IDE drives not detected by BIOS

[Mikeo0302]

My main box has three hard drives, two PATA in a master/slave configuration, and one SATA. I use the SATA exclusively for media storage, but it seems that the BIOS is now only detecting the SATA. This means I get error 21 from GRUB and cannot get into any of my OSes.

I replaced the IDE cable, and have checked that the controllers are active in the BIOS but there is still no luck and the sockets are displayed as [Not Detected] in my BIOS.

What else can I try?

[paulm]

Sounds like a hardware problem. Could be one of the PATA drives has a problem, or the onboard PATA controller has a problem.

First, try each PATA drive on its own. If neither works, try them in another machine. That should at least narrow down the problem.

Paul.

[Mikeo0302]

Thanks for your help. The problem appears to have resolved itself overnight, but worried that it may happen again.

[Mikeo0302]

Scratch that, just tried to boot into mint 11 (installed from the cover disc of LXF), gdm login screen froze so I forced a reboot, and again the PATA drives are not detected. What I didn't mention at first (I didn't think it would be relevant) is that the first time I booted into mint, it froze up and it was after forcing a reboot on this that the problem first occurred.

The drives are as follows:

80GB PATA master: Windows Vista
320GB PATA slave: Linux Mint 11 and Crunch Bang Linux
500GB SATA (socket 2): Media, although I believe my GRUB is installed on here for some reason

[donoreo]

Try booting with just one of the IDEs and then the other. Do this a few times, it sounds like one of the drives may be on the way out.