Hard disk failure? HDD does not show in BIOS. Extract data from HDD?

My IBM harddrive does no longer show up in BIOS after I added another
hdd.
My system.
Faulty hdd: Ibm Deskstar 40gb, no: IC35L040AVER07-0
It still spinns.
IDE 0 = Win2k (Master), CD-ROM (Slave)
IDE 1 = Failed HDD (master), HDD (Slave)

I have tried:
Different hdd on flat cable - it worked.
Changed flat cable - all works except on failed hdd
tried short 40cm, long 80cm cable - worked on all other devices.
changed power cable - all works.
Tried to switch the failed hdd as slave on IDE 0 and 1 - no show in
BIOS.

It worked perfectly before I added a new hdd on the other IDE cable,
so it shouldn't be affected at all.

I have heard something about a MBR, master boot record, which could be
deleted, could that be the one? How do I fix it?


If the hdd has failed, how do I recover info from it using software
when it is not recognised?
Have heard about Disk Investigator but haven't tried it yet. Is there
any other software I can test and maybe get it to work?
http://www.theabsolute.net/sware/dskinv.html

"Discover what's hidden on your computer hard disk and recover lost
data. Disk Investigator bypasses your operating system so you can
directly see the contents of your hard drive: raw drive sectors,
files, clusters, and directories. This is helpful if you want to
verify the effectiveness of file and disk wiping programs. It's also
quite useful if you need to recover previously deleted files."

Thanx for all help - I'll pray for you if I get it to work

Kanolsen