Help: Can't Format Hard Drive

[Dave]

Primary Master   [None]
Primary Slave    [None]
Secondary Master [SAMSUNG DVD-ROM SD-61]
Secondary Slave  [WDC WD400BB-00DEA0-(S] or [Maxtor 90650U2-(SS)]

Primary chanel? What's that?

Thanks.

Darren Harris
Staten Island, New York.

Don't know why it should make a difference, but it's worth a shot. You've got two IDE connectors on your mainboard. One is primary, and EMPTY. The other is secondary and has two drives on it, sharing a cable. With system powered off, move mainboard end of IDE cable to other IDE connector. -Dave

 

[Searcher7]

I have a Western Digital WD400 drive that I am attempting to format.

It is a used drive, but it at present has no operating system on it.

I get to a screen that says "Missing Operating System" and cannot do
anything further.

In set-up Harddrive is first in the boot order, but I don't know if
my
system actually does try to access it first.

The drive is set to Cabele Select and is on the second connector from
the end of the cable.(My DVD drive, with WindowsXP disk inside, is on
the end).

Any advice would be appreciated.

Thanks.

Darren Harris
Staten Island, New York.

 

[Shadow36]

I have a Western Digital WD400 drive that I am attempting to format.

It is a used drive, but it at present has no operating system on it.

I get to a screen that says "Missing Operating System" and cannot do
anything further.

In set-up Harddrive is first in the boot order, but I don't know if
my
system actually does try to access it first.

The drive is set to Cabele Select and is on the second connector from
the end of the cable.(My DVD drive, with WindowsXP disk inside, is on
the end).

Any advice would be appreciated.

You need a special cable to use cable select. Set it to master and your cd
drive to slave.
..

 

[Rod Speed]

I have a Western Digital WD400 drive that I am attempting to format.

It is a used drive, but it at present has no operating system on it.

I get to a screen that says "Missing Operating System" and cannot do anything further.

In set-up Harddrive is first in the boot order, but I don't
know if my system actually does try to access it first.

The drive is set to Cabele Select and is on the second connector from the
end of the cable.(My DVD drive, with WindowsXP disk inside, is on the end).

Any advice would be appreciated.

You arent succeeding in booting from the XP CD for some reason.

Have you got the DVD drive jumpered for cable select too ?

 

[Searcher7]

1st, what are you trying to boot to instead, assuming you
have some other boot media is this media tested/working with
this or some other system?

2nd, is the boot media drive confirmed working in this
system or some other?

3rd, temporarily set the bios to make the other boot device,
not the WD drive, the first in the boot order just to rule
out this potential bios glitch.





Ok, I should read ahead more often... Confirm the DVD drive
is jumpered correctly.  See if it'll boot if you unplug the
WD drive from the cable.  If it will, see if you can jumper
the WD drive to slave and have it work.  If all else fails,
see if you can situate the two drives such that the WD is
master and the DVD slave, every now and then controllers
won't like a DVD drive as master, in particular I happen to
have one board like this that isn't very old, has jMicron
bridge ATA>PCIe chip for the controller, though the DVD
drive was some old spare, a Hitachi non-burner IIRC.

The system has a Maxtor hard drive in the middle of the cable that is
set to "cable select". The DVD drive at the end of the cable is set to
"master".

This works fine.

Now when I take out the Maxtor drive and replace it with the Western
Digital I'm trying to format and install XP on, I only get the
"Missing Operating System" message, regardless of whether the WD drive
is set to "cable select" or "slave".

Since the XP disk I have must go into the DVD drive does that have to
remain at the end of the cable?(Because of the tight area and length
of the cable I have to keep the DVD drive at the end anyway).

I know there is nothing wrong with the DVD drive or XP disk, because
they both were used to install to the previous drive that went down in
this same system.(See "Help: PC's Dead").

The boot order shows the following:

1. +Hard Drive
2. CD-ROM Drive
3. +Removable Devices
4. Network Boot
<Enter Setup>

No matter what I highlight nothing changes and when I go back to see
the boot order it remains as above. And the components with "+" are
supposed to allow you to expand to see what else is there, but I can't
figure out how to do that.(I don't see a floppy drive reference on
that list).

The system will show the following on boot-up, regardless of whether
the "cable select" or Master/slave" options are used:

Primary Master [None]
Primary Slave [None]
Secondary Master [SAMSUNG DVD-ROM SD-61]
Secondary Slave [WDC WD400BB-00DEA0-(S] or [Maxtor 90650U2-(SS)]

Here are the Jumper Specs:
Samsung DVD: http://support.euro.dell.com/support/edocs/storage/489nx/en/jumpers.htm
Western Digital HD: http://www.lyberty.com/tech/hard_drives/WD_Caviar_WD400BB_specs/index.html
Maxtor HD: http://www.techadvice.com/specs/answer.asp?aid=378

Thanks.

