M
micky
Hi, all.
Background. Please skip to the line of caps if background bores you.
I'm not sure whether to start a new thread, or continue with the old
one. If your news reader is set up like mine and you keep posts for
years tacking on to a post from Nov 8, 2014, will cause the new post to
sort way off the screen. So after posting in the original thread, I
started to fear some people woudln't see it, even if others did. So this
is a new thread. Please chastise me if I should have done something
different.
Quoted below this new text, you'll see most of the details of my
problem, a drive that clicked on startup.
After this thread in early November, I made sure I'd backed up the
partition on each drive I also stopped turning off the computer since
Nov 8 and turned off the option to go into sleep, because it once
clicked coming out of sleep.
I also checked with two methods, one of them Windows Disk Management,
and all partitiions, 2 drives in the computer, and one bare 1.5T drive
in a BlacX caddy, with a backup partition for each of the two partitions
I'm using, are listed as healthy, (still today after the problem got
worse).
And everything has been fine for the last 7+ weeks until AVG said it was
now inactive because I was supposed to restart about 2 weeks ago (to
update AVG) and I didn't.
So yesterday I backed up again, restarted, used it, hibernated, and
today it wouldnt' start!!
HERE IS THE CURRENT SITUATION.
The computer would not start. The Dell XP startup screen showed up and
the computer clicked about 6 times when the progress bar (a series of
green boxes) was 1/4 of the way across, then sometimes 2 times 1/2 of
the way and maybe 6 more times 3/4s of the way. When the progress bar
got to the end, it just stayed there, until a black & white screen came
on with "SATA secondary dfive 0 not found".
In the BIOS, SATA Primary Drive is listed by model number, the word
"auto" and the size of the drive, about 250G.
However the SATA Secondary Drive has Unknown for the model number,
"Auto", and a question mark for the size. It is actually the same model
as the other drive.
I used Hirem's CD and its Mini XP to look at my drives. Using that, I
could look at the file list, edit text files, modify them and save them
on both drives!!!! It's mostly*** only startup that it gets stuck
on.
Boot.ini is on the C: drive, and the default partition was also on the
C: drive, I think. The default line in boot.in said
Default multi (0) disk (0) rdisk (1) partition (2)
I guess it's 2 because there is a hidden win98 partition on that drive,
copied from y previous win98 computer.
The other choice in the list was
multi (0) disk (0) rdisk (0) partition (1)
and I made this the default in C:\boot.ini .
Now , at least once, it booted just fine, and everything works just as
it used to.
I don't understand. It still has to go to the C
rive to read boot.ini,
but I guess that's the last thing it has to do with the C: drive. Now
boot.ini points to the D: drive, which iiuc is on rdisk0, which must be
okay! But even with the previous default to a partition on rdisk0, the
computer used the Windows directory on the D: partition. How is that
possible????? There is a windows directory on the C: drive,, but none
of the subdirectories ever get new files. (I forget how all this arose
because it's been maybe 8 to 10 years!!)
It's a DELL Dimension 4600, at least 10 years old, but with 4 installed
gigs of memory, it's been working fine. I'm trying to fix up a much
newer one, but always short of time.
This weekend is an example. I should be searching for a surgeon for my
just-diagnosed hyperparathyroidism, but instead I'm doing this.
I turned on the drive caddy, when I was last in the BIOS but the BIOS
didn't recornize it. I should have turned it on BEFORE I opened the
BIOS, right????? If I did that, and made the right partition of the
external drive the first hard drive in the boot order, that would also
have gotten me started, probably, right?
But what would be better, am I right, is to install the 2n'd partition
of the backup drive -- call the drive BBB- -- as the primary SATA drive,
an internal drive, and then back that up to a brand new drive? Rght???
Now the backup drive, BBB, has two other partitions on it, two copies of
the XP partition, one of them from yesterday, and the other older. It
will sitll work as the internal drive, right?
But maybe it's not so good to back up two different partitions to the
same drive, because of the situation I'm in now. Maybe what I shoudl do
is buy one or two more bare drives. The BlacX caddy has two slots and
it says you can copy a partition from a drive in one slot to a drive in
the other.
Any advice will be appreciated.
As it stands now, it seems if the second internal drive fails, I can
just install the backup drive in place of both current internal drives??
***One more thing. It doesn't click anymore since Windows is past
startup, but it pings quite a bit. 2 times, 4 times, 10 imes . It
didn't do that until the last hour yesterday. I'm in the basement and
it sounded like a thin screwdriver striking a water pipe, maybe from the
townhouse next door. When I put my hand on the drives, I don't feel
anything when I hear the noise. This is like clicking, right? It
means the drive is about to fail??
