Alright, you wanna play rough?

I first thought it was malware...then discovered it was software...and now I believe it is in fact....a hardware problem.

So, what I need to do is install windows on my D drive, the one drive that is not screwy. The problem is how to remove everything from the c drive. Do i bother formatting it or should i just pillage what I need from that drive and then remove it myself?

 

If C and D are separate physical drives.
Remove C
Promote D to master with its jumpers
Install Windows on new master now called C
Set old C to slave
reconnect old C now called D
Copy what stuff you wnat
use Fdisk or Diskpart to delete the partition on the screwed drive
Create new partition
reformat new partition.

Studio T

 

Yea, I'm pretty sure I don't know how to make one a master. I tried but now it says system boot failure. I put all the cables back and it still says that...


PROBLEM

 

Picture of jumpers attached. The settings for master, slave, and cable select enabled are on the label on the hard drive. If your IDE cabkes are cable select then the cables choose which is master and which is slave. Also recheck your cable connections.
Bug

 

Well...then I completely screwed up.


I'll try to fix this...but...sigh.

 

I....I seriously have done so much more harm to my computer since finding this site. I don't blame you guys, I just...Oy, I gotta get professional help in the sense that someone will get this thing out of my hands and into the hands of someone who knows what they're doing and is most importantly not me.

 

I started with old computers I got at thrift stores for 5 or 10 dollars, or from people who were getting new ones after their old one had failed. When I got the first one working by taking out a master that was toasted, and replacing it with the slave it had, after changing one jumper, and installing an operating system, I started wondering, what else can I accomplish. What I learned I learned on line at sites like this one, and others, no formal training, just the desire to know more about how and why it worked, and not just be satisfied weather it did or didn't. We can learn from our mistakes, and I have been told that in the end, they are the only things we can truly call our own.
Bug

 

Lets start with some basics.

Are the drives as in Bug's picture and do they use flat, ribbed data cables
and a large rectangular connector?

These are called parallel ATA or PATA. This is also often called IDE.

If the drives are conected with a thin round data cable they are called serial ATA or SATA.
This type does not use jumper settings.

Assuming you have IDE

The master drive is connected to one end of the flat cable. The motherboard to the other. A slave drive is connected to any middle connector.
Make sure the cable is in the correct way around. The coloured stripe on one edge goes toward the power connector.

There should be a diagram of jumper setting on the label of the hard drive itself. Post the make and model number. Look at the example in this thread.

http://forums.majorgeeks.com/showthread.php?t=128982

 

Thank you for your words of support.

Ok, apparently I have one SATA and one IDE


The make and model of the "good" drive is: Western digital WD2500JS - 55NCB1

The make and model of the "bad" drive is: Western Digital WD600BB - 75CAAD

 

I interpret these codes as

good drive

250Gb SATA 2
speed = 7200 rpm

Bad drive

60 GB ATA 100 (IDE)
speed = 7200rpm
made for Dell OEM

Is the pc a Dell?

What recovery disks do you possess?
You will need extra drivers to be able to make the SATA drive bootable. You have to load these from a floppy. Windows setup asks for them at installation time.

 

The bad drive is from a dell. The rest of the computer I built. Not a whole lot of recovery options available, I think.


Also...I have no floppy drive.


how screwed am I?

 

Update, have found a USB attached floppy drive.

I went on Driversguide.com and found a data lifeguard for the HD of Western Digital.

Attempting fix.

It says it has found no Western Digital drives on the system. So are my cables not connected? I've double checked them.

??

 

I've been able to get it to recognize...what else, but the BAD drive.


anyhow, I assume this is a step up??

Update:

I have run SeaTools for DOS and confirmed that there are errors on the C drive.

Still can't get it to recognize the D drive. siiiiiiiiiigh

 

Still looking for help.

Just can't figure out these SATA drives. I followed a walkthrough and it still won't recognize. what am I doing wrong?

 

If you have been rebuilding a partly scrapped Dell, saving the hard drive, operating system and license then we need to go back to basics as Dells are Different.

Are you trying to install from the Dell OS CD?
Factory Dells contain an extra partition which Seatools may well regard as corrupt and which will confuse a non Dell bios and prevent operation. Your C drive may actually be perfectly OK, just you settings needing adjustings.

So lets have a full description of your system and the actual problem. Has the system ever worked?

Full marks for building your own by the way.

 

I am trying to install from the Windows XP Install CD that came with it, but it does say Dell on it.


