Nightmare booting problems

  • Thread starter Thread starter pleb
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pleb

This is driving me mad ... a quick description:

2 hard drives - one with Vista one with XP dual booting quite nicely

Just installed the latest Vista build which has unfortunately over written
the MBR and now only boots into Vista, no Multi XP option listed or
available.

But here is the problem ... the PC suddenly stopped booting in that it went
past POST and halts with a blank screen with a flashing underscore in the
top left. After some troubleshooting I found that when the opitcal drive was
disconnnected the PC would boot.

A faulty optical drive I thought .... but after some more playing, if I
unplug one of the HDD's the optical drive then does work

Basically, I cannot have both HDD's AND the optical drive all connected or
it will halt after POST.

The only thing I tried before this happened was a Boot manager called BootIT
NG (http://terabyteunlimited.com/index.html) could be a coincidence

Can any one lend some ideas??

THANKS

Simon
 
pleb said:
This is driving me mad ... a quick description:

2 hard drives - one with Vista one with XP dual booting quite nicely

Just installed the latest Vista build which has unfortunately over
written the MBR and now only boots into Vista, no Multi XP option listed
or available.

But here is the problem ... the PC suddenly stopped booting in that it
went past POST and halts with a blank screen with a flashing underscore
in the top left. After some troubleshooting I found that when the
opitcal drive was disconnnected the PC would boot.

A faulty optical drive I thought .... but after some more playing, if I
unplug one of the HDD's the optical drive then does work

Basically, I cannot have both HDD's AND the optical drive all connected
or it will halt after POST.

The only thing I tried before this happened was a Boot manager called
BootIT NG (http://terabyteunlimited.com/index.html) could be a coincidence

Can any one lend some ideas??

THANKS

Simon
Click to expand...

I don't know how Vista handles IRQs etc. but it sure sounds like a
hardware conflict to me.
Is your BIOS set to allow the OS to determine hardware setup or does
BIOS do it itself? Always enable the OS option or you will get
conflicts between BIOS and OS. They both handle things differently.
 
I don't know how Vista handles IRQs etc. but it sure sounds like a
hardware conflict to me.
Click to expand...

HOw? It's not got that far yet. How can it be a hardware conflict when
it's the IDE controller that gets assigned an IRQ and not the drive?


--
Conor

I'm really a nice guy. If I had friends, they would tell you.

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pleb said:
This is driving me mad ... a quick description:

2 hard drives - one with Vista one with XP dual booting quite nicely

Just installed the latest Vista build which has unfortunately over written
the MBR and now only boots into Vista, no Multi XP option listed or
available.

But here is the problem ... the PC suddenly stopped booting in that it went
past POST and halts with a blank screen with a flashing underscore in the
top left. After some troubleshooting I found that when the opitcal drive was
disconnnected the PC would boot.

A faulty optical drive I thought .... but after some more playing, if I
unplug one of the HDD's the optical drive then does work

Basically, I cannot have both HDD's AND the optical drive all connected or
it will halt after POST.

The only thing I tried before this happened was a Boot manager called BootIT
NG (http://terabyteunlimited.com/index.html) could be a coincidence

Can any one lend some ideas??
Click to expand...
Having used Bootit NG myself, I can't see it being the source of the
problem.

Usually what you have is a sign that the PSU is struggling, i.e you add
another drive and then one of them can't be seen until another is
disconnected.

By unplugging the HDD do you mean the ribbon cable and power lead or
the power lead only?


--
Conor

I'm really a nice guy. If I had friends, they would tell you.

Earn commission on online purchases, £2.50 just for signing up:
http://www.TopCashBack.co.uk/Conor/ref/index.htm
 
are you connecting opticals and HD's on the same IDE channel while using
cable select? Don't. Use master / slave or better yet no opticals with HD
on the same channel.

you can fix the dual boot by doing a repair install of XP.
 
pleb said:
This is driving me mad ... a quick description:

2 hard drives - one with Vista one with XP dual booting quite nicely

Just installed the latest Vista build which has unfortunately over written
the MBR and now only boots into Vista, no Multi XP option listed or
available.

But here is the problem ... the PC suddenly stopped booting in that it
went
past POST and halts with a blank screen with a flashing underscore in the
top left. After some troubleshooting I found that when the opitcal drive
was
disconnnected the PC would boot.

A faulty optical drive I thought .... but after some more playing, if I
unplug one of the HDD's the optical drive then does work

Basically, I cannot have both HDD's AND the optical drive all connected or
it will halt after POST.

The only thing I tried before this happened was a Boot manager called
BootIT
NG (http://terabyteunlimited.com/index.html) could be a coincidence

Can any one lend some ideas??
Click to expand...
Having used Bootit NG myself, I can't see it being the source of the
problem.

Usually what you have is a sign that the PSU is struggling, i.e you add
another drive and then one of them can't be seen until another is
disconnected.

By unplugging the HDD do you mean the ribbon cable and power lead or
the power lead only?
----------------

That's a fair point, but all was working fine before - the only thing to
have changed is installing the new Vista build and/or using Bootit NG

When I say unplugged the HDD, I mean disconncted the SATA cable off the mobo

Simon
 
JAD said:
are you connecting opticals and HD's on the same IDE channel while using
cable select? Don't. Use master / slave or better yet no opticals with
HD
on the same channel.

you can fix the dual boot by doing a repair install of XP.
Click to expand...

The HDD's are SATA drives and on a seperate bus I think.

Everything was working fine before - the only thing to change was installing
the new Vista build and/or using Bootit NG

Simon
 
pleb said:
The HDD's are SATA drives and on a seperate bus I think.

Everything was working fine before - the only thing to change was installing
the new Vista build and/or using Bootit NG

Simon
Click to expand...

Something in the bios may have been changed, or as conor said the PSU is
struggling. This could happen 3 days after you install it or 3 years. One
day it works next day it doesn't.
 
It wouldn't matter how VISTA handles IRQ's because his problem is
initiating in the hardware level (BIOS), try explicitly setting the
jumpers on your Optical/HDD to master slave configurations instead of
using cable select (if you haven't already)

I need more config info: IE; What IDE's are your drives on, UDMA
enabled?, block mode enabled, is optical drive UDMA capable?

Gimme the works and hopefully i can be of some help
 
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