Darren Harris
Staten Island, New York.

 

[Searcher7]

I'm only finding two alternatives.  Either the WD drive just
won't get along unless it's master, or it is not jumpered
correctly due to user error or a misleading label.

After taking out the DVD drive and swapping connectons outside the
case, I've tried all "Master/slave", "Slave/Master" and "cable select"
options with the WD drive at the end of the cable and the DVD drive in
the middle and vice versa.

No, your only limit on where the DVD drive is, would be what
options your bios allows for the boot device(s).  In ancient
times (maybe about 10 years ago) it was more common that a
system could only boot from the master device on the primary
channel, but today most bios can boot anything so long as
the devices themselves get along.


Yes, it is an unfortunate reality with most cases, but since
this is one unique system, since you are not an OEM needing
to find a way to do this procedure over and over again, it
could end up being worth the bother to just temporarily,
remove one or the other drive so that  you can put the HDD
on the end as Master, install OS and be done... though
there's still the remaining bug that it can't boot to the
optical drive which could eventually be annoying, but at
least you do still have the option of copying the OS
installation files to the HDD and installing the recovery
console to the HDD, making the optical drive seem a bit less
important for boot purposes unless you have more in store
for this system than just running windows.

??? I need to boot to the DVD drive so I can install to the hard drive
from the XP disk.

Try moving CD-ROM to #1 position, and check on a board  bios
update just in case there's some bug causing this.

I have no idea how to do that. It's a DVD drive. And like I mentioned
there is no way to change the boot order in BIOS. They won't budge.

The system will show the following on boot-up, regardless of whether
the "cable select" or Master/slave" options are used:

Primary Master   [None]
Primary Slave    [None]
Secondary Master [SAMSUNG DVD-ROM SD-61]
Secondary Slave  [WDC WD400BB-00DEA0-(S] or [Maxtor 90650U2-(SS)]

Here are the Jumper Specs:
Samsung DVD:http://support.euro.dell.com/support/edocs/storage/489nx/en/jumpers.htm
Western Digital HD:http://www.lyberty.com/tech/hard_drives/WD_Caviar_WD400BB_specs/index...
Maxtor HD:http://www.techadvice.com/specs/answer.asp?aid=378

Well it's good that you have jumper specs but I don't need
them, we just need to know that you have them and are
confident that is how your drives are jumpered, and if/since
CS didn't seem to work, trying master and slave would be the
next logical attempt.

I've tried all combinations.

Since you don't have anything on the primary channel, why
not try putting the WD drive there temporarily?  Sometimes
regardless of what is supposed to work, it is more expedient
to just try a few things and get it done if/when possible.- Hide quoted text -

Primary chanel? What's that?

Thanks.

Darren Harris
Staten Island, New York.

 

[Rod Speed]

The system has a Maxtor hard drive in the middle of the cable that is set
to "cable select". The DVD drive at the end of the cable is set to "master".

This works fine.

Now when I take out the Maxtor drive and replace it with the
Western Digital I'm trying to format and install XP on, I only
get the "Missing Operating System" message, regardless
of whether the WD drive is set to "cable select" or "slave".

Because for some reason the bios cant see the
bootable XP CD when the WD drive is present.

Does the DVD drive show up on the black bios screen when the WD is the hard drive ?

Try with the WD jumpered as master and the DVD drive jumpered as slave.

Since the XP disk I have must go into the DVD drive
does that have to remain at the end of the cable?

No, not if the drives are jumpered as master and slave.

Not even if you have both drives jumpered as cable select.

(Because of the tight area and length of the cable
I have to keep the DVD drive at the end anyway).

I know there is nothing wrong with the DVD drive or XP disk,
because they both were used to install to the previous drive
that went down in this same system.(See "Help: PC's Dead").

The boot order shows the following:

1. +Hard Drive
2. CD-ROM Drive
3. +Removable Devices
4. Network Boot
<Enter Setup>

No matter what I highlight nothing changes and when I go back to see
the boot order it remains as above. And the components with "+" are
supposed to allow you to expand to see what else is there, but I can't
figure out how to do that.(I don't see a floppy drive reference on that list).

Doesnt matter.

The system will show the following on boot-up, regardless of
whether the "cable select" or Master/slave" options are used:

Primary Master [None]
Primary Slave [None]
Secondary Master [SAMSUNG DVD-ROM SD-61]
Secondary Slave [WDC WD400BB-00DEA0-(S] or [Maxtor 90650U2-(SS)]

Why have you got both drives on the secondary ribbon cable ?

