Need help with hard drive problem

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godai73

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My friend ask me to help him fix a problem. He had installed a second hard drive and when he started to format it, it gave him an error (he could not remember what the error was). He shuts down the PC and when he restarted it, it could not find the second HD. He then booted from the XP CD to format the second HD, but it did not see the second HD.

Now I open his PC and found that jumper for his main HD was set on cable select. Then I saw the jumper for the second HD was set for master. I figure changing the setting for the second HD would fix the problem, but it didn't. I then saw that the master part of the cable was plugged into the second HD and the secondary part was plugged into the main HD. I figure I switch them back and that would fix the problem but it did not. With the cables in the right position, I changed the jumper for the main HD to master and the jumper for the secondary HD to slave. His PC would not boot. I went into the BIOS and the mobo could not see the second HD. I unplugged both HD and made the secondary HD as the main one with jumpers set to master. I went into the BIOS and it still could not see it. I also tried different plugs from the power supply for the HD and same result. I thought the plug might have been bad. Finally, I unplugged both HD and plugged the main one back in with jumper setting back to master. The PC would not boot and that scared the crap out of me, yet when I switch the jumper back to cable select, it booted fine. Why would it boot on cable select and not master? Why can't the mobo see the second HD? I assume the HD might have gone bad. I wish I have another PC to plug the HD into.

Some other info: In the BIOS, I made sure that the IDEs are all set to auto. His secondary IDE is being used by his CD Writer and DVD Rom which work fine. He is using XP Pro. I do not know if any software came with his new HD. It looks like a Quantam HD.

Any help is appreciated. Thanks.
 
When the post comes up, I see the primary HD, but not the secondary.

I will re-check the jumper settings and the positions of the HDs on the cable. I will also have to get his XP CD in order to try the fixboot and fixmbr commands.

Thanks for the suggestions.
 
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