Partition Editor doesn't see 4 of 5 hdd's?

[Odyssey]

I am trying to clean up a couple of single core computers and am unsure what is happening. I have the BIOS on each set to boot first from the CD ROM, then hdd. All hdds are jumpered to Master and are attached to the last (of 2) connectors with the CD Rom connected to the 'inner' connector and jumpered to slave.

I am using Ubunutu 8.04 Live CD which on one computer always boots fully, but when I run the partition editor, it can find only one (a 20 GB drive that came out of an older windows XP machine) of 5 (IDE) hdd's. The other 4 show the message "No Devices Detected"

The second (much older and very modest hardware resources) computer will boot up the Live CD only on the same 20 GB hdd, and on all the others the live CD will not boot up fully.

AFAIK all the hdd's are OK, but this makes me wonder if the 4 are knackered?

Any ideas?

Edit: In re-reading the above, it may be confusing. I am only booting with one IDE hdd attached at a time. I.e., I'm trying the first, shutting down, trying the second, etc.

[Lostfarmer]

with some bios's after hdd change one must enter the bios and tell it to redetect hdd's. After hdd change are you entering bios and verifying they are correctly ID. ?

[Odyssey]

Have not checked that. So in the BIOS, will I find a description of the hdd, or do I just tell it to redetect?

[rokytnji]

If the bios has a auto detect function then use it. My Award bios on Amrel Laptops have that function. How ever, My IBM M41 Phoenix Bios does not have that option and when I installed New Hardrive, The only way bios would detect it was to boot up the manufacturers software cd.

[Odyssey]

Have put them back on the bench and both are set to auto-detect.

The drives don't show up with

sudo fdisk -l

and don't make a noise or get warm.

Dead?

TIA for your reply.

[rokytnji]

Dead?

Sounds like it, but sure is strange for 4 to go bad at once. You are definately sure that the small power connector has voltage going to hardrives. (If IDE) And that motherboard and power supply connections are ok. If you are using like you say, trying 1 at a time on the same cable connectors that power up the working 20 gig and bios is not detecting them, which is a biggy by the way cuz I don't think they will power up till it does detect them. I would be absolutely sure that you are following proper hardrive detection procedure before trashing them.

[Odyssey]

Apologies. My life has been a bit crazy lately.

I left out some important information. Turns out 2 of the 4 drives are functional as a result of the one-at-a-time test.

The two "non-responders" are the ones I referred to in my last post as not making noise or getting warm. I think that one of them might have got fried as a result of having a jumper on a pair of unmarked posts, so there is really only one in play.

Dead?

[rokytnji]

Sounds like it to me. I have a old 60 gig HD that the bearings froze up in . Freezer trick (putt hardrive in freezer for a few hours and try again) didn't work for me. Maybe for you but it is only good for recovering any files till it locks up again.

[Odyssey]

Worth a try to see what's on it. Many thanks for your help.