andrewf10
asked on
New second hard drive is causing trouble
I have a 3 year old Windows XP machine with SP2 installed. There are two hard drives...an 80Gb C drive for the OS and an 80Gb D drive for storage only (no OS).
Everything was working grand until I got a Maxtor 160Gb hard drive and my idea was to replace the D drive with this new one, again without an OS.
So with both drives as cable-select (I've tried the master + slave setup as well) on the jumper settings, I ran the Maxtor installation program from the desktop and it said that installation was successful. It did ask if I wanted to install the fix for the 137Gb limit, I said yes.
I then rebooted the PC and it said "Error Loading OS". BIOS recognises the drives correctly.
I then put back in the previous 80Gb D drive and this time got "NTLDR is missing" on bootup.
Can someone please tell me whats going on here? The original D drive isn't corrupt as I can access my files using an IDE/USB converter.
Thanks,
Andrew
Everything was working grand until I got a Maxtor 160Gb hard drive and my idea was to replace the D drive with this new one, again without an OS.
So with both drives as cable-select (I've tried the master + slave setup as well) on the jumper settings, I ran the Maxtor installation program from the desktop and it said that installation was successful. It did ask if I wanted to install the fix for the 137Gb limit, I said yes.
I then rebooted the PC and it said "Error Loading OS". BIOS recognises the drives correctly.
I then put back in the previous 80Gb D drive and this time got "NTLDR is missing" on bootup.
Can someone please tell me whats going on here? The original D drive isn't corrupt as I can access my files using an IDE/USB converter.
Thanks,
Andrew
Steve McCarthy, MCSE, MCSA, MCP x8, Network+, i-Net+, A+, CIWA, CCNA, FDLE FCIC, HIPAA Security Officer
I believe your maxtor software hosed your original drive. Put your configuration back to the way it used to be. Try doing an XP repair. Boot to the XP CD. Don't select repair from the recovery console, rather continue past it. When you get the second repair option, select it. After the reboot, see if it comes back up.
I would have to agree with samccarthy here, I think that the problem is not with the old D drive or the new 160 you are attempting to install, for some reason, the Maxtor installation changed an attribute in the boot sector the the OS drive, not sure exactly what the app changes, but the 137GB limit sits on the BIOS, it may need to be flashed to "fix" the limit issue.... just my thoughts...
J
J
If you need it, this is what samccarthy is referring to:
Configure your computer to start from the CD-ROM drive. For more information about how to do this, refer to your computer's documentation or contact your computer manufacturer. Then insert your Windows XP Setup CD, and restart your computer.
When the Press any key to boot from CD message is displayed on your screen, press a key to start your computer from the Windows XP CD.
Press ENTER when you see the message To setup Windows XP now, and then press ENTER displayed on the Welcome to Setup screen.
Do not choose the option to press R to use the Recovery Console.
In the Windows XP Licensing Agreement, press F8 to agree to the license agreement.
Make sure that your current installation of Windows XP is selected in the box, and then press R to repair Windows XP.
Follow the instructions on the screen to complete Setup.
< thanks to qfren >
Configure your computer to start from the CD-ROM drive. For more information about how to do this, refer to your computer's documentation or contact your computer manufacturer. Then insert your Windows XP Setup CD, and restart your computer.
When the Press any key to boot from CD message is displayed on your screen, press a key to start your computer from the Windows XP CD.
Press ENTER when you see the message To setup Windows XP now, and then press ENTER displayed on the Welcome to Setup screen.
Do not choose the option to press R to use the Recovery Console.
In the Windows XP Licensing Agreement, press F8 to agree to the license agreement.
Make sure that your current installation of Windows XP is selected in the box, and then press R to repair Windows XP.
Follow the instructions on the screen to complete Setup.
< thanks to qfren >
ASKER
Sorry there was one thing I forgot to mention. If I disconnect the second hard drive, the drive with the OS works perfectly (C drive).
Does this change the suggestions you've all given me?
Does this change the suggestions you've all given me?
Yes........ OK, try going back to to Master/Slave on the respective drives. Are we talking about the new second drive or the original??
ASKER
The new one. I can live with the original one acting up because I could still access it through the USB cable and copy my files onto the new drive.
OK, so am I assuming correctly that with the old drives, back exactly as they were at the start, they work just as advertised??
ASKER
The original second hard dive causes the "NTLDR is missing" error even though BIOS sees it as the slave drive.
Using system restore would be a last resort for me. I've just bought a BIOS upgrade which I wont have until Moday at the earliest. Something tells me that it wont be the magical solution though as the probelm is probably registry-related.
Using system restore would be a last resort for me. I've just bought a BIOS upgrade which I wont have until Moday at the earliest. Something tells me that it wont be the magical solution though as the probelm is probably registry-related.
I would do the bios update, however I don't think that will fix your problem. A Repair with the origianl drives in the system may do it for you. If you are getting NTLDR missing with the second drive in, I suspect that somewhere in the original installation some system files were put on there. A Repair might bring the balance back to the system.
ASKER
Sorry for wasting your time all, the solution is so basic Im embarassed even typing this. Yes BIOS was seeing the C drive as primary and the D drive as secondary BUT it was also set to boot up HDD1 as first choice, then CDROM and then Floppy. Obviously this should have been HDD0 which is the first hard drive and the one containing the OS. How could it ever boot up a hard drive without an OS?
Again, sorry for such a stupid question, I'll request a deletion straightaway!
Again, sorry for such a stupid question, I'll request a deletion straightaway!
>> solution is so basic Im embarassed << LOL Welcome to the Club. : )
Preaching to the choir on this one... but
sounds like you need to revert back to your original settings and try to start over. Sometimes trying to sludge through settings that cause problems in order to fix your original problem can be troublesome and do more harm than good. Put the 80GB HD back in place, configure master/slave jumpers and try again as so. Connect your new hard drive and see if your computer is able to successfully pick it up. If so, go ahead and format.
sounds like you need to revert back to your original settings and try to start over. Sometimes trying to sludge through settings that cause problems in order to fix your original problem can be troublesome and do more harm than good. Put the 80GB HD back in place, configure master/slave jumpers and try again as so. Connect your new hard drive and see if your computer is able to successfully pick it up. If so, go ahead and format.
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