NO DRIVES DETECTED, installing WINXP

Well after all the other replies, the following may already have been
mentioned;

1. connect just the cd rom to ide-1, can the computer detect that.

2. try connecting just the cd-rom to ide-2, can it detect that

3. make sure the jumpers are set to either master or slave (we're only
playing with a single device (at a time) so it doesn't matter which at this
point)

4. is the hard drive actually spinning? you will be able to feel some
vibration when the machine is first powered up.

5. if the computer can't detect the single hard drive or single cd-rom
when connected to either ide, and you've tried different power connectors
and different ide cables and still no luck, then I've run out of idea's...

Bill




"Andrew Bestfrenn" wrote in message
om...
"Richard Urban" wrote in message
...
If the drive isn't detected, why do you think you can format that which
isn't there? Check your cables. Check your bios settings. Check
everything
considered hardware.
-----------------
thankyou for your interest.
It cannot possibly be the data cable, because I tried a second one
from
a working computer. It cannot be the power cable, because I tried the
power feed from the CD Rom, which was working initially,
For some reason the bios is not detecting the IDE drive, whether I set
it
to autodetect or if I set it to user type hdd and input the
parameters.
Now I am really stuck because in desperation I set the bios IDE
setting
from 'auto' to 'none', and I cannot get back in to switch it .
It is shutting me out with only the two options 'none' or 'disabled'
to choose from. I cannot switch it back to autodetect or anything else
because
those options are no longer available. Any help with this would be
tremendous.

Andrew.

--
Regards

Richard Urban
aka Crusty (-: Old B@stard :-)

*****************************

"Andrew Bestfrenn" wrote in message
om...
I am installing a new hard drive onto a system
w/ asus A7V133 motherboard .
Trying to format it and install winxp.
I have made a boot disk that includes smartdrive.exe

When it is booting up
it says: detecting primary master (press F4 to skip)
detecting secondary master (press F4 to skip)

etc. and then lists all drives as not there
ie: primary master: none
etc.

It then is able to boot to the DOS prompt
but that is as far as I can go. Cannot get to the
D: prompt, because it has not detected drive D (cd ROM)
none of the commands work
A:FORMAT does not work
FORMAT/ u does not work
FORMAT / s does not work
FDISK does not work
please help
how do I get it to detect my hard drive etc.
on bootup? I think it is a bios setting of
some kind.