A little help please

[CommanderFrank]

I'm working on my niece's older laptop (HP ze5170) The problem was there was way too much spyware, so I was doing a cleanup of the HDD and upon reboot, the HDD was no longer found. We had replaced the HDD 2 years ago, by a less than reputable repair shop and I naturally thought it had died. I popped in a backup HDD that I know to be in good condition, but it is not found either. Anyone have a clue as to what is going on?

 

[Dangman]

Can the BIOS see both drives?

Are these SATA or PATA hard drives?

 

[CommanderFrank]

It's a PATA and it is not recognized in the BIOS, which is really confusing to me. It was there, reboot, and poof, it's gone.

 

[allysan]

If I remember right, there's usually a way to "detect all drives" - in my BIOS it's F3. Take a peek and see if you can't do that.

 

[SDatl404]

Can anyone see this?