How to find a missing hard drive

[Jamisjockey]

I've got a spare hard-drive on my puter, and its suppossed to be local disk F.  Can't find it, any idears on how to get it open?  I'm hoping that it didn't come loose somehow...I don't want to open the case to check because its a brand new puter.

[Azrael256]

Reboot and go into the CMOS settings.  It should tell you what drives have been detected by the system.

[Brad Johnson]

Give it a real stern look, shake your finger, and say, "You will so work with that hard drive or so help me I'll give you what for."

Brad

[Ben]

More info may be needed. Is this like a Dell or other big name, or did a local person build it for you?

If local, they may have put the drive in and not let Windoze (if you're using Windoze) create the volume. Go to control panel/admin tools/computer management/disk management/ and see if it shows up there.

[Felonious Monk/Fignozzle]

You could contact the folks that put pictures on milk cartons, and see if they will help.
In addition, a good private investigator might be worth your while.

[280plus]

Post pictures of the lost drive on telephone poles and offer a reward.

[Cyanide_357]

A couple of questions:

How large is the drive, and how many Hard drives do you have in total?  More specifically, is it connected through the primary or secondary IDE controler, or is it connected through a raid controler / IDE expansion card?  Or is it SATA?

Did the drive ever show up on your computer?

what OS are you using?  If XP, then right click on "my computer" and select "manage".  Then select "Disk management" under "storage".  See if the drive is visible to the OS.

Hopefully we will be able to get it working.

Cyanide

[Balog]

I'm thinking of Sean Connery in the "Untouchables." I'd by an old 386 for $20, then blast it w/ a 12ga or 45-70 where your computer can see. Damn thing'll defrag itself in fright.

[jefnvk]

I'd look in the last place you put it.

Check the cables.  Spent an entire day beating on a computer because the HD wouldn't work, to find out I was using a bad cable.

[Jamisjockey]

Well, mama decided that it was going to the store before I could look at it.  After being unplugged and rebooted there, it came right up.  They coudln't find any reason why it did that, and hypothesized that it was going bad.  I've moved all the vital stuff out of it onto the primary C drive just in case.  I'm tempted to pull it, install it back into the old computer, and then wipe that one clean with a restore disk, and use it as a spare game 'puter networked into this one.