2 hard drives / can't access one of them

[michellelm]

I have a G3 mac blue. About 4 years ago my ex-husband installed a new hard drive and upped the memory as far as it would go. I am currently using Mac 4.11 system I think. This morning the computer was making an odd noise and wouldn't move off the screen saver mode. I rebooted. When it came back up, the odd noise was there for a minute or so and then stopped. However, it will only access the original hard drive, which I haven't saved anything on for 3 years. How can I find my secondary hard drive? Incidently I wasn't able to access the old hard drive for about 2 years. Sure it would be nice if i could access the both of them but i just want my new one back!! I live in a small town where no one is mac proficient. I replaced the power unit a year ago myself with help from you people. I hope we can fix my computer again! Thanks

[imacpanther]

The odd noise could be the FAN or even the Hard drive all depends when it does it, what do you mean a second drive? external, internal or a partition? if is internal, i mean two hard drives inside i would like to know how you did it!! if is an external there is a great percentage that your system is failing due to the amount of memory and process you are using on the computer to have Tiger (10.4) so get into "single user mode" (after the start up chime press  + S) and see if it stops, if does not do it back up on an external HD, if is a partition the best way to try to get you info is to take out the HD and with an adapter plug it into another mac to back up your info, i hope this helps.