Reformatted

[zippyjuan]

I had a spare drive that I decided to reformat and use as my primary drive (I kept the other one in case I need to stick it back in for any reason). I did set the jumper to master/ slave. It is connected in a master/ slave configuration with another drive I was using as backup with the original with Norton Ghost. After several hours of formatting, installing Windows updates (this part took about two hours by itself) and trying to install other software, I wanted to see if I can access anything on the second drive (which has the Norton Ghost backup from the original) to try to find a couple of things. But the computer does not indicte that I have any other hard drive connected. When I reformatted, I had the jumper on "cable select". When that did not recognize the drive, then I tried changing it. I do not want to reformat the second drive. How can I gain access to it? Thanks in advance.

Another issue. When I reinstalled my Norton package it asks to enter the product key but when I do it says it is not a valid key. I thought the auto update may find my subscription information but it says I have to activate within fifteen days or it will stop working. I should have about ten months left on it.

This reformat involves more work than I thought! I did it because I wanted to remove most of my 17000 pictures which would have been tedious by itself. I am also having trouble installing the Roxio CD/ DVD software that came with my DVD burner. That application fails. Do I need that to burn a DVD or will Windows do that now? I may have other questions as I deal with this. Thanks again!

[DarkFury]

For starters... are all drives being recognized in your BIOS? I'd check there first. If yes... boot back to windows, go to Control Panel, Administrative Tools, Computer Management, Disk Management and see if the drive is recognized there. If it is... then see what drive letter if any is assigned to it.

If the drive is not there in both the BIOS and the Disk Management screen, then I'd check to see if the IDE cable is securely plugged in. After that, I would check to make sure that the POWER cable is securely plugged in. With Windows XP I'd set both drives to use "Cable Select" by the jumpers.

After that, check to see if the cable itself is bad.... use another IDE cable to connect both drives to the mobo. Possibly the cable has been damaged as well.

Finally, if all that fails... howpefully the drive hasn't been damaged. Can you plug the "unrecognized drive" in by itself and have the PC recognize it?

Usually when I do a reformat of a hard drive onto a new clean drive, I usually disconnect all other drives during the install so that Windows does not get confused as to which drive is the main system drive C:/ It is possible that if both drives were connected when you were reformatting, that the PC is confused as to which is the true "system drive".

As far as your second question.... Do you really have a "valid key"? If so, and the program doesn't recognize it still, then I'd call the Norton customer support folks to help properly re-activate your key. It is possible that your key is currently locked out.

Normally a re-install shouldn't be all this difficult (I should know...I've done TONS of them), however there just seems to be something missing here... as to why the drive is not being recognized at all. Honestly, it is sounding like a hardware issue (i.e. bad cable or something not seated fully) however that might not be the case. Try connecting them and runing one at a time to see if it corrects the problem.

Good luck!

[zippyjuan]

This has been a big hastle so far. I am thinking about putting the old drive back in. I have already wasted hours on this. I am also having trouble accessing older emails (including confirmation on airline tickets and things I have bought) and my internet favorites (I was able to get them back before but do not remember how). I guess this was not worth the effort. Good thing I saved the other drive and did not reformat it! UGH! My BIOS was set to recognize the second drive before and I did not change anything there. Both drives are on the same cable and securely attached. Windows recognizes the drive it found as the proper one- I know that because the main one is 80GB and the secondary is 300gb.

[DarkFury]

So did you see both drives listed in the Drive Management section that I posted above? Or are you just speculating this based on "past performance"?

Also, did you verify in the BIOS that both drives are listed as recognized?

Honestly, I know how you feel... I've had something similar happen before, however you just have to troubleshoot it one step at a time.

If I were local to you, I'd try to give you more personal help on it...

[zippyjuan]

Not sure what happened. The drive shows up in BIOS but not under "My Computer". Even after putting back in the original master drive, the computer did not recognize the slave. I did find it under computer management (I followed the steps as if I had just connected a second drive)and it showed that it was not activated there. I didn't do a reformat but clicked on a quick format and then it recognized the drive immediately. It does not show that there is anything on it but I don't think it was anything important- should have only been backups so I will run Ghost again. It was less work to delete all the files I wanted to clear than it was to try and reformat that drive. If it ain't broke....

I was trying to create more space on the master (80GB) for my new pictures I hope to take with my new camera so I copied all my photos to DVD (filled almost eight of them) and then deleted the files. About half an hour each DVD (would only go at 4x although media and drive should have done 8x- oh well) then it took ages to delete 17,000 pictures and their files even allowing the computer to do it for me. I had to do it in a certain way or photoshop elements would have had a long list of errors for links to missing files. That took out 35GB of space on my computer. I am where I hoped to be, but it took more than twice as long as I hoped. Thank you for your knowledgeable suggestions! I can always rely on you for helpful information!

[gwilks98]

This may seem silly to say, but I think on an IDE chain, the slave has to be set to be the middle drive on the cable, and the master is on the end of the cable. Is that the way you have it?