 

[Peter]

(e-mail address removed)>, (e-mail address removed)2.com
says...

The boot order shows the following:

1. +Hard Drive
2. CD-ROM Drive
3. +Removable Devices
4. Network Boot
<Enter Setup>

No matter what I highlight nothing changes and when I go back to see
the boot order it remains as above. And the components with "+" are
supposed to allow you to expand to see what else is there, but I can't
figure out how to do that.(I don't see a floppy drive reference on
that list).

So what is your motherboard? Pretty much all mobos allow changing of the
boot order. Normally somewhere on the screen it should tell you how.
Have you tried +/- or PgUp/PgDn or arrow keys etc?

 

[Searcher7]

The system has a Maxtor hard drive in the middle of the cable that is set
to "cable select". The DVD drive at the end of the cable is set to "master".
This works fine.
Now when I take out the Maxtor drive and replace it with the
Western Digital I'm trying to format and install XP on, I only
get the "Missing Operating System" message, regardless
of whether the WD drive is set to "cable select" or "slave".

Because for some reason the bios cant see the
bootable XP CD when the WD drive is present.

Does the DVD drive show up on the black bios screen when the WD is the hard drive ?

Try with the WD jumpered as master and the DVD drive jumpered as slave.

Since the XP disk I have must go into the DVD drive
does that have to remain at the end of the cable?

No, not if the drives are jumpered as master and slave.

Not even if you have both drives jumpered as cable select.

(Because of the tight area and length of the cable
I have to keep the DVD drive at the end anyway).
I know there is nothing wrong with the DVD drive or XP disk,
because they both were used to install to the previous drive
that went down in this same system.(See "Help: PC's Dead").
The boot order shows the following:
1. +Hard Drive
2.  CD-ROM Drive
3. +Removable Devices
4. Network Boot
   <Enter Setup>
No matter what I highlight nothing changes and when I go back to see
the boot order it remains as above. And the components with "+" are
supposed to allow you to expand to see what else is there, but I can't
figure out how to do that.(I don't see a floppy drive reference on that list).

Doesnt matter.

The system will show the following on boot-up, regardless of
whether the "cable select" or Master/slave" options are used:
Primary Master   [None]
Primary Slave    [None]
Secondary Master [SAMSUNG DVD-ROM SD-61]
Secondary Slave  [WDC WD400BB-00DEA0-(S] or [Maxtor 90650U2-(SS)]

Why have you got both drives on the secondary ribbon cable ?

Here are the Jumper Specs:
Samsung DVD:
http://support.euro.dell.com/support/edocs/storage/489nx/en/jumpers.htm
Western Digital HD:
http://www.lyberty.com/tech/hard_drives/WD_Caviar_WD400BB_specs/index...
Maxtor HD:http://www.techadvice.com/specs/answer.asp?aid=378- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

I put the cable on the Primary channel.(A converter for allowing my
now "unfindable" SATA drive to run on this motherboard was there
previously).

I figure out how to change the boot order.(I had to go deeper into
BIOS).

I started changing jumper settings and on the WD drive and DVD drive
again and finally got the installation started. Quite by accident, I
think. I mistakenly put the jumper on undocumented pins and now with
the WD drive at the end of the cable and the DVD drive jumpered to
slave I was able to start the installation.

The first Partitioning attempt took a few hours just to get from 95%
to 100%.

So now I'm running into a host of other barriers(as usual), requiring
a lot of restarts with very little information to move forward.

There was a problem with System32\Drviers\Ntfs.sys. A file called asms
couldn't be found. And now I can only get as far as Bad image
checksum("Urlmondll" may be corrupt).

Thanks.

Darren Harris
Staten Island, New York.

 

[Shadow36]

Where?
UDMA cables are the norm. Cable select works well.

That wasn't specified.

 

[Rod Speed]

