hard drive reformating issues

Hello im new to the forums..

The problem im having is that i recently reformatted my hard drive after downloading comodo which seamed to mess with my system

I have reformated this drive before with out any problems but this time it wouldnt find the cd rom drive so i could boot from that via the xp disc even though i set it correct in the bios.

I eventually managed to do it by swaping the cabled around on the mother board that go to the hard disc and the cd rom drive

Problem is that even though it formated the hard drive it could never manage to write the windows files to it always saying there was a copy of windows on this drive which im assuming was the files neded to boot up that windows must of copied over.. anyway the problem i have now is i think i might of wiped every thing from the disc including all partitons..

Now a screen comes up saying hard ware configeration problems can not find boot drive even though its set right in the bios example to boot from cd first..i have tryed booting from the hard drive but the same screen comes up

If i unplug the hard drive it finds the cd rom drive and allows me to go through the process of reformatting again but of course it stops short of doing so becouse it cant find the hard drive which i obviously unpluged but as soon as i plug the hard drive back in the same screen comes up saying can not find hard drive to boot from

Im assuming this has some thing to do with the ini file needed to boot up

Im not sure why it wont boot up or find the hard drive or why it wont know boot from the xp disx...its a new ish drive and was working perfectly fine before i reformated

Hard drive is a 500gb western digital sata drive has yellow cable running in to it from mother board as does the cd rom drive

And a giga byte mother board

Any help would be much appreciated

Thank yu

Nicholas

 

Thanks for the quick reply..the computer its self is some thing some one built for me so i cant realy say what it is but it does have a gigabyte quad 6 mother board if im correct..it has yellow cables running into the each of the drives ie hard drive and cd dvd drive..

Sorry im not very educated when it comes to computers hence probaly the reason i messed things up in the first place

Should note that i have reformated this drive before and all drivers loaded fine and windows installed correctly

when booting im not prompted to install additional drivers

Also the copy of xp i have is an original

I will try what you say and get back to you

many thanks

 

Hello again ...the mother board number for my gigabyte s series is

GA-G31M-ES2L

as i mentioned i cant boot in to the cd to access windows at all..if i unplug the hard drive it reconises the cd rom drive but of course this is not much use as the hard drive is disconected..

When i conect the hard drive also it comes up with hardware configeration problems and cant reconise the hard drive to boot from even though i have set it in the bios to boot from the cd with the hard drive set as secondary in the boot sequence..

The trouble is when i reformatted the hard drive it deleted all partitions or at least i think it did

The weird thing is ..is when i first set out to reformat the hard drive it went through the motions of reformatting but when it went to load the windows files a message kept coming up saying there is allready a windows file on the hard drive ...so i decided to delete the partitions

Ever since doing this is wont boot in to the windows cd any more and as mentioned before a mesage comes up on a blacked out window saying hard ware configeration problems can not find the hard drive to boot from

This all sounds confusing i know...i am at a lost to what to do ...basically all i want to do is reinstall windows after doing a reformat

As to pressing f6 i cant even get to the blue windows screen .. it will only come up if i disconect the hard drive then it will boot to the cd but once i connect the hard drive again the black screen appears saying it can not find the boot drive

 

Ok here is the message that apears on screen as i boot.

Windows could not start becouse of computer disx hardware configeration problems
could not read nfrom the selected boot disc
check boot path and disk hardware

I should mention that on bootup the information comes up on bottom of screen giving me th option to boot from cd as this is how i set it in bios

when i press anykey as it commands me to for booting in to the cd the above notice comes up

I have allready formated the disc

 

I don't think that this has anything to do with your Hard drive, I think that the Xp disc that you are trying to install may be corrupted, can you get a lend of another one (it must be the same os disc i.e home,basic or pro) and try that, or if you have another machine available to test your disc.
Also did you try taking out the coin shaped battery, it is located on your motherboard, as David suggested ??.

iain.t :major

 

Hi iain yes i tryed the disc in another computer and it works ok..I know it works in the computer im working on anyway becouse when i unplug the hard drive leads it automatically boots to the cd..the only trouble is when the hard drive is connected it dosnt get past the black screen that says "could not read from selected boot disk"

And yes i took out the batery on the mother board and put it back in after 15 mins and reset time and date but still it wont boot to the cd....

