Win XP doesn't like a second hard drive!

  • Thread starter Thread starter N9WOS
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N9WOS

I have a little hardware/software problem.

As my reply to another post stated.
I am surprised by WIN XP's stability.
I have stuck in, and viciously removed many programs without causing any
damage.
The system is extremely tolerant to crashes.
Crashes vary rarely bring down the OS.
I can directly shut off the computer (if needed)
without any real worry of damaging the system.

The OS installation is two years old, and it gives me zero problems except
for one thing.

For the first year and a half, I had two western digital hard drives in it.
Almost exactly the same type drives except for size,
one 30G and one 40G Ata 100 with 80 wire cable.
Same year exec..
The 40G was formatted with NTSF
The 30G was formatted with Fat32
Computer is a celeron with 256MB of ram.
Two built in ultra ata 100 hard drive controllers.
Hard drives were on the primary controller,
and a CDRW and one DVD drive was on the secondary.
Everything was in harmony.

But at some unknown time... Something changed.
I don't remember if I installed an update just before then, or what.
The only thing that sticks in my mind is booting to a DOS boot disk just
before it happened.

When I restarted the computer and booted back to win XP,
the blue screen came up and said I had a serious hardware problem,
and if I had just installed any drives, to please remove them, and reboot.
With this tag line....
"stop: 0X0000007B (0XF96DD528,0XC0000034, 0X00000000, 0X00000000)"
I quickly tried rebooting, but the same screen came up every time.
When I booted back to dos, everything was fine, I could see both hard
drives.
Both disk checked out perfectly.
But it would not boot to win XP
I checked the bios setup, and everything was in order.
So I disconnected the CDRW and DVD drives, and tried, no luck.
I removed all the expansion cards, no luck.

Removed the second hard drive... BOOTED!!!!!!!!
Put back in expansion cards... Booted.
Connected CDRW and DVD drives. Booted.
Everything worked perfectly fine.
CDRW and DVD drives worked perfectly fine.
ATI tv wonder and modem worked perfectly fine.

Reconnected second hard drive, NO boot.
Removed second hard drive, Boot.
Reconnected second hard drive, and tried various jumper settings. No boot.
Changed hard drive cable, no boot.
Tried putting the second hard drive on the second controller, as the primary
With no other CDRW or DVD drives. No boot.

Changed the priority of the controllers and put the
primary hard drive on the second Controller (now forced primary),
and the second hard drive on the primary controller. (now forced secondary)
Still no boot.
Removed the second hard drive,
leaving the primary drive on the secondary controller.It booted fine.
Put the CDRW and DVD drives on the primary controller, booted fine.

And with all the above, if I booted to dos, the second hard drive was
perfectly visible.
And it worked perfectly fine.

Changed everything back to native settings and put the primary drive on the
primary controller.
Took the second hard drive, and put it on a win 95 computer,
to copy all Relevant stuff off of it, and then give it a good check out.
I was able to read all the stuff off of it, and it checked out fine.
Couldn't find any problems.

Reformatted it, and put it back in the Win XP computer. NO BOOT
Zeroed the hard drive so it wouldn't even appear as a logical drive, still
No boot.
Put in on secondary controller, still no boot.
Removed the second drive, boot.

I had a 40MB tab of free space on my primary drive, way at the very end.
I formatted that as a drive, to see if the presence of a second logical
drive would.
Win XP booted fine, with a second logical drive on the primary hard drive.
Formatted it to NTSF, then fat 32, then fat 16, no problems.

So I dragged a perfectly good old 200MB hard drive out of the
"really big mound of junk" That comprises the back half of my room.
It had a fat 16 partition on it.
Connected it to the second IDE controller.
It would not boot!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Booted fine to DOS and was perfectly useable.
Removed the partition on the old hard drive.
It still wouldn't boot!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I tried updating all my motherboard drivers and hard drive controller
drivers.
Sill no boot with a second drive.
Tried shutting down all ultra ATA stuff.
Still no boot with second drive.

