Hard Drive Problems (yes it is a bigger prob than you think)

Ok. I have a 200GB Western Digital WD2000 HDD with Windows XP Home. I was running it on my regular computer when the PS and Mobo decided to die/fry/whatever. The HDD and all its data were fine. So I hooked the HDD into my old computer as the master and Windows gave me that reg me in 3 days thing. I was like "Ok that's plenty of time to back everything up." Well the next day I booted it and it gave me a two day ultimatum when I decided to boot the BIOS for fun. While I was in the BIOS I noticed the date and time were off. Well I fixed that and when I rebooted the comp the HDD wouldn't work. So I booted it as a slave. It didn't show up anywhere. So I ran several different Linux live CDs and only Mepis Linux would read it. So I took it to my friend who I consider my immediate superior with computers and he looked it with Win 2k and he got it working on his computer by right clicking My Comp, manage, disk managment, right clicking on my HDD and asigning it a new drive letter. Well when I did that EVERYTHING was greyed out except format and help. Yes the HDD shows in disk managment.

Does ANYONE know...
A.) What the hell happened.
B.) How to get it to read as a slave.
C.) How to get it to read as a master.

Please someone help me.

 

Did your copy of XP come pre-installed?
Is it OEM?

These types of copies do NOT like having the hard drive switched. In fact, according to an MS tech support, you would be lucky that it would boot at all, if this is the case.

Heh, I've done it myself.

 

It's an OEM. Ya I know you aren't supposed to switch the Mobo on Win XP but I had to salvage my data somehow and get my other HDD going BUT this should not have happened. I think it may have somehthing to do with me fixing the BIOS time.

 

How old is your machine?

The reason I ask is this: a seriously-inaccurate date and time in your BIOS usually means that the back-up battery for the CMOS chip that contains your BIOS is failing. When the battery dies, the CMOS chip loses the information that has been set in the BIOS setup -- including your hard drive information.

Newer machines will interrogate any installed hard drives to determine their operating geometry on boot-up, but older machines may not be smart enough to do that. So when the drive geometry is lost, the BIOS can't access the hard drive at all. The contents of the hard drive are still there; they just can't be accessed.

Check the hard drive settings in your BIOS. If they aren't what they should be, replace the CMOS battery and re-establish the hard drive settings -- and any other BIOS settings that are not the default settings.

The CMOS battery is usually good for 5-7 years, depending on its type and the usage the machine gets.

 

The mobo is a little over 3yrs and it has the newest BIOS for it. I don't know why it was off. Maybe I never set it but I want to know how to get the HDD working again. That is my main concern.

 

Maybe the CMOS battery crapped out a little early. Have you checked your BIOS settings to be sure that you haven't lost the hard drive settings?

 

Umm no I haven't done that but where would I look in the BIOS for such information?

 

Also the battery is good.

 

You can download a manual for the MSI K7N2 Delta Series of mainboards at <http://www.msi.com.tw/program/support/manual/mnu/spt_mnu_detail.php?UID=436&kind=1>. Page 3-6 and following explains the hard drive settings in the BIOS. "Auto" is the most likely setting, but that doesn't always work. You may need to look up your documentation for your hard drive to be sure that the settings are correct if the "manual" setting is used.

 

Well I tried that but it had absolutely no affect what so ever. When I try to boot the HDD as a master it boots to the point where it says Verifying DMI Pool Data... and just sits there and never gets past. I was wondering if the recovery console on the Win XP disk would do anything and if it does how do I use it? BTW thanks for all your help so far.

 

Looks like a hardware problem of some kind -- but you already knew that.

If you Google the phrase "DMI Pool Data", the first two hits deal with computers hanging at that stage of the boot process. Check out these links:

<http://www.computerhope.com/issues/ch000474.htm>
<http://www.duxcw.com/faq/computer/dmi.html>

Both offer several possible causes of a system hang at that stage, with some possible fixes.

 

Ok. I want to try the bootable floppy option but to my knowledge Win XP won't let me make one. Is there a way to make a Win XP bootable floppy?

 

You could probably boot into Win XP from the Win XP CD-ROM. But I'll leave a boot floppy for Win XP to someone who knows that version of Windows better than I do.

 

This makes me wonder whether you have your HDD on the right cable connector... is your master on the END of the IDE (assuming) cable, and the slave on the connection closer to the mobo? Setting the hard drives to cables select with your bios on autodetect should set things up properly for you.

 

I tried booting the XP CD but there isn't an option that lets u boot into windows. There is that repair/recovery console thingy but I don't kno how to use it so I didn't touch it.

Yes the HDD is on the right cable connector.

 

Sorry but KABUMP!

 

:/ so no one knows what's wrong?

 

"sighs" this may be a lost cause.

 

xp recovery console is a "dos like" interface....there are certain commands for recovery purposes...try typing "chkdsk" at the C:\ prompt (assuming that's the drive letter for that drive) prob would help if you only hook up that hd for the time being

 

Hey buddy, dont give up !
what your actually asking is that all you want to do is backup your data from that drive correct? ok
if you have the original windows disk or even the one that came with your pc, use it to repair windows but onbly do this in the machine that your hard drive will be living in from now on ok, the recovery console is very intimidating i agree, but