 01:59 PM

The BIOS in older PC's could only support a maximum GB HD's, even if you have fitted a 40GB it will only let you use its maximum supported which in your case is 8GB. The only way round it is to flash your BIOS if there is an update available, the downside to this is its very risky and if it doesnt work the whole motherboard will be ruined.

drummerdan · Oct 7, 2006, 12:00 AM

for Matty1
how do you update your BIOS??
have you done it before?? did it work??

matty1 · Oct 7, 2006, 01:45 AM

Yes I have done this before with success but have heard of other disasters where this has not. First I would have look at the manufacturer and model of
your motherboard and then the version of your BIOS. Search the manufacturers website for your motherboard and see if there is an BIOS update/flash upgrade available, this will hopefully come with instructions too. The last time I did this it was a case of copying the update to a floppy disk and then starting the PC up to boot from the floppy, follow the on screen instructions and reboot. The downside to this as I have mentioned is that there is a possibility it might not work and you will be left with a dud pc or the upgrade may not even contain support for bigger HD's. If you are thinking of doing this I would email the technical support of your motherboard manufacturer and ask them if the upgrade includes support for larger HD's and if they have full instructions. I did this on a PC which supported 10GB, i also had a 40GB HD and after the upgrade I was able to use 30GB of the 40.