Background. Please skip to the line of caps if background bores you.
I'm not sure whether to start a new thread, or continue with the old
one. If your news reader is set up like mine and you keep posts for
years tacking on to a post from Nov 8, 2014, will cause the new post to
sort way off the screen. So after posting in the original thread, I
started to fear some people woudln't see it, even if others did. So this
is a new thread. Please chastise me if I should have done something
different.
Quoted below this new text, you'll see most of the details of my
problem, a drive that clicked on startup.
After this thread in early November, I made sure I'd backed up the
partition on each drive I also stopped turning off the computer since
Nov 8 and turned off the option to go into sleep, because it once
clicked coming out of sleep.
I also checked with two methods, one of them Windows Disk Management,
and all partitiions, 2 drives in the computer, and one bare 1.5T drive
in a BlacX caddy, with a backup partition for each of the two partitions
I'm using, are listed as healthy, (still today after the problem got
worse).
And everything has been fine for the last 7+ weeks until AVG said it was
now inactive because I was supposed to restart about 2 weeks ago (to
update AVG) and I didn't.
So yesterday I backed up again, restarted, used it, hibernated, and
today it wouldnt' start!!
HERE IS THE CURRENT SITUATION.
The computer would not start. The Dell XP startup screen showed up and
the computer clicked about 6 times when the progress bar (a series of
green boxes) was 1/4 of the way across, then sometimes 2 times 1/2 of
the way and maybe 6 more times 3/4s of the way. When the progress bar
got to the end, it just stayed there, until a black & white screen came
on with "SATA secondary dfive 0 not found".
In the BIOS, SATA Primary Drive is listed by model number, the word
"auto" and the size of the drive, about 250G.
However the SATA Secondary Drive has Unknown for the model number,
"Auto", and a question mark for the size. It is actually the same model
as the other drive.
I used Hirem's CD and its Mini XP to look at my drives. Using that, I
could look at the file list, edit text files, modify them and save them
on both drives!!!! It's mostly*** only startup that it gets stuck
on.
Boot.ini is on the C: drive, and the default partition was also on the
C: drive, I think. The default line in boot.in said
Default multi (0) disk (0) rdisk (1) partition (2)
I guess it's 2 because there is a hidden win98 partition on that drive,
copied from y previous win98 computer.
The other choice in the list was
multi (0) disk (0) rdisk (0) partition (1)
and I made this the default in C:\boot.ini .
Now , at least once, it booted just fine, and everything works just as
it used to.
I don't understand. It still has to go to the C
rive to read boot.ini,but I guess that's the last thing it has to do with the C: drive. Now
boot.ini points to the D: drive, which iiuc is on rdisk0, which must be
okay! But even with the previous default to a partition on rdisk0, the
computer used the Windows directory on the D: partition. How is that
possible????? There is a windows directory on the C: drive,, but none
of the subdirectories ever get new files. (I forget how all this arose
because it's been maybe 8 to 10 years!!)
It's a DELL Dimension 4600, at least 10 years old, but with 4 installed
gigs of memory, it's been working fine. I'm trying to fix up a much
newer one, but always short of time.
This weekend is an example. I should be searching for a surgeon for my
just-diagnosed hyperparathyroidism, but instead I'm doing this.
I turned on the drive caddy, when I was last in the BIOS but the BIOS
didn't recornize it. I should have turned it on BEFORE I opened the
BIOS, right????? If I did that, and made the right partition of the
external drive the first hard drive in the boot order, that would also
have gotten me started, probably, right?
But what would be better, am I right, is to install the 2n'd partition
of the backup drive -- call the drive BBB- -- as the primary SATA drive,
an internal drive, and then back that up to a brand new drive? Rght???
Now the backup drive, BBB, has two other partitions on it, two copies of
the XP partition, one of them from yesterday, and the other older. It
will sitll work as the internal drive, right?
But maybe it's not so good to back up two different partitions to the
same drive, because of the situation I'm in now. Maybe what I shoudl do
is buy one or two more bare drives. The BlacX caddy has two slots and
it says you can copy a partition from a drive in one slot to a drive in
the other.
Any advice will be appreciated.
As it stands now, it seems if the second internal drive fails, I can
just install the backup drive in place of both current internal drives??
***One more thing. It doesn't click anymore since Windows is past
startup, but it pings quite a bit. 2 times, 4 times, 10 imes . It
didn't do that until the last hour yesterday. I'm in the basement and
it sounded like a thin screwdriver striking a water pipe, maybe from the
townhouse next door. When I put my hand on the drives, I don't feel
anything when I hear the noise. This is like clicking, right? It
means the drive is about to fail??
(but there was no need whatsoever for the snide comment!)