Installed second hard drive, now can't boot Windows 98SE

  • Thread starter Thread starter Folkert Rienstra
  • Start date Start date
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Folkert Rienstra

Obscure (rename or move it somewhere else) the windows directory on the 2nd drive, see what happens.
 
Why does Windows 98SE work with one IDE HD in my system but not two,
even though it's booting from the original HD?

I was running an 80G Seagate Baracudda V and installed an 80G WD HD to
make a backup of it, but it prevented Windows from booting completely,
except in Safe Mode. In normal mode I get an error message saying
that MPREXE caused an invalid page fault in MPRSERV.DLL, and when I
close the task the screen shows no icons, just the background, and the
task menu shows nothing but an empty entry. Windows won't reboot
except in Safe Mode, but everything is fine if I remove the second
drive. Disabling start-up programs through MSCONFIG didn't help, and
I even tried setting the boot partition on the second HD to inactive.

Each HD was on a separate cable with no other IDE devices in the
system. I did choose "cable select" for each and attached each to the
black connector, with the blue connectors going to the mobo.

The mobo is an ECS K7VTA3 v. 8 (VIA KT333 chip set, running fairly
recent 4-in-1 drivers that came on a CD).
 
larrymoencurly said:
Each HD was on a separate cable with no other IDE devices in the
system. I did choose "cable select" for each and attached each to the
black connector, with the blue connectors going to the mobo.
Click to expand...

Does the BIOS detect both drives correctly?
 
(e-mail address removed) (larrymoencurly) astounded us with:
Why does Windows 98SE work with one IDE HD in my system but not two,
even though it's booting from the original HD?

I was running an 80G Seagate Baracudda V and installed an 80G WD HD to
make a backup of it, but it prevented Windows from booting completely,
except in Safe Mode. In normal mode I get an error message saying
that MPREXE caused an invalid page fault in MPRSERV.DLL, and when I
close the task the screen shows no icons, just the background, and the
task menu shows nothing but an empty entry. Windows won't reboot
except in Safe Mode, but everything is fine if I remove the second
drive. Disabling start-up programs through MSCONFIG didn't help, and
I even tried setting the boot partition on the second HD to inactive.

Each HD was on a separate cable with no other IDE devices in the
system. I did choose "cable select" for each and attached each to the
black connector, with the blue connectors going to the mobo.

The mobo is an ECS K7VTA3 v. 8 (VIA KT333 chip set, running fairly
recent 4-in-1 drivers that came on a CD).
Click to expand...

"Cable Select" can be flaky, particularly with having 2 different drive
brand names, try setting each HD to "master" if they are on separate IDE
channels, making sure that your bootable HD is on the primary channel
 
WD drives have to be set to "single' drive(no jumper) not 'master' if
there is no slave.

CS must used with 80 pin ribbon cables
 
Phÿltêr said:
(e-mail address removed) (larrymoencurly) astounded us with:
Click to expand...
"Cable Select" can be flaky, particularly with having 2
different drive brand names, try setting each HD to "master"
if they are on separate IDE channels, making sure that your
bootable HD is on the primary channel
Click to expand...

I tried that with a 40-wire cable with the BIOS set for PIO 3 and UDMA
turned off (ECS K7VTA3 BIOS doesn't allow limiting UDMA speed), but it
didn't help.
 
2nd drive partition set to ACTIVE?
Click to expand...

Originally each drive's boot partition was active because each came
from a single-drive system, and I thought that this was causing a
problem, but it wasn't.

I also tried a Maxtor cloned with the contents of the WD, in case of
cable-select flakiness, but it didn't change anything.

All headaches were probably caused by the VIA 4-in-1 drivers (more
than one version tried) because the same errors occurred with a
VIA-based FIC VA-503+ mobo, but everything was fine when I ran both
drives with mobos based on Intel 810i, Intel 440BX, and SiS 735
chipsets. The funny thing is that I originally had no trouble setting
up my K7VTA3, a first with for any VIA-based mobo with me, so I guess
I was due for my quota of VIA problems. :(
 
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