Put the primary hard drive, with xp on another computer,
as a secondary drive,NO problems.
Put two other old drives in the celeron computer.
Primary one was 200Mb and secondary was 120MB
Primary was formatted with dos, and win 311 for workgroups.
Everything worked fine.
Put a 600Mb drive in for the primary, and installed win 95
No problems.
Seen both drives fine, and worked fine.

I constantly checked for any viruses or other oddities on my drives.
But I seen nothing.

For what ever reason.
It will boot with multiple other IDE devices. (CDWR, DVD)
It will boot with multiple partitions on one hard drive.
BUT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
When ever there is a second physical hard drive
connected anywhere to my computer,
No mater if it has a partition or not.
No mater if it's connected to a second controller,
No mater if it's ultra ATA 100, or straight old IDE
My computer will not boot to WIN XP!!!!!!!!!!

Current situation.
I moved the 30G drive to another system that is now it's permanent home.
40G drive with win XP remains on in it's normal celeron computer home.
With NO second hard drive.
I have had zero problems with ether hard drive or computer.

I don't have anything that could be lost by running a fresh install of XP.
I have duplicate copies of all the files on the home network.
I have the install files, and CD's for all the programs.
But I just don't want to take the time to completely reinstall
every piece of software that I have on my system.
I Currently have over 100 and some odd programs on my system.
Everything from DOS program through win 3.11 and on to win XP programs.
I am a person that uses all the programs on the occasional basses,
but I never really use any one program all the time.

I could try to restore an older backup of the win xp install, but that may
cause irreversible damage
Which would could force me to do a fresh reinstall of the system, if the
backup is corrupt.
I would prefer to only do that if I have a totally lost install of XP on the
primary drive.

To tell the truth.
Since I have no possible lost files, or programs,
I would actually prefer to do a fresh install if I have to.
Compared to restoring the back up.
Because the current backup is the backup of a two year old install,
which has eventually lead me to the problem that I am currently having.

So if I restore the backup, the problem will probably reoccur.

But I would prefer to avoid the backup, and the fresh install, if possible.
Bla bla bla bla cry cry cry bla bla bla....(sniped bleeding heart stuff)

Down to the basics.
Is there anything blatantly simple that I am overlooking?
One setting here, or there, that I am to stupid to notice?

If there is one simple cause to the problem,
I would like to fix it, so I can have a second hard drive.

If it is not a simple problem, I will stick with one hard drive,
as long at it gives me zero problems in that configuration.
I have a home network to spread things out on.

If it is not a simple problem, what is the problem?
So I can avoid it if I have to reinstall win XP in the future.

In the end, should I just chuck it up to bit rot?
 
On Fri, 31 Dec 2004 22:21:23 GMT, "N9WOS"

If there is one simple cause to the problem,
I would like to fix it, so I can have a second hard drive.

If it is not a simple problem, I will stick with one hard drive,
as long at it gives me zero problems in that configuration.
I have a home network to spread things out on.
Click to expand...

From your vague recollection of booting a floppy for
something, is it possible you updated the bios?

Recheck the jumpers on the drives and try another IDE cable.
Perhaps you have and I overlooked it in your post.

You might try a newer bios update, then if that doesn't
help, try the prior (or best guess at prior version),
original bios it ran when working. Perhaps the system is
struggling with insufficient or aged power supply and the
extra drive is too much?
 
For the first year and a half, I had two western digital hard drives in it.
Almost exactly the same type drives except for size,
one 30G and one 40G Ata 100 with 80 wire cable.
Same year exec..
The 40G was formatted with NTSF
The 30G was formatted with Fat32
Computer is a celeron with 256MB of ram.
Two built in ultra ata 100 hard drive controllers.
Hard drives were on the primary controller,
and a CDRW and one DVD drive was on the secondary.
Everything was in harmony.
Click to expand...