I also may have just deleted the factory dell partion. I hope...this is not a huge problem.

Yes, the system has worked before. For a year at least. I doubt my C drive is ok, its almost 5 or so years old. But hey, your call. As for the system specs, I can't give you more than this:

Microsoft Windows XP
Home Edition, version 2002
Service Pack 2 (This was before everything went wonky)

My computer is:
AMD Athlon(tm) 64 Processor
3200+
2.01 GHz, 2.00 GB of RAM

Thanks for the full marks, but I had some help.

 

I also am searching for the driver.


I thought I had found the driver, put it on a floppy and put it on during the windows installation, but it still can't find the D drive. I got the driver from Western digital's website.

SIGH


Is it the connections? I don't think so.

 

Anybody?

 

Motherboard or if original Dell, model no?

 

I'll have to do some checking for the motherboard info.

Its not a dell, basically the only thing from the dell was the original HD, the C drive.

Over and over again I am given the problem of it not being able to locate the D drive. I can get it to locate the C drive, but not the D drive. If I could just somehow get the D drive recognized, so many of my problems would be over.

 

Here: http://support.wdc.com/download/index.asp?cxml=n&pid=15&swid=9
I think this is the driver. Put this driver on a floppy, then boot your computer up with the windows disk. Watch the bottom of the screen and it'll say if you need to install a third party driver press F8. Press F8 and follow the instructions. This should fix the issue.

 

I think you will find that those motherboards that require additional SATA drivers will only accept them from floppy. There's progress

 

pick up a usb floppy drive. they're not that expensive, plus you need it.

 

My original compliant regarding no floppy has been fixed. I will attempt the fix.

 

I installed the driver per instruction and I still get

"Setup did not find any hard disk drives installed in your computer."

DARNIT!

 

The only problem I can think of would be the connection. But I'm checked and rechecked.


....

 

What happens if you remove the SATA drive, and boot the pc to the recovery console (enter R at welcome to setp screen) and enter the command

chkdsk /r

This should check the ide drive.

 

Once again, this is a problem, because when trying to repair windows on the C drive, I am given the prompt: type the administrator password.

I do.

I am told it is invalid.

This happens two more times and then reboots.

So I can't really check the disk anyhow.

My best bet I still think is to get access to the D drive and just forget this C drive.

 

So have you tried just hitting return instead of entering a password?

 

Yes.

Same thing.

 

Ok.

So a friend of mine is telling me to just get a new IDE drive for C. He says that if my system initially used the IDE C drive, it needs one to recognize the D drive. He says this should fix everything.

comments?

 

Would there be something that would make my computer only capable of using the Sata only if the IDE is master? Is there a way to undo this?


He also suggests (my friend) hooking up the SATA drive to another computer to see if it works somewhere else.

Sigh.

I now have gotten something called "NVIDIA RAID Utility" popping up. Which seems to recognize my SATA drive. But when I try to finish it states an invalid number of drives selected.

 

It seems like this Nvidia Raid Utility is the only thing that will acknowledge my SATA drive.


It also seems to be very complicated.


http://www.rioworks.co.jp/bios/files/hdamd/NVRaid_11.pdf

There's a setup for it. But I'm not even sure I should be messing with it.

Why is this the only thing that recognizes my SATA drive?

 

??

If you tell us what the motherboard is we can read the manual and help further.

If you just keep downloading software and say this driver doesn't work or partly works we can't comment without that info.

 

Don't mess with the raid stuff. It's not what you need. Just open the side of your case and tell us what the motherboard's manufacturer and what model it is.

 

Ok, I believe it is an MSI with model number N1996.

 

MSI is a motherboard manufacturer but that's not a motherboard number, probably a date.

Below is a list of MSI boards for AMD.

