Two hard drives

Help !!

I have put two hard drives on my computer on one IDE cable (master and slave) and then a DVD writer and DVD player on the other IDE cable (master and slave). When I restarted the computer after putting on the second drive I was able to see it in Windows (XP Pro), activate it and format it in Partition Magic 7. Now, sometimes when I start up the computer everything is fine and all four devices are recognised. At other times, the second hard drive disappears and cannot be seen at all. Trying to access it through shortcuts previously set up on the desktop does not work. Seeing the computer start, as it flashes through the BIOS setup, I can see that the slave hard disc is not listed.

What can I do or where can I look to sort this out ?

Any help gratefully received - thanks in advance

Yes, I am on auto detect !

I have just been into device manager to try and answer your question (I don't know it off hand !). The second hard drive is not listed (so hasn't been recognised on this boot up) but I find that my HP deskjet 7600 (which has slots for removable disks) is there as one of the disk drives ! Is this what has been causing the conflict ?

The following is taken from Belarc advisor

HDS722580VLAT20 [Hard drive] (82.35 GB) -- drive 1, s/n VNR21EC2D5SMVL, rev V32OA60A, SMART Status: Healthy
HP photosmart 7600 USB Device [Hard drive] -- drive 2
Maxtor 6Y080L0 [Hard drive] (81.96 GB) -- drive 0, s/n Y2MMKD9E, rev YAR41BW0, SMART Status: Healthy

Both hard drives are visible and usable in Explorer at the moment. It is the HDS.... drive that disappears sometimes (possibly after using the HP USB device to read from a compact flash card?)

You got it! Why does it call a Harddrive a Photosmart USB device? Try moving your USB device to another USB port. Do some internet searches on your hard drive and USB conflicts.

The solution to my problem was to keep the configuration as it was - two hard discs on one IDE and the DVD and DVD burner on the other - but alter the jumper settings on the slave hard disc to cable select. Solved the problem perfectly. Thanks for help received