hd incorrectly detected

[pcdb]

My new P4 system has both the hard drives from my old Celeron, 20GB Seagate as the master and 40GB Western Digital as the slave.
The WD is detected as raw format if the computer is turned on, after 2-4 restarts its fully detected as a valid volume and no problems until after I switch off the computer and leave it for awhile.
How can I make it detect it as a valid volume from the first time its switched on? I've tried writing the MBR to it but doesn't make any difference.

 

[Praetor]

Do you have partitions on the drive? If so, are those partitions formatted?

 

[pcdb]

Yes, it has one partition along with files and programs on it.

 

[Praetor]

The WD is detected as raw format if the computer is turned on

If im not mistaken raw = not formatted yet. buuuuuuuuuut...

after 2-4 restarts its fully detected as a valid volume and no problems until after I switch off the computer and leave it for awhile.

That's odd! Is it possible that the drive is toasted?

 

[pcdb]

How would I tell if its toasted?

 

[tristan]

You are going to have to download a Seagate hard disk "Diagnostic Software" and western digital one. Run these and check to see if they are ok. If not then check the warrenty from their websites by punching in serial and model #.
http://www.seagate.com/support/seatools/ (get the middle "Seagate Desktop)
http://support.wdc.com/download/index.asp#diagutils

 

[pcdb]

The software says they both past the tests..

 

[pcdb]

I've also noticed I don't need to restart, if I leave it on for awhile and scan for any hardware changes it detects it.