System will not pick up my sata hd as a slave

The way you describe your problem makes me wonder how you got two drives with two different operating systems into the mix in the first place--you can't just install an OS onto a hard drive and then transplant it to another computer (unless you are dealing with Macs).

My advice is to erase or format the drive with XP x64 edition and install it in the machine as an empty drive alongside the 32-bit XP Pro hard drive. (If you're not sure how to easily wipe a hard drive, have a look at http://dban.sourceforge.net/ or http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/). Boot into XP Pro and make sure everything is working OK. The other, blank drive will not show up in Windows explorer at this point, since it is totally blank and not even formatted. Make sure you can see both drives in the BIOS as well.

Now, pop in your XP x64 edition disc and boot to it. Since XP x64 is newer than 32-bit XP Pro, XP x64 "knows" about 32-bit XP. Its setup program should be able to format and install onto the blank hard drive and set up a boot menu for you, such that you will be presented with a choice every time you boot the system whether you want to boot into one or the other OS.

Oop, sorry one more thing. Once you've got your 32-bit XP Pro hard drive (let's call it #1) and your blank hard drive (#2), and your BIOS is seeing them both, I believe you will need to set the boot priority to: first, CD/DVD/optical drive; second, HD #2; and third, HD #1. With no disc in the optical drive and no operating system on HD #2, the computer should boot to its third choice, HD #1 with 32-bit XP Pro on it. Make sure that works. If it doesn't, you'll just have to set that proper boot priority right before you're ready to install XP x64 onto HD #2.

The reason for that is so that, once you have installed XP x64 on HD #2, your computer will preferentially boot to THAT hard drive over the other one. Why is that important? XP x64 may put the boot loader that generates that menu of OS choices on its hard drive, so we want the computer to boot to that rather than going straight to the 32-bit XP Pro drive.

This all started with a HD crash. I called Dell they sent me another drive. I only had XP 64 so I decided to try it out I liked it but there were a lot of things that it was not compatible with so I figured I would just use this drive for a data drive and I called dell and purchased another drive. I installed XP pro on this drive. Point being both of these drives have been set up using the same system I didn't pop it out of one computer and put it in this one.

I always pull IDE drive from other machines and set them up as slaves for data recovery I thought this would be the same.

I really don't care about having XP 64 bit I am done playing with it I just want the second drive for extra data/backups.

Just thinks its wierd I can hook both drives up 1 at a time and they work.

Do you still think I should try and format the 64 bit drive

I've seen this before, but not if the bios isn't recognizing the secondary drive at all.  Have you tried attaching each drive seperately to the secondary controller alone to see if they bios recognized it?  The other times I've seen this, it was caused by differences in the file descriptors between the two versions of windows, if I remember right.  In essence, each could only see it's own filesystem without loading the relative drivers for the other one.  But I don't think that would prevent the bios from seeing it.  Try each drive on the secondary controller alone and see if the bios at least recognizes them there.

Both drives failed to pick up when connected on the secondary controller. Excuse my ignorance when it comes to sata but do they have a cable like an ide where there are 2 ends to connects into 2 drives?
 

If both drives failed to identify when connected to the secondary controller, then the controller is either disabled (check the bios) or it is likely bad.  The bios should be able to identify the drives when connected to the secondary controller even if it can't boot from them.  And no, sata is serial ata.  So it's one connection per line.

Kroberts00, you say in your original post "...it fails on boot saying it cannot find the drive." And ClickCentric mentions "I've seen this, it was caused by differences in the file descriptors between the two versions of windows, if I remember right." I think that's about right, and it explains the boot failure message--I'm 98% sure that's coming from Windows, and is not some message coming from the BIOS. One or the other Windows boot loader is being confused by the presence of another copy of Windows on the other hard drive; I bet that's all it is.

