the install was a slipstream of sp2
there are no new bios updates since last year
and the drive is in the bios; works fine in vista

"DL" <address@invalid> wrote in message
news:%23y85hfV3IHA.3508@TK2MSFTNGP02.phx.gbl...
> What sp level was your installion winxp cd?
> Have you checked your mobo manufacturer re bios updates?
> Is the drive correctly shown in the bios?
>
> "seth" <me@myhouse.local> wrote in message
> news:u7VmxRV3IHA.1436@TK2MSFTNGP05.phx.gbl...
>> yes and it isn't there
>> neither does the drive show in device manager
>>
>> "neil" <neilp67_@_hotmail.com> wrote in message
>> news:Ax7bk.182788$aE7.84431@newsfe16.ams2...
>>> Did you use disk management to see if the drive was visible.
>>> Neil
>>> "seth" <me@myhouse.local> wrote in message
>>> news:%23VIsXgR3IHA.4988@TK2MSFTNGP06.phx.gbl...
>>>>i have a strange problem with xp and my additional drive i recently
>>>>bought.
>>>>
>>>> i was running vista for a while and just couldn't deal with it anymore
>>>> so decided to go back to xp.
>>>>
>>>> i have the original 250gb drive and added a 1tb drive. when i
>>>> installed xp it saw the 1tb drive as D and worked fine. i started to
>>>> install my drivers, first with the latest nvidia drivers for my video.
>>>> it installed fine, but after the reboot i nearly freaked out when D was
>>>> gone. it didn't see the drive at all. subsequent reboots did not show
>>>> the drive in device manager at all. i started over again with fresh xp
>>>> install and after it finished D was there again. i installed sp3 and
>>>> after the reboot, D was again gone. i installed xp a third time and D
>>>> was there. this time i did nothing except a reboot and again D was
>>>> gone.
>>>>
>>>> one thing that's interesting, every time the system would boot after
>>>> the initial install finished and D wouldn't appear, the boot process
>>>> took excessively long (nearly 5 min). i can't make sense of it. if it
>>>> was a matter of xp never seeing the drive, i can see the possibility of
>>>> a driver isse, 48 bit lba support etc. but when the drive can't be seen
>>>> after the second boot following initial install, that doesn't make too
>>>> much sense to me (bios always sees the drive).
>>>>
>>>> i ended up going back to vista (for now) and no issues accessing the
>>>> 1tb drive.
>>>> system is hp pavilion a1630n purchased end of 2006.
>>>>
>>>> any ideas why this could be happening?
>>>
>>>
>>
>
>