Im not sure what the sequence is in the boot but ive set it to boot from cd and the messgae comes up at the bottom of screen asking me if i want to boot from cd and i press any key as indicated but still it boots to the black screen saying cant find selected boot disc

starnge thing is ..when i first set out to reformat ir never did this it went straight to the disc cd with windows in it and allowed me to reformat ...its only since i think i messed up the format that its started to go to that black screen and tell me it cant find the boot disc

But as i said if i unplug the hard drive it finds the cd rom disc with windows in it ..of course i cant continue as the hard drive isnt pluged in but as soon as i do plug it in the same thing happens ....ie... cant read from selected boot disc...why is it if i unplug the hard drive it can read from it but when there both connected it cant

I know i have it set right in the bios

Just before the problems started i had reformated hard drive but i did it wrong and deleted the partitons..could that be the problem... wouldnt windows just give me a choice to repartition the drive ...or maybe it cant read the ini file on the drive but surley if i have reformated the drive the ini file wouldnt be there anyway and windows would automatically copt it over as it loads windows files in to memory

Hope this helps in some way

 

Sorry david i thought i had responded back to you ..i took the battery out of the mther board as you sugested but it still didnt work ..i also reset time and date

but the same message comes up ..."can not read from se;ected boot disc " even though i have it set correct in the bios

I have the original mother board drivers too but even when i put this in to the cd rom the message still reads the same " cant read from selected boot disc"

The only way i can boot to the cd rom disc with the windows disc in it is if i unplug the hard drive then it seams to reconise the cd rom disc but as soon as i plug it back in it goes back to the black screen saying " cant read from the selected boot disc" even though i have the order selected right in the bios


I wanted to add this problem only occured after i tryed to reformat ..well i did reformat but it wouldnt copy the windows files over to the hard drive and said there was already a file on the hard drive with windows and it wasnt recomended to copy files to same folder.... so i ended up making another folder with out realy realizing what i was doing and that still didnt work so i ended up deleting the partition and reformatting again thrn that black screen came up and has ever since sayig cant find the selected boot disc

This is so frustrating

 

Hi Nicholas,
Can you try to boot a linux live cd, if you can, you can run disc checks to see if there are any bad sectors. I am not an expert in this but I have read many posts about how booting a live cd like linux can help resolve a lot of issues.

http://www.ubuntu.com/desktop

just run it from the disk no need to install it on the drive.

Just to check something else out.... have you tried changing the the cables to the harddirve and cd/dvd drive... check to make sure that they are securely pressed in.

iain.t :major

 

Hello iain .. no unable to boot from linux live cd...big fan of linux .. but unfortunatly i do video post production work and my application are not compatable with it so im using windows now


Ive also checked the disc leads and swaped them aroud and nothing ..also they are in securly

Looks like i will have to take it in to a shop tomorrow morning which i was trying to avoid at all cost

Oh well ...this one has baffled me

 

Hi Nicholas,
Do you have another machine that this drive can be slaved to?? I'd hate to see you go and waste money on what could be a reletively easy fix!!!
If you can and the drive is being recognised, download ccleaner if you dont already have it, http://majorgeeks.com/CCleaner_Standard_d5125.html , it has a disc wiper in the tools option, try and run it on your disc as this will over write anything on there with a pass of zeros, 2 or 3 passes should do it, it may take a couple of hours to run, but once finished you should have a drive that is in factory condition.

iain.t :major

 

When you delete the partition before you go any further you have to recreate the partition manually.

It's also possible that the cd rom could've given out on you. Do you hear the cd spinning on startup?

Just a thought that's crossed my mind when I was reading through the posts. There may be power going to the drive but it could also possible be toast as well. It seems odd that it won't startup from the cd not even a linux cd.

 

Thats a good idear iaian...i will try that at least that way i can boot straight from the hard drive

I noticed some thing ...even though i set the boot sequence in the bios i beleive that some times there are issues with this

I have a f12 function on computer that allows me to choose the boot drive regardless of bios settings but when i open it its on boot to flopy...it says scroll down with the arrow keys to pick a boot drive but the arrows arnt working for me to do that on the keyboard..normally you can just put the number in thats by each drive but mine arnt listed as numbers

The key board does work when i go in to the boot as when i set the bios boot sequence i can see that the bios is set to how i saved it out as

Will let the person know that has my computer right now what you said but that sounds like a sencible idear

Thanks

 

I just hope it works and you don't have to pay a techy to sort it.

Good luck!!!

iain.t :major

 

Have you ever thought about doing a system restore to before you loaded the program?

Just curious if you decided to try it?

Start
All Programs
Accessories
System tools
System restore

From there you can change the date to the last time you remember when the computer was working correctly.

 

If i unplug the hard drive it finds the cd rom drive and allows me to go through the process of reformatting again but of course it stops short of doing so becouse it cant find the hard drive which i obviously unpluged but as soon as i plug the hard drive back in the same screen comes up saying can not find hard drive to boot from

Is the cable sata or IDE?

Have you removed any of the cables from the motherboard? Have you removed any of the power cables from the drives? Check to make sure your cables are not loose and properly seated.