Is the boot drive NTFS?
But at some unknown time... Something changed.
I don't remember if I installed an update just before then, or what.
The only thing that sticks in my mind is booting to a DOS boot disk just
before it happened.
Click to expand...
When I booted back to dos, everything was fine, I could see both hard
drives.
Click to expand...

What do you mean 'see'? You can access both drives from a DOS
boot?...both the NTFS and the FAT drive?

Because of the length of your post, I'm gonna throw in random
things...like...

Change your optical drive letters...R for the ROM...W for the writer.
Reconnected second hard drive, NO boot.
Click to expand...

How far did the boot GET? No BIOS? No drives? Was the IDE cable put
on correctly?
And with all the above, if I booted to dos, the second hard drive was
perfectly visible.
And it worked perfectly fine.
Click to expand...

A DOS boot shouldn't let you access both drives.
Reformatted it,
Click to expand...

I lost track. Which drive is 'it' now?! lol

Try calling them Drive A and Drive B.
and put it back in the Win XP computer. NO BOOT
Zeroed the hard drive so it wouldn't even appear as a logical drive, still
No boot.
Put in on secondary controller, still no boot.
Removed the second drive, boot.
Click to expand...

Again...lost track. But, for the most part, every time you do things
like this, yer changing the drive letters...and what the computer
searches for and configures...unless you have the drives letters at
the end of the alphabet as I suggest.
I had a 40MB tab of free space on my primary drive, way at the very end.
I formatted that as a drive, to see if the presence of a second logical
drive would.
Win XP booted fine, with a second logical drive on the primary hard drive.
Formatted it to NTSF, then fat 32, then fat 16, no problems.
Click to expand...

You were able to create a 40 meg NTFS partition?
So I dragged a perfectly good old 200MB hard drive out of the
"really big mound of junk" That comprises the back half of my room.
It had a fat 16 partition on it.
Connected it to the second IDE controller.
It would not boot!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Click to expand...

You keep saying 'not boot'. You need to tell us how far the boot
process went/goes? Did the machine not come on at ALL? Did it boot
to the CMOS screen?
For what ever reason.
It will boot with multiple other IDE devices. (CDWR, DVD)
It will boot with multiple partitions on one hard drive.
BUT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
When ever there is a second physical hard drive
connected anywhere to my computer,
No mater if it has a partition or not.
No mater if it's connected to a second controller,
No mater if it's ultra ATA 100, or straight old IDE
My computer will not boot to WIN XP!!!!!!!!!!
Click to expand...

Won't even boot into safe mode? Again, we need to know how far the
boot process has gone...when you say 'will not boot'.
Current situation.
....whew...

I moved the 30G drive to another system that is now it's permanent home.
40G drive with win XP remains on in it's normal celeron computer home.
With NO second hard drive.
I have had zero problems with ether hard drive or computer.
Click to expand...

And you probably have a C, D, & E. You SHOULD have a C, R, & W...if
yer gonna introduce a D somewhere down the road.
I could try to restore an older backup of the win xp install, but that may
cause irreversible damage
Which would could force me to do a fresh reinstall of the system, if the
backup is corrupt.
I would prefer to only do that if I have a totally lost install of XP on the
primary drive.
Click to expand...

What is it that you want to do?
So if I restore the backup, the problem will probably reoccur.
Click to expand...

Which would be a BAD thing?! You'd get a good education. And, THIS
time, give us more detail as to what is happening.

But...AGAIN...what are you trying to accomplish at this juncture?
Down to the basics.
Is there anything blatantly simple that I am overlooking?
Click to expand...

Drive letter designation for optical drives.
One setting here, or there, that I am to stupid to notice?

If there is one simple cause to the problem,
I would like to fix it, so I can have a second hard drive.
Click to expand...

I forget. What WAS the problem? lol


Have a nice one...

Trent©

Follow Joan Rivers' example --- get pre-embalmed!
 
Is the boot drive NTFS?
Yes


What do you mean 'see'? You can access both drives from a DOS
boot?...both the NTFS and the FAT drive?
Click to expand...