Never mind what I said before about installing the two operating systems side-by-side or properly arranging the boot order in the BIOS to make that work. The boot order just needs to be Optical drive first, SATA channel 1 second. Now: attach to the computer just the drive you want to wipe (the XP x64 you said) and go ahead and wipe it with one of the CD-based disk tools I mentioned (The Ultimate Boot CD actually contains the program Darik's Boot and Nuke, the program at dban.sourceforge.net; it's just a great disc to have). It seems you really will have to use one of these CD tools, since you can't boot to XP Pro to use its tools while the other HD is attached. If you want, Darik's Boot and Nuke, at least, is available on floppy. The cool thing about the Ultimate Boot CD, though, is that it has quite a plethora of other tools as well, including HD tools from all the manufacturers. After you wipe your HD, you could check it with Samsung's own disk-checking utility for fitness and mechanical errors and such, all from a single CD. For that matter, Samsung's disk utility might have a disk-wiping feature.

Now attach your working hard drive of XP Pro to whatever channel it needs to be in to make it boot properly (probably channel 1?) and your new blank drive in channel 2. Start up XP Pro and type diskmgmt.msc into the Run box from an Admin-level account. It's the quickest way to the disk management utility. Now just format, assign it a drive letter, and enjoy.

For clarity, is it during the POST process that the drives aren't getting identified or is in when windows starts?  I've been assuming the former, but want to be sure.

Its during post:

If I have 1 drive on the primary controller(sata0)and a second drive on the secondary and I turn on the secondary in bios it gives me the error. It will still allow to boot using the primary(sata0) drive by hitting f1.

If I don't go to the bios and turn the secondary drive on then it does not error out and just looks at the primary drive.

I have no problem formatting the one disk I am in the process of backing up data and will format it tomorrow

Thanks for the advice I will let you know how it goes.

Well, it sounds like the secondary controller is just bad if the POST doesn't identify either drive when connected to the secondary controller alone (no drive on the master, secondary controller enabled in the bios).  If I've understood all of your responses right, I don't think formatting either drive is going to help you...I think it's just a bad board.

what i would do is this :
take 1 drive, and connect and test it on every sata connector (not the raid connectors)
it should boot and work on every one.
One little thing : there are no slave disks with sata, since every disk has it's own cable and connector - they are all master

Two bootable SATA drives connected at same time without a boot loader to determine boot disk is likely the root cause.  I'll let someone with experience setting up boot selection on multiple SATA hard drives help you get it configured properly.

Go ahead and ensure that both SATA controllers are functional though.

I am going to format the 1 drive tonight just to check and be sure, try it again and if it fails again then I going to conclude that the secondary sata is bad....

Have you tried connecting drives as recommended by nobus?  You can boot from a bootable drive connected to either SATA channel as long as it is only drive connected.  May have to modify boot settings in BIOS but that's all.

Yes they both work on the primary one and they both don't work on the secondary one

>>   they both don't work on the secondary one  <<  this is what is pointed out by the test i suggested : a bad port.
you can use a pci to Sata adaptor, if you have no more warranty on the mobo.
If you still have warranty on the system, ask faor a warranty repair / replacement

After talking to Dell support and testing the other 3 sata ports that I wasn't aware I had  none of those worked either they sent me a new mobo I can't believe I got off the phone woth them at 7:30 PM est and it already here.

It just seem fishy to me that I have 4 sata ports starting at sata 0 and going to sata 3 and the sata 0 port works good and all the other ports are dead.

I will swap mobo tonight and let you know what happend

i thought i suggested tha

i thought i suggested that first  per  Date: 06/06/2006 12:31AM PDT
 Your Comment  


what i would do is this :
take 1 drive, and connect and test it on every sata connector (not the raid connectors)
it should boot and work on every one.
One little thing : there are no slave disks with sata, since every disk has it's own cable and connector - they are all master
 

Actually, I originally suggested that first at:  06/05/2006 05:10PM PDT.  At the time, I only suggested testing the secondary sata connector as that was what the question was in regards to.  And at 06/05/2006 08:46PM PDT, I suggested that the board was bad.  Both were before your first post on the question.  

yes, but you never mentioned testing all sata connectors, and how . . .

I said I thought the port was bad in my question and I believe Click Centric help me troubleshoot that.  

Its almost common sense how to troubleshoot them and if I would of saw that I had more sata connectors on the board which the dell tech told me I would have tested those before I even posted this. In the end it all comes done to what I was pointing at in the begining,

With all that said new boards in everything is working fine.

Thanks to all