I have a Western Digital WD400 drive that I am attempting to
format.
It is a used drive, but it at present has no operating system on
it.
I get to a screen that says "Missing Operating System" and cannot
do anything further. In set-up Harddrive is first in the boot
order, but I don't
know if my system actually does try to access it first.
1st, what are you trying to boot to instead, assuming you
have some other boot media is this media tested/working
with this or some other system?
2nd, is the boot media drive confirmed working in this system or
some other? 3rd, temporarily set the bios to make the other boot
device,
not the WD drive, the first in the boot order just to rule
out this potential bios glitch.
The drive is set to Cabele Select and is on the second connector
from the end of the cable.(My DVD drive, with WindowsXP disk
inside, is on the end).
Any advice would be appreciated.
Ok, I should read ahead more often... Confirm the DVD drive
is jumpered correctly. See if it'll boot if you unplug the
WD drive from the cable. If it will, see if you can jumper
the WD drive to slave and have it work. If all else fails,
see if you can situate the two drives such that the WD is
master and the DVD slave, every now and then controllers
won't like a DVD drive as master, in particular I happen to
have one board like this that isn't very old, has jMicron
bridge ATA>PCIe chip for the controller, though the DVD
drive was some old spare, a Hitachi non-burner IIRC.
The system has a Maxtor hard drive in the middle of the cable that
is set
to "cable select". The DVD drive at the end of the cable is set to
"master". This works fine.
Now when I take out the Maxtor drive and replace it with the
Western Digital I'm trying to format and install XP on, I only
get the "Missing Operating System" message, regardless
of whether the WD drive is set to "cable select" or "slave".

Because for some reason the bios cant see the
bootable XP CD when the WD drive is present.

Does the DVD drive show up on the black bios screen when the WD is
the hard drive ?

Try with the WD jumpered as master and the DVD drive jumpered as
slave.

Since the XP disk I have must go into the DVD drive
does that have to remain at the end of the cable?

No, not if the drives are jumpered as master and slave.

Not even if you have both drives jumpered as cable select.

(Because of the tight area and length of the cable
I have to keep the DVD drive at the end anyway).
I know there is nothing wrong with the DVD drive or XP disk,
because they both were used to install to the previous drive
that went down in this same system.(See "Help: PC's Dead").
The boot order shows the following:
1. +Hard Drive
2. CD-ROM Drive
3. +Removable Devices
4. Network Boot
<Enter Setup>
No matter what I highlight nothing changes and when I go back to see
the boot order it remains as above. And the components with "+" are
supposed to allow you to expand to see what else is there, but I
can't
figure out how to do that.(I don't see a floppy drive reference on
that list).

Doesnt matter.

The system will show the following on boot-up, regardless of
whether the "cable select" or Master/slave" options are used:
Primary Master [None]
Primary Slave [None]
Secondary Master [SAMSUNG DVD-ROM SD-61]
Secondary Slave [WDC WD400BB-00DEA0-(S] or [Maxtor 90650U2-(SS)]

Why have you got both drives on the secondary ribbon cable ?

Here are the Jumper Specs:
Samsung DVD:
http://support.euro.dell.com/support/edocs/storage/489nx/en/jumpers.htm
Western Digital HD:
http://www.lyberty.com/tech/hard_drives/WD_Caviar_WD400BB_specs/index...
Maxtor HD:http://www.techadvice.com/specs/answer.asp?aid=378- Hide
quoted text -

- Show quoted text -- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

I put the cable on the Primary channel.(A converter for allowing my
now "unfindable" SATA drive to run on this motherboard was there
previously).

I figure out how to change the boot order.(I had to go deeper into
BIOS).

I started changing jumper settings and on the WD drive and DVD drive
again and finally got the installation started. Quite by accident, I think.
Unlikely.

I mistakenly put the jumper on undocumented pins and now
with the WD drive at the end of the cable and the DVD drive
jumpered to slave I was able to start the installation.

WD drives of that era are unusual in that they have two different jumper configs,
one for master in a pair and the other for master with only one drive on the cable.

The first Partitioning attempt took a few hours just to get from 95% to 100%.

Likely the drive or the drive subsystem also has
a problem or thats the result of the illegal jumpering.

So now I'm running into a host of other barriers(as usual), requiring
a lot of restarts with very little information to move forward.

I'd go right back to the basics, leave the SATA converter out of the story
while you sort out the problem with the WD and DVD drives and then add
it back in later once you get the basics sorted out.

Try with the WD drive on the primary controller and the DVD drive on the
secondary controller, with both drives jumpered correctly for that config.

If you still have a problem with partitioning the WD drive in
that config, post an Everest SMART report on the WD drive.
http://www.majorgeeks.com/download.php?det=4181

There was a problem with System32\Drviers\Ntfs.sys.
A file called asms couldn't be found.

That may just be evidence that the WD drive is faulty, its not new after all.

And now I can only get as far as Bad image checksum("Urlmondll" may be corrupt).

I'd check that the WD drive is viable before doing anything more, using the WD diagnostic from the WD site,
before doing anything else. Ideally in a different system if you can do that easily, to eliminate any possibility
of a problem in the hard drive subsystem in the system you are having the problems with.

Its easy enough to resolve these problems by systematically
checking the basics like whether the WD drive is faulty or not.

 

[Mike Ruskai]

Bullshit. UDMA cables are the norm. Cable select works well.