Yes.
With added drivers, DOS can use an NTSF partition.
Without the added drivers, a dos boot disk is worthless with XP and NTSF.
Because of the length of your post, I'm gonna throw in random
things...like...

Change your optical drive letters...R for the ROM...W for the writer.
Click to expand...

I will try that.
How far did the boot GET? No BIOS? No drives?
Click to expand...
It gets past the all the bios stuff fine, and just starts to load XP.
It comes to the blue screen that I mentioned
If I go safe mode, it gets to some that I can't remember at this moment.
I will have to go through it again and write down the actual point in which
it dies.
Was the IDE cable put
on correctly?
Yes!!(grumble.)


A DOS boot shouldn't let you access both drives.
Click to expand...

Why not?
I lost track. Which drive is 'it' now?! lol

Try calling them Drive A and Drive B.
Click to expand...
all right :-)
Again...lost track. But, for the most part, every time you do things
like this, yer changing the drive letters...and what the computer
searches for and configures...unless you have the drives letters at
the end of the alphabet as I suggest.
Click to expand...

As I stated, I will try that.
You were able to create a 40 meg NTFS partition?
Click to expand...

Yes
(Goes to disk managment,)
F drive is currenttly fat 16
(right clicks F drive, clicks format Selects NTSF, selects ok)
"formating........."
"F drive statius healthy"
"File system NTSF"
It apears to be NTSF! :-)
You keep saying 'not boot'. You need to tell us how far the boot
process went/goes? Did the machine not come on at ALL? Did it boot
to the CMOS screen?
Click to expand...

It gets past all the CMOS stuff and gets to the win XP loading screen.
The one with the little animated loading bar on it.
And then it goes to the blue screen I mentioned in my first post.
With any other operating system, it completely boot up fine.
With WIN XP and one hard drive, it boots up fine.
Won't even boot into safe mode? Again, we need to know how far the
boot process has gone...when you say 'will not boot'.
Click to expand...

It will not boot into safe mode.
I will go in the file by file mode and get the last file it stopped at.
And you probably have a C, D, & E. You SHOULD have a C, R, & W...if
yer gonna introduce a D somewhere down the road.
Click to expand...

When I started out, it had the first hard drive as C:
The DVD drive as D:
The CDRW drive as E:
When I added the second hard drive a year an a half ago, it came up F:
Everything worked without a problem.
Until now.
What is it that you want to do?


Which would be a BAD thing?! You'd get a good education. And, THIS
time, give us more detail as to what is happening.

But...AGAIN...what are you trying to accomplish at this juncture?
Click to expand...

I am wondering if anyone has seen the same problem with XP
and know of any fixes for it that I can implement.
Otherwise I will just leave it as is, unless the situation degrades,
and if that happens, I will do a fresh reinstall, which will take me days to
do.
I forget. What WAS the problem? lol
Click to expand...

Har har. :-P
 
From your vague recollection of booting a floppy for
something, is it possible you updated the bios?
Click to expand...

No BIOS upgrades.
The Mobo is a trygem imperial revision 2C,
with a celeron 2Ghz CPU
I haven't even seen a bios upgrade for it,
and to this date, I don't even know if this one has a flashable BIOS.
This one has a Intel 845GL chipset.
I have seen one bios upgrade for an older imperial Mobo,
but that had a different chipset.
Recheck the jumpers on the drives and try another IDE cable.
Perhaps you have and I overlooked it in your post.
Click to expand...

I have tried cable select, jumper select, and compatibility modes,
but no luck.
I have tried two other Ultra ata cables.
And a few non ata cables with the ultra ata support shut off on the
controller.
You might try a newer bios update, then if that doesn't
help, try the prior (or best guess at prior version),
original bios it ran when working.
Click to expand...

Not possible, see above.
Perhaps the system is
struggling with insufficient or aged power supply and the
extra drive is too much?
Click to expand...

I had thought about that
The system boots to xp fine with the second
hard drive connected to the power supply,
but not connected to a controller.
The voltage readings at the pins I could get too, were nominal.

