Windows 7 Windows 7 doesn't recognize my IDE HDD!

[Win7 Dude]

Hello,

I have a 150 GB SATA and a 70 GB IDE hard drive in my computer. When I ran XP, everything was fine, but since Windows 7 was installed on my computer a few days ago, it doesn't recognize my IDE hard drive. The XP had been on the SATA drive, and the Windows 7 is there now as well because it was formatted when installing the new system. I've been looking for solutions on the Internet for days, but I haven't found anything. Most people's advice is to assign a letter to the hard drive in the Disk Management window, but for some reason my IDE drive doesn't even appear there. The IDE hard drive is connected to a PCI IDE card because the only IDE slot on my motherboard is used by my DVD writer which works fine. I've tried updating the driver of the IDE card, but it didn't change anything. The hard drive doesn't show up in BIOS, but it didn't use to do so there when it was working correctly as far as I know. However, it shows up on startup, before the BIOS screen.

I really need to fix this problem, because the data from XP was backed up on this hard drive and now I can't access it. Please help me!

 

[Jimbo22]

Try switching the PCI IDE with the IDE DVD and see if at least it picks up the HDD. Next would be, now this is old school, connect the second HDD to the IDE slot on the cable itself, the cable is called "ribbon".....there should be two, Primary and slave and then the mobo connection, then set jumpers on HDD to slave or universal. Here is a link.

Parallel ATA - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[Win7 Dude]

Thanks, I'll try it out. The only reason I haven't tried it is that I wasn't sure if an HDD and a DVD writer would work out on the same cable.

Oh, and another question: Does the cable's direction matter? I mean, can I connect either ends of the cable to my motherboard or only one end is compatible with it?

Edit: I tried to connect the HDD to the motherboard instead of the DVD and it worked. The problem is, that my DVD writer and my IDE HDD are too far so that they cannot be connected with the same IDE cable. (In fact, they could be connected if the IDE cable could be reversed, but I've read on an other site that it only works if the blue connector is connected to the motherboard.) They can't be connected even if I put my HDD to the uppermost slot. At least I could save my data from my old HDD, but my problem isn't solved because I want to use that HDD for storing data. I'll try playing around with the cables, but please share a solution if you got one.

 

[Jimbo22]

Usually the cable is color coded, and the blue end is the one that connects to the mobo. If you try doing it the other way you risk frying everything. They do make ribbon extensions. A simple google search brings up a bunch under "40 pin ribbon extension".

Google

 

[Win7 Dude]

I know, but I really don't want to spend money on this, only if there is no way to fix the problem with my PCI IDE card.

 

[Jimbo22]

Check some of your PC shops and see if they have any they want to just get rid of....what the make and model of the PCI IDE card?

 

[Win7 Dude]

It's a Sunix 3710.

 

[Jimbo22]

That's a nifty little card....OK, lets try this, lets start from scratch. Uninstall all software and driver for PCI IDE card, power off, unplug all cables and open up case and remove PCI IDE card. Plug everything back in and turn on computer, check to make sure all has been removed. Then download latest driver from webiste for PCI IDE card, save to a location. Turn off PC, unplug everyting once again and install PCI card. This time when windows installs it's driver for it, stop it/cancel it. Then go to saved location and install that driver you download. Sometimes things like this with hardware just happen, your not the only one to experience something like this. Why does this happen, who knows.

 

[Win7 Dude]

I did exactly what you advised, but it didn't help. When I turned on my PC after reinstalling my PCI IDE card into the computer, I just couldn't stop Windows from installing a driver. When I turned on my PC it shown a message that there was a new hardware and Windows was installing a driver software. I clicked on that notification and a window opened, showing that the driver software was under installation, but there were no options like cancel. Then, I tried to remove the driver in the Device Manager. I successfully removed it, and updated the list of hardwares to install the downloaded driver. It recognized my IDE PCI card and started to install its driver again. I opened the window again. Now there was an option 'skip obtaining driver software from Windows Update'. I clicked on it, but nothing happened, Windows continued searching for a driver. Then there was only a close button. I chose that, but after few seconds Windows notified me that it had installed the driver software successfully. After that I tried 'Update Driver' in the device manager, but it didn't work either. Installing drivers in Win 7 seems to be totally out of control!

 

[Nibiru2012]

Are you directing the Update Driver in Device Manager to the folder where the new driver is located?

See these attached images:

 

[Win7 Dude]

Are you directing the Update Driver in Device Manager to the folder where the new driver is located?

See these attached images:

View attachment 11152 View attachment 11151

I tried to do it in another way because the readme file of the driver told me that I had to choose 'Have Disk', and so on. Now I tried it exactly as you had told me, but it didn't solve my problem.