Choose away



Socket AM2 (AMD K9)
K9NG Neo-V K9NGM K9NGM2 K9NU Neo-V K9NVG Neo-V Socket 939 (AMD K8)
K8M890M2-V K8N Diamond K8N Diamond Plus K8N Neo2 Platinum K8N Neo2-F K8N Neo2-FX K8N Neo4 Platinum (PCB 1.0) K8N Neo4 Platinum (PCB 3.0) K8N Neo4-F (PCB 1.0) K8N Neo4-FI (PCB 1.0) K8N Neo4-FX (PCB 1.0) K8N SLI Platinum K8N SLI-FI/ F K8NGM2-FID/ IL/ L K8NGM2-NBP K8T Neo2-F/ FIR Socket 754 (AMD K8)
K8M Neo-V K8MM-ILSR K8N Neo Platinum K8N Neo-FSR/ V V2.0 K8N Neo-LSR/ FSR K8N Neo-V2 K8NGM-V K8NM-FISR/ ILSR K8T Neo-FSR/ FIS2R K8T Neo-V K8TM-ILSR Socket A
745 Ultra 746F Ultra K7 Master K7MG Pro K7N2 K7N2 Delta-L/ ILSR K7N2 Delta2 Platinum K7N2 Delta2-FSR K7N2 Delta2-LSR K7N2G K7N2GM-L K7N2GM-V K7N2GM2-LSR/ ILSR K7N420 Pro K7T Master K7T Pro K7T Pro2 K7T Pro2-A K7T Turbo K7T Turbo Limited Edition K7T Turbo2 K7T266 Pro K7T266 Pro2 K7T266 Pro2-A K7T266 Pro2-RU K7T266 Pro2-U K7TM Pro KM2M Combo-L KM3M-V KM4AM-L KM4AM-V KM4M-L KM4M-V KT2 Combo KT3 Ultra/ Ultra-ARU KT3 Ultra2 KT3 Ultra2-C KT3M KT3V KT4 Ultra KT4A Ultra KT4A-V KT4AV KT4M KT4V KT4V-L (v1.1) KT6 Delta-SR/ LSR/ FISR/ FIS2R KT6-V KT6V-SR/ LSR KT880 Delta Series MS-6330 LE3 MS-6330 Lite MS-6340M MS-6340M V3.0 MS-6340M Ver5.0 MS-6378 MS-6380LE MS-6390 MS-6568

 

I apologize.


K8N Neo4, thats listed on the motherboard.

 

there are 4, I'm going to look at the manual for the neo4 platinum (pcb1.0)

K8N Neo4 Platinum (PCB 1.0) K8N Neo4 Platinum (PCB 3.0) K8N Neo4-F (PCB 1.0) K8N Neo4-FI (PCB 1.0) K8N Neo4-FX (PCB 1.0)

Please look at the links on this page and go to the pictures of the mobos.

Then you can confirm which one you have.

http://global.msi.com.tw/index.php?func=prodarchive&maincat_no=1

 

First of all thank you for putting up with me.

Secondally, they all look similar if not the same, but by the photos, I can rule out the Neo4 FX for starters, if the pictures hold to be true.

 

From what I can see you need to
enable the SiI3114 as on page 3-14 of the manual
enable the SATA drive as RAID page 3-18
Declare the SATA drive as JBOD page 6-9

this last will force the bios to make the SATA bootable. You need to run the Silicon Image bios as per page 6-5 to do this.

 

Ok, I've gotten the RAID to recognize the SATA with a new array. Now I am attempting to boot from the windows CD. But it won't let me boot from the CD anymore. I have checked the BIOS settings. <sigh>

 

Did you watch the screen at power on for the message
'press any key to boot from CD'


I will look at the rest of the bios settings later today

 

Yes, I did watch for that. It does not pop up. I also made sure that the CD was set to boot up in the boot up options.

Still nothing.

 

Does the bios recognise the CD? Also is it on the same cable as the failed IDE hard drive or its own?
I note in the manual the mention round ide cables, not flat ones. Which sort are you using.

 

Its on its own set of cables, and it looks like I am using the flat IDE cables.

It doesn't make sense, the CD boot was working earlier in the week, and I can't imagine what could've changed.

But oh well, I'm sure we'll figure this out.

 

Does the bios recognise the CD?

That is when you boot to bios is the drive listed?
That is not the same as does it boot from the cd

 

No, for some reason the CD drive is not listed. Neither of them are.

 

Do you have the D bracket with the 4 LEDs at the back of the pc?

refer to p2-24 of the manual

When you enter the bios set the IDE to AUTO in the Standard Cmos Features Screen
and reboot to detect drive
refer to page3-6 of the manual

Are you using F11 to choose boot device or the setting it in BIOS?

have you disturbed any of the cables to the drives?

 

I do have the D bracket with the 4 LEDs.

IDE has been set to Auto.

I am using the setting it in BIOS for the boot device.

I have disturbed some of the cables as I've been doing this, but everything seems connected still.

Sucess, I can now boot from the CD!

I am booting the Windows Setup CD. I have to press F6, right? To install a driver? I am using the driver shown to me earlier: http://support.wdc.com/download/inde...&pid=15&swid=9

Setup still did not find any hard disk drives.

Damn.