I even dragged out an old full height 5.25 MFM hard drive,
and connected it to the drive power cable..
With that monster loading the PSU, it still booted fine, to win xp.
 
Yes.
With added drivers, DOS can use an NTSF partition.
Click to expand...

True. But that's not a DOS boot disk. You should not try to confuse
folks with your own terminology. You don't have a DOS boot disk. You
have a DOS disk with NTFS drivers...quite a difference.

And its NTFS...not NTSF as you keep typing.

Did you look at the partition? Is it set to active?
It gets past the all the bios stuff fine, and just starts to load XP.
It comes to the blue screen that I mentioned
If I go safe mode, it gets to some that I can't remember at this moment.
I will have to go through it again and write down the actual point in which
it dies.
Click to expand...

Try setting up that other drive as NTFS...repartition and
reformat...since the boot drive is NTFS. See what happens.

I had somewhat of a similar problem a couple of times. Boot NTFS
drive all of a sudden couldn't read the FAT32 secondary drive. Any
other OS as the boot drive could read the secondary drive. I finally
resolved the problem by repartitioning and reformatting the secondary
drive.

You aren't using...or haven't used...BootItNG, are you?

Why not?
Click to expand...

Simply because DOS can't read NTFS drives. You need to use additional
drivers to do this...as you know, since you explained it to me above.
Please don't try to confuse folks by calling what you used a DOS boot
disk. It was not. It was the non-DOS-standard drivers that made it
work.
Yes
(Goes to disk managment,)
F drive is currenttly fat 16
(right clicks F drive, clicks format Selects NTSF, selects ok)
"formating........."
"F drive statius healthy"
"File system NTSF"
It apears to be NTSF! :-)
NTFS


I am wondering if anyone has seen the same problem with XP
and know of any fixes for it that I can implement.
Otherwise I will just leave it as is, unless the situation degrades,
and if that happens, I will do a fresh reinstall, which will take me days to
do.
Click to expand...

You should probably be able to a repair install. I'd try that
first...whenever you think necessary...instead of a fresh install.
Har har. :-P
Click to expand...

As I said, I'd try an NTFS partition on the 2nd drive. Make sure you
set it up with 4k clusters.

How do you have your BIOS set up?...for PnP OS? If not, try it that
way...see what happens.

Good luck.

Have a nice one...

Trent©

Follow Joan Rivers' example --- get pre-embalmed!
 
And its NTFS...not NTSF as you keep typing.


NTFS
Click to expand...

Sorry, I'm a bit dyslexic in some regards.
I have a habit of mixing some letters, and changing
like sounding words with other.
 
Sorry, I'm a bit dyslexic in some regards.
I have a habit of mixing some letters, and changing
like sounding words with other.
Click to expand...

Is it possible you've jumpered the WD as "single" then
attached the other drive(s) but not changed the jumper to
'master'?
 
Is it possible you've jumpered the WD as "single" then
attached the other drive(s) but not changed the jumper to
'master'?
Click to expand...
I'm back!

When I started working on things on the 1'st,
the existing installation's functionality started going down hill.
Tried a over install (over existing winXP), but the installation degraded
rapidly
Tried a backup (still didn't gain two drive functionality)

Needless to say, I have finished repartitioning formatting and reinstalling
the OS,
and all the patches they could throw at me.

After I reinstalled win XP it now works with fine with two hard drives.
It still has the same 40GB primary hard drive.
And to make sure that I just didn't get a lucky harddrive combination,
I tried a couple different drives as the secondary hard drive.
All of them worked.
I even tried three hard drives.
(one primary and one secondary on the first controller, and one on the
second controller.)
Worked fine.
I tried four hard drives, and everything worked!!!!!!!!!!!

I don't know what it was.
Some piece of software somewhere on the disk that should or shouldn't have
been there?
Some automatic IRQ setting that wasn't reset until a clean windows install?

But my computer now has zero problems.
 
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