hard drive has me puzzled

ok heres my puzzling tale:

I have a 2 year old 1.5gig pent system with an ABIT mb. The IDE Maxtor hard drive now refuses to boot in that system, it gives me the choice to boot to safe mode, last known good config etc etc. No matter what choice I make it acts like its going to boot but hangs in the process before it gets to a splash screen and I have to hit the reset button to "unhang" it. Enter computer#2 which is an AMD3700 processor on a Asus 8n5x mobo. When I install the hard drive in this system, it gives me the boot to safe mode, last known good config etc etc, but in this system, it starts to boot, then flashes a very brief BSoD (so fast I cant pause the system or read it) and then reboots the system back thru POST, regardless of which choice I make. Ok now heres the fun part now, I have a spare sits-in-the-closest 4.5 year old Pent III 1GIG machine on an old ASUS mobo and the dam drive boots fine on this machine....please tell me why I cant get it to boot on the original machine or the 3700? Also, I'll provide more details if you wish.

TIA,

Joe M.

 

First, be aware that booting to Windows should only be done on the machine it was initially formatted and installed on (just the installed part, technically, but you get the idea). With all the driver specification for motherboard, video card and sound, getting the drive to boot on a different machine is tedious and can cause many conflicts (and takes a ton of time!)

Which machine was the drive originally from? Do you plan to keep it in the original machine? if not, reformat and reinstall Windows. I also recommend running a drive utility to see if the drive has any corrupt sectors. Each big brand has their own drive utility.

 

Thank you for the reply, The HDD will not boot on the original system...it wont even slave on any other system for that matter either. But for some reason that old dust-collector 1Gig system is all it will work on. I did as you suggested and ran a drive utility on it and supposedly, its fine. I guess I'm going to just take the data loss on the chin, do as you suggest and reformat the darn thing.

Thnx for your help.

Joe M.

 

I wouldn't format the drive if it has data you wish to recover.

If you can't get it to work as a slave to the master it may just be jumper problems.
If the drive was a single drive in the original machine, Install it as the secondary master without a slave and you should be able to retrieve your data. That would in many cases mean being without you CDROM for a bit but only while you save your data.

Just so you understand correctly. Install the drive with the issues into a machine already running an OS as the secondary master without a slave.

 

Did you run chkdsk, or, scandisk, depending on your op sys.?

I have just recently had two Maxtors, under 2 year old die - I usually reckon them, but I have a sneaky suspicion yours is on its way - software , or, not saying it's o.k.- I was caught out, as I usually check if errors start coming, but missed it.As shnerdly says, Get your data off, If it will not read as a master (sometimes pc will not start with 2 masters, in IDE), try as a slave, on the p3, to get data of- or, as master on p3, and put another drive as slave, or use a usb stick,if not too much data. but then fully reformat it, and add it as a slave to whichever.

 

ok guys,

I've been beating the bushes (other hardware/software forums) and I think I found the source of my woes. This all started when I attempted to hook up another HDD drive using a USB connection. In the process of aquiring the drive thru USB, the computer went blank, rebooted to the safe mode choice screen and has not been able to fully boot since. After doing some research, I've found that the Nvidia chipset drivers will cause the very problems I'm having. Anyone else ever heard of the Nvidia drivers doing this and if so, how can I remove them?

TIA.

 

duped msg, sorry. Admin please delete this. Thank you

 

If you can get into safe mode and you look in add and remove, first , as if you installed that driver, it may be in there.
You could also try CHKDSK /R, (start, run, type in CHKDSK /R) as this could allow you back into Windows properly.
If not see if you can roll back the driver.

To see which driver you have, if you did not install it, you could use Everest 220, or, CPU-Z, or, Sandra Lite.

Otherwise, -This little spot has plenty of information.
http://www.playtool.com/pages/chipsetdrivers/chipset.html