Cant see my hard drive

[smack323]

Last time i put in a hard drive i rememeber i had to do something so my computer could "see" it.. well so it would show up as an active drive anyway.. i just pulled a Sata drive from one computer and was going to use it as a backup in another computer but i cant seem to get it to be "found" by the new computer- any ideas? the drive did work when it was pulled.

[dicecca112]

IDe drives you needed to set the jumpers correctly Sata you do not. Is it not seen in the Bios, Windows or both? Is it formated? Is there info on it? What motherboard?

[smack323]

i am not sure on the motherboard- its my parents old DELL... it didnt show up in windows- i havent checked the Bios- but i think i saw it in the hardware and it showed it was working corectly. yeah its formated and has info on it.. I checked the connections a few times so its not that either.

[stev]

One other thing to look at is the cable from the MOBO to the drive. Make sure the cable matches or aligns with pin one going to both of them.

Some cables do not have the raised bump to align to the MOBO notch or the HDD notch correctly. Thus, you would need to line up pin 1 to both. Usually if a flat ribbon cable is used, one edge would have a red traced line. That's the side for pin 1.

[smack323]

I figured it out- i needed to turn it on in the Bio's... thanks dicecca112 for the suggestions- after i didnt see it in windows that the first place i checked.