Cannot get IDE drive to boot

  • Thread starter Thread starter C. Robbins
  • Start date Start date
C

C. Robbins

Hi-
Running an Asus P4P800 MB on a second system. I had a Maxtor 40 gb HD, which
was my boot disc on another system.

Got a WD 37 gb SATA drive-I want to use the SATA for gaming programs and
boot from the IDE drive. When I installed the new SATA drive and the IDE I
reinstalled XP to the IDE drive-or tried to. Whenever I get to the reboot
portion of the install, I get an error message that I need to insert a boot
disc.

I have tried reformatting the IDE and installing. No go.

I installed XP onto the SATA, went fine, and now the SATA is the boot disc.
System runs great with it.

Still can't get XP onto the IDE drive-again, have reformatted, tried running
from boot floppies first, removed SATA and tried-nothing. If I run off the
SATA, the other IDE drive is recognized as a valid drive. I reformatted it
from inside XP, still won't go. Ran Maxtor MaxBlast 3, reformatted
again-still can't get XP to recognize the IDE as a boot drive. I have set it
as boot drive from within BIOS.

I want to avoid reformatting the SATA, as I pulled some data off the IDE
drive when the system was running off the SATA as boot drive, before
reformatting the IDE.

I try to boot, after removing SATA completely, all cables off, it states:

Reboot and select proper boot device
Or insert boot media in device and press any key

I start with XP CD, loads files, goes to format screen, lists a partition. I
select that partition to load windows, states that windows files are
preseent-I overwrite them.

Same thing-Reboot and select proper boot device
Or insert boot media in device and press any key

Use recovery console, chkdsk says drive is OK. Use bootcfg, lists one win
installation. I set this as default boot, same thing: Reboot and select
proper boot device
Or insert boot media in device and press any key

If I leave the XP CD in the drive after it loads files and reboots, it goes
into the file loading screens again in a loop, never goes to the actual
windows setup screens.

WHAT is going on here? HELLLLLLP!
 
C. Robbins said:
I installed XP onto the SATA, went fine, and now the SATA is the boot disc.
System runs great with it.

Still can't get XP onto the IDE drive-again, have reformatted, tried running
from boot floppies first, removed SATA and tried-nothing.
Click to expand...

Have you reset the boot drive order in your BIOS, so IDE is first?
 
C. Robbins said:
Got a WD 37 gb SATA drive-I want to use the SATA for gaming programs and
boot from the IDE drive. When I installed the new SATA drive and the IDE I
reinstalled XP to the IDE drive-or tried to. Whenever I get to the reboot
portion of the install, I get an error message that I need to insert a boot
disc.
Click to expand...

First thing to check is whether the BIOS is set to boot from the
non-SATA IDE disk.

If that's not it, there may be a wrong boot sector on the disk
or the partition you want to boot from may not be active.

Get more details from http://www.michna.com/kb/WxMove.htm. That
article is about moving an installation, but it contains most of
the required procedures.

Hans-Georg
 
Yes, it is set to boot from the IDE in BIOS. I reviewed info on the
referenced page-boot sector is OK, and I reset it anyhow. Still no boot.

Just as an experiment, I took an extra 20 gb HD I had around, set for cable
select and replaced the IDE I had been trying to set up-it was able to load
XP without any problem.

Can't understand what the problem could be-I have checked the HD and it's
fine, with Maxtor diagnostic tools.
 
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