Yes the machine boots when I attach the hd to this pci ide card. Its locating a second HD in bios but nothing in windows.

Nothing under Disk Management?

Or the Device Manager > Disk drives?

(right click My Computer > Properties > Manage)

its listing it in the device manager but not in my computer.

How is it listed under Disk Management?

Layout | Type | File System | Status | Capacity | Free Space | % Free

Only C: and D: come up there, D is just a partition on the same drive...and thats it

How is it listed in the Device Manager?

the only disk drives there are "hds728 blah blah" and "hts7210.." and I unplugged this computers second hd to make sure I wasnt seeing it.

Both those drives are Hitachi hard drives.

I was just wondering if you knew exactly which was the laptop drive.

You can right click the drive there and choose Properties to perhaps get more detail.

Sorry this is so tedious but it is hard to see from here as they say.

If the drive was not showing at all I would question the connection/ adapter /cable. But if it is seen in the BIOS then I would question Windows and why it won't detect it.

If the data is very important I would try another adapter or as mentioned earlier a USB external case.

Also maybe another member will have a bright idea in the day to come.