That's a bit harsh. All 80-conductor cables support cable select, true, but
it was also true that virtually all 40-conductor cables did not. It's not as
if this change was announced when the newer cables came out. All they talked
about was the higher speed.

 

[Arno Wagner]

Early 80 wire ATAPI cables weren't set up for Cable Select. Unless the
cable is specifically marked as Master and Slave on the cable
connectors, treat it as a standard cable.

I think using cable select is amateur level, as it does force
you to physically move the drive to change M/S (unless the
drives are very close to the mainboard connector). Use jumpers
whenever possible. Additional advanate is that a drive stays master
or slave when it is removed from the computer.

Arno

 

[Arno Wagner]

On 26 May 2008 17:41:30 GMT, Arno Wagner <[email protected]>
wrote:

One could as easily say the opposite, it doesn't force you
to physically move the drive but rather move the jumper IF
you really needed to, but the whole point of CS is that you
aren't supposed to need move it at all.

The advantage of a drive staying master or slave? Wouldn't
that be a decided disadvantage having to keep changing the
jumper setting to get it to work?

By the data/OS/bootmanager on th drive a drive is already
configured as master or slave. If you have some external
factor (the cable) change that, you may get problems that
are pretty hard to diagnose for the novice.

I'd rather all systems used CS, that all devices were
designed with the expectation a CS jumpered device were
attached then to have the industry completely do away with
Master and Slave jumper settings.

And what to I do if I need to put a drive on the far end
of the cable (because of distance), but need to have it
being th other type? Pull my hair?

Face it, CS is a bad hack.

Arno

 

[Squeeze]

Arno Wagner wrote in news:[email protected]

I think

Yes Babblebot, you always were living dangerously.

using cable select is amateur level,

As are you, Babblebot?
Even with Cable Select you need to be aware of the rules.
At least with Cable Select you can't make mistakes with
the various jumper settings for single and dual drive use.

as it does force you to physically move the drive to change M/S

Now why would you want to do that for, Babblebot.
As long as there are no duplicate masters or slaves, all is fine.

(unless the drives are very close to the mainboard connector).

Which just shows why M/S has no significance whatsoever.
Which is why master and slave were booted from the specs
immediately after the first one and replaced by device0 and
device1 from then on in later specs.

Use jumpers whenever possible.

Yes, Babblebot, CS does require a jumper, very good of you.

Additional advanate is that a drive stays master
or slave when it is removed from the computer.

And possibly leave a non supported physical configuration if the
remaining drive is not at the end of the cable.
(That's not to say that that can't happen with cableselect though).

 

[Squeeze]

Mike Ruskai wrote in news:[email protected]

That's a bit harsh.

It's the proper response to Idjuts.

All 80-conductor cables support cable select, true, but it was
also true that virtually all 40-conductor cables did not. It's not
as if this change was announced when the newer cables came out.

That doesn't matter. It's the self-professed expert's
task to know about it when he gives expert advice.

All they talked about was the higher speed.

Right, therefor bullshitting should be allowed. Not.

 

[Squeeze]

RobV wrote in news:[email protected]

Switch the drives, or use Master/Slave jumpers. Cable Select will set
the drive at the end of the cable to Master and the drive on the middle
connector to Slave, so you must reverse the drives,

as the HD must be the Master drive.

Utter nonsense.

 

[Squeeze]

Arno Wagner wrote in news:[email protected]
What jumper.

Wrong.
If you remove a drive that was on the end of the
cable then the remaining drive needs to move there.

By the data/OS/bootmanager on th drive a drive is already
configured as master or slave.
Nope.

If you have some external factor (the cable) change that,
you may get problems that are pretty hard to diagnose for
the novice.

If removing a drive affects the bootorder then something
needs to be changed anyway. Computers are not for novices.

Whatever.


And what to I do if I need to put a drive on the far end
of the cable (because of distance),

but need to have it being th other type?

There is no such need, Babblebot.

Pull my hair?

Doh, you don't have hair, Babblebot?

Face it, CS is a bad hack.

So is IDE.
Moron.

 

[Arno Wagner]

Wait till you run into a "Y" Cable Select cable. The motherboard
connector is in the MIDDLE of the cable!

I think the ATA explicitely disallows this. Are such
cables out there?

Arno

 

[Igor Batinic]

Hi!

I think the ATA explicitely disallows this. Are such
cables out there?

Theoretically, "Y cable" is the same as ordinary cable.

A lot of brand name vendors used such a combination, the only thing to
take care is that all connectors must be used (as ATA specifies that
both ends of the cable must be populated).

Best regards,

Iggy