Lost Desktop Hard Drive

Just installed a separate hard drive (F) without problems. It appeared on my system in all the right places.Used Trueimage 8 for first time to create backup. I seem to have somehow got the back up onto my main drive C. Its used capacity has gone up by 15gb which is about right. My drive F has vanished - no longer in My Computer/Device Manager/System/BIOS. True image says I haven't an additional drive installed. Neither can I access the extra 15gb to get rid of it.
I assume the two things are interlinked. How do I get back to square one please. Tried system restore but it won't work!
You will gather from this I am pretty clueless
Jim
PS System is WXP Home

 

I'm going to assume that the separate hard drive is an internal drive, not a USB or Firewire external drive. In that case, the clue is that nothing is showing up in the BIOS. If it's not there, the motherboard doesn't know it exists and can't tell Windows abou it.

Go into the BIOS setup and confirm that nothing is shown for the second hard drive. It that's true, open the case and double check the power and signal cables. Be sure to check both ends of the signal cable at the motherboard and at the drive. If the drive still isn't recognized, it may have simply died a very early death. It's not common, but it does happen.

The only test for early death is to connect another drive to your computer and see if it is recognized. I hope you have an old drive or can borrow one to test this. If the second drive is recognized, it's time to return the first drive for a warranty replacement. You might try the place you bought it to see if they will replace it since it died almost immediately by your report.

Alternatively, you could test the drive on another computer. If it works there, then something is wrong on your computer other than the drive.