[ctop]

I got a Fujitsu 20GB, 5400 rpm HD a couple weeks back, and installed in my computer running win95 as a second HD. When I booted up, the BIOS did not recognize the Fujitsu, or my primary HD either. When I boot up without the Fujitsu, everything runs fine again. If I try to load windows after the BIOS loads, it can't find windows, and says there is no OS present. I tryed loading with a win98 boot disk i had, and it doesn't recognize the hard drives either. I can't fdisk them or anything. Please help. Thanks.

 

[johnwill]

There are two barriers to hard disk recognition, depending on the age of your BIOS. Around the 1997-98 timeframe, the upgrade from a max of 8gig to 32gig happened, then in late 1999, the upgrade from 32gig to 128gig happened. If you have an older BIOS, you'd see the symptoms you describe. Check the date of your BIOS, and also check if there is an upgrade for your MB available from the manufacturer's web site.

One thing to try is to remove your primary drive and install the new drive as the only drive, jumpered as master. See if you can get it recognized that way. This would indicate some sort of conflict between the drives. You might also try a separate cable and connect the second drive as a master on the second IDE connector.