I recently got a Maxtor Diamondmax Plus 8, which is an ATA/133 drive. My current computer only handles up to ATA/100. When I installed the drive, the drive was identified correctly by the BIOS but never appeared in windows. Could this problem be a BIOS issue, Windows issue, or drive issue?

I haven't tried running the maxtor utitity YET, but will see if it will work when I get home later.You have to partition the drive before it can be used in Windows. Go to Disk Management for the setup utility, etc.

ATA 100 vs 133 is not an issue here.Thanks, I totally brain farted about formating the drive!


Since i've upgraded the MB and now have some issues with the original drive I was using, I'll try setting the maxtor as primary and then format and install my OS on it then.


Thanks again!Thanks for posting back and I'm glad you are up and running ahh!! a premature congratulatons!


I put the drive as master (jumpers set correctly) and the END of the cable, WENT booted up to format and install W2k. The drive was recognized during HDD, but after that, i got a hard drive failure notice. Swapped out drives, and it worked fine. So this must be a bad drive?!

FWIW: Aopen MX3W pro MB, 2x128MB RAM, W2K OS, 80wire IDE cable on IDE1, ATA/33 cable on IDE2.You can download free diagnostics from the manufacturer's web site to find out if the drive has failed.

http://www.maxtor.com/portal/site/Maxtor/menuitem.57739892ade91820a727116291346068/?channelpath=%2Fen_us%2FSupport%2FProduct%20Support

Thanks for that! Ran it this am, and the drive is dead as dead can be! Luckily, the was a no DOA guarentee with it, and the seller has already SAID he'd take it back.

And here I THOUGHT it was just me! Glad we solved the mystery and you are not out the cost of a drive. Take care.