Sata boot order

hey thanks - I'm trying to download the UBCD, got to the site but can't get to a download link.
Where is it ???? Grrrrr

Thanks

Its OK found an iso image download . .not obvious.
Can I take it that making the disk active or inactive is a straight forward task once the UBCD has booted ??? Its downloading now (26mins on my 2.5M broadband pah!!) I'll have it booted shortly.

Thanks for your time.

Regards

Hi Rindi,
Ok I have the UBCD and booted in the HP DC5700. I initially used Gparted to tunr the boot flag off on the WD drive all appeared OK.

When the PC is booted (without CD in) the WD drive is still found but now as an unbootable drive. Removing the Sata connector (after powering down) then allows a normal boot from the native drive.

Whats forcing the WD to become the bootable drive. From what you said I understood that the active drive will boot. There is only one active/bootable drive now.

Can you help

Thanks

There must also be code on the drive that makes it bootable. That is usually written into it's mbr when you install an OS to it, and often it is called the boot loader. The PC then looks for this code on the HD that is active. If two HD's are set to active on the same PC that can confuse the system, so it is better only to have one such active drive.

Try swapping the SATA cables of the two drives.

i simply connect the drive with another sata cable - never had booting problems
were you able to copy the data yet?
here is how to get vista booting :  http://neosmart.net/wiki/display/EBCD/Recovering+the+Vista+Bootloader+from+the+DVD

Hi Guys,
I stayed up 'till 0200 trying to get this boot situation sorted but failed.
Using one of the tools on the UBCD I think I can copy the required data from the errant drive.

I would like to understand whats going on here though.

Rindi, are you saying that if I turn the boot flag off on the WD drive (its plugged into SATA 0) and then reboot, it is possible that the MBR of the active drive can reference (somehow) the boot code  on the WD drive . . . seems weird to me if this is the case.

Regards

Yes, turn the boot flag off on the WD. Also connect the original disk to SATA 0 and the WD to a higher number, as the system will first look for the active disk by starting with 0 and moving upward, and it will also do the same with the mbr.

Hi
I have gone through this again IE but no boot success with WD in the mix.
1. ensured WD boot flag is OFF and original boot flag active.
2. Ensured original drive is in SATA 0 (tested succesfull boot on its own)
3. Plugged WD drive in SATA 4 or 5 (difficult to read screen print on MB)
4. Booted (had to press F1 to save new config)
5. POST went OK then Vista horizontal activity bar then blue screen crash dump !!!
6. Unplug WD drive from SATA bus and reboot
7. Need to press F1 to save new config, but booted OK

Whats going on ???

REgards
Trev

test that drive -it looks like it is causing havoc
best boot from UBCD and run the WD disk diag

Hi nobus,
I did run the complete DELL HD diag hardware test whilst it was in the DELL laptop, took  abit over 2 hours. All tests passed 100%

I'll try to find the WD disk diag tool on the UBCD and run that too.

Regards

ok - can you say for sure from which drive it was booting? if it was the wd - the BSOD can be caused by installing drivers

No can't say for certain that it was booting from the WD as no way to affect boot priority order in the bios for ATA drives (in this HP DC5700)

The whole problem started after I attempted to apply SP1 to the RC Vista OS. The first reboot of the SP1 install resulted in the recovery procedure being run. Was never able to boot again after that.

Can I tell from the BSOD which is the booting drive ??? Its only there breifly but I could try and pick someting out.

Cheers
Trev

>>  can't say for certain that it was booting from the WD   <<   then both must have the same desktop, and settings, users? you can always post the dump - at least it will show the reason (i hope)

I can't affect changes to desktop and user settings on the WD . . well not easily.
I'll try to find the dump on the WD or Orignal drive.

The heat is off as I obtain the myriad photographs that the csutomer had stored with no backup.
(Bit guilty myself doing SP1 without a full backup . .  ooops!!)

I'm just trying to understand the boot mechanics now for other issues like this. We plan to rebuild the DEL laptop as soon as we have media.

Thanks

Is there no recovery partition on the DELL HD?

Dump file from the original Disk (no dump on the WD . .. interesting !!!)


MEMORY.zip

Change the settings so small memory dumps are made, and not full dumps. Then delete the Memory dump you sent (it will not waste as much space next crash).

Another thing, your PC that crash was caused on seems to be running SP1 of Vista. Make sure you upgrade to SP2 and also run the Vista updates after that.

Looks like the only root forward is to uninstall the clfs application - this can only be done by manual means IE deleting associated files and crossing fingers that nothing else blows up!!

Once I have confirmation that no more data is required from the drive I'll check that route out before going ahead with the rebuild (I think I need to do this for confidence in giving a stable machine back to the customer.

Points time me-thinks - Every one happy if I split it down the middle reflecting time spent.
We didn't get the drive up simultaneously but the UBCD allowed data to be backed up and render the drive ready for rebuild - other work here has extended my knowledge of booting from SATA drives.

Regards
Trevor


Given that we have now prepared for the rebuild I think we'll move forward that way.

Rindi - previous post explained what I was attempting to do - IE install SP1 on RC- next step would have been SP2 and all other patches.

Thansk for note on dump files - noted.

Regards

Wasn't that the other disk?

Just been prompted to deal with this question - sorry for the delay.
There is still a drive problem but Dell reckon they have a solution for this - the restore partition can't be reached thro ctrl-F11.

So 250 points each is fair I think for time and effort.

Thanks guys

Well we didn't fix the problem did we ????