HDD not detected by BIOS but can be seen by X

Hello, My Name is Derek

So I have two small HDD's of a friends that wont be detected by BIOS in any of the three computers in my house, when I go to install XP on the discs it picks them up and prepares the installation copying all the files over, then when it comes for the restart and to go into set up HDD is still not picked up by BIOS and thus can not continue. Jumpers are fine, this happens to two HDD's both from different computers, one used to have XP on it the other has just been a slave drive. It happens in three computers and when ever I use any of the other HDD's I have it works fine. Jumpers are fine and cables are sweet, I can boot off another XP drive and off a linux one fine, all drives are IDE and the ones that are playing up work fine in external cases. If I plug them in as slave drives with one of the working ones however, neither work and the ones that play up don't even power on if you need any further information just ask, Thanks in advance