Ok I have a challenging problem for whoever wants to try and solve it. I have recently transferred my 2 Hard drives into my new computer. With in the last few days, I had them both plugged into another computer in which I did a virus scan on them, just to be sure they would be clean when I put them in my new computer. No problems there. When I hook them up the the new setup, BIOS detects them both, but when it goes to booting up windows it restarts the computer. I tried only plugging the HD with the program files in. It is not detected by BIOS unless I have the slave plugged in. I doubled checked the jumpers and everything is where it should be. When i boot from a boot disk with both drives plugged in BIOS detects both HDs but when I get to the DOS prompt, only my media HD is detected.

Whatever help is appreciated.

You have not really given us much information to work with here. So we can think about this without having to do too much guessing, could you tell us:

What OS are you attempting to use? What HDD is it on?

What do you mean by "I doubled checked the jumpers and everything is where it should be."?? Where is that? What settings are established by the jumpers? Have you double checked those against the settings appropriate to the new machine envoronment?

What messages, if any, are you getting when you attempt to boot with the drives installed? (More detail about how the machine "restarts" when booting up.)

What OS are you using on the "boot disk" you mention using?

What formats are used on the two drives you have (FAT, NTFS, etc.) (I could speculate that your "programs" HDD is NTFS and has XP on it, and guess that's why DOS cannot see it, but I won't.)

Does the machine have another hard drive installed with a functioning OS on it, or are you attempting to "reuse" an OS on the "the HD with the program files"? (That will not work - the OS is almost always unable to function in the new environment, unless it is device identical to the old one. There may be work arounds to that, but again, we have to little information to guess about such things.)

Get back to us, we'll give it a shot when we know more about what you have going on there.

Good luck.

Basics: (1) 80Gig Western Digital HD (Has the XP operating file)
(1) 120 Gig Western Digital HD (All media files)

I currently have the jumper on the 80Gig set to Master and the 120 set to Slave.

I am getting no messages when the computer tries to boot up. It goes through its BIOS routine and then it seems when it tries to start XP the screen flashes and the computer restarts, beginning at its BIOS routine.

The boot disk that I use is from an XP machine. I use it to get to a DOS prompt. Once at the DOS prompt, my C: drive is the 120Ggig and the 80Gig does not show up. I tried D:, E:, F:, etc. It is not being found.

Last night I plugged the 80Gig in another computer as a Slave, so that I could save some of the files on it, and it worked fine. No problems.

Im not sure about the format of the two drives. But they were in an old computer in the same configuration (Master(80Gig)/Slave(120Gig). What it frustrating me is that they were working fine in the old computer. As for the format, how can I determine what format they are.


"Does the machine have another hard drive installed with a functioning OS on it, or are you attempting to "reuse" an OS on the "the HD with the program files"? (That will not work - the OS is almost always unable to function in the new environment, unless it is device identical to the old one. There may be work arounds to that, but again, we have to little information to guess about such things.)"
-That I think is the problem. I do not have any other HD besides the 80Gig and 120. Only the 80Gig has the OS files. I took the HD out of my old 900Mhz Athlon and put in into my 2.0Ghz Athlon with all new RAM, MB, etc. Im planning on attempting to re-install windows this weekend once I find my program disks

Hope that helps.

That's useful information, damoxx. I am traveling, and don't have access to some materials I'd like to refresh my memory, but you might want to consider the following ideas, recognizing I have not double checked them.

[quote]Im not sure about the format of the two drives. But they were in an old computer in the same configuration (Master(80Gig)/Slave(120Gig). What it frustrating me is that they were working fine in the old computer. As for the format, how can I determine what format they are.[/quote]

You can determine the file format through "My Computer" > properties for the disk, where you look under "File system"

It would not be unlikely that a Windows XP installation drive was in NTFS format. And if the Boot Disk you are using was created following the procedures at How To Create a Boot Disk for an NTFS or FAT Partition in Windows XP" http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?...;305595&sd=tech then you should be able to use it to access a NTFS drive, since it will include the Ntldr and the Ntdetect.com files.

[quote]Once at the DOS prompt, my C: drive is the 120Ggig and the 80Gig does not show up.[/quote]

The master/slave settings you are using should work. However, modern drives, and Western Digital of the size you mention would be "modern", can be expected to support "cable select" jumper settings, which require support by the hardware - mobo and cable. ( http://www.wdc.com/en/library/eide/2579-001037.pdf ) I would anticipate that your mobo supports cable select.

With the jumper settings you are using, I am assuming that you are connecting both drives to only one cable and the Master to the end connector. If my assumption about your cabling is incorrect, please tell me.

If you are using a cable select cable, you might try setting both drives to cable select. Although the master/slave settings would be expected to work in this environment, in a cable select supported environment the default jumper settings would be to cable select, and non default settings might be responsible for the non recognition of your 80G Master.

[quoteI do not have any other HD besides the 80Gig and 120. Only the 80Gig has the OS files. I took the HD out of my old 900Mhz Athlon and put in into my 2.0Ghz Athlon with all new RAM, MB, etc. Im planning on attempting to re-install windows this weekend once I find my program disks[/quote]

While the cable select settings may or may not help to get both drives recognized when you boot from the Boot Disk, it does not address the OS issue. Reinstallation of Windows XP is one option.

There may be another which I have never done, or seen done, but have seen described by people who claimed to have made it work. So this may or may not work, and may be even more complicated than reinstallation of the OS and programs. It is to reinstall your OS drive in the machine from which it came, and remove all devices which are removable in the OS. Physical removal will be necessary as well, since you should reboot so that the removal is properly registered, and if the HDW is still there PnP will attempt reinstalls.

The purpose of this is to eliminate conflicts between OS hardware settings in the old environment and those in the new environment, by simply removing them. Since this approach may involve uninstalling and removing hardware (graphics cards, USB 2 upgrade cards, etc) inside your case, it is a non-trivial. But if you can fool both of your drives into thinking they are in their original environment, and avoid reinstallation of your OS and programs, you might consider it worthwhile.

(It might also avoid complications when using your OS install media to reinstall XP in a new environment. BTW, if you have to reinstall XP in a new environment, it would be advisable to prepare a "slipstreamed" version of the XP installation which includes the SP2 upgrade, so you do not have to do that upgrade after installation. But that's another topic.)

Please, if anyone who reads this has corrections or additional thoughts, let us know. I am at the limits of my knowledge and experience here, and a bit worried about it.

Damoxx,

Just some thoughts here to add to Jim's very well thought out help here.

I have spent many an hour resolving these kinds of problems and can only report what I would do in the same situation.

Xp is not meant to be worked on from a dos prompt. It doesn't use DOS as part of its bootstrap routine and the proper procedure for addressing a failure to logon to Windows is to boot from your Xp installation cd and allow the setup program to install the files needed to get you to your repair console. At this point you will have access to the tools you need to troubleshoot an NTFS formatted system as well as allowing Windows setup to find your hard drives on its own.

You can do everything from cleaning up your Master Boot Record to partitioning from this console and it includes help along the way. Just follow the instructions and remember the old adage, "Measure twice, cut once". In other words, many of the included tools are not reversible, make sure that what you ask is what you want, that's all.

Personally, at this point, I would partition and format your systems hard drive and reinstall Xp, barring of course any need to keep anything you now have on that hard drive. You will find this to be the easiest, as well as quickest way to get your pc back in action.

It is even simpler if you only have the systems hard drive installed when installing Xp, that way you won't have any confusion on your part on which hard drive you want system files on. After you are able to logon to Windows and have your devices installed, shut down, reinstall your data drive and boot up. Any changes to your second drive, i.e. name, format, ect. can be easily done from within Windows.

Winter

Thanks, Winter. Just the kind of experienced advice that I'd hoped would be posted.

Slipstreaming of SP2, which avoids the need for a separate SP2 update after installation of XP, is covered by sites found at:
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&q=s...22+&btnG=Search

(One site indicates that if you are using an original install from a major vendor like Dell which includes updates, the ability to slipstream is lost. )

A site I'd trust for this procedure is http://www.theeldergeek.com/slipstreamed_xpsp2_cd.htm
An MVPS procedure is at http://xphelpandsupport.mvps.org/how_do_i_...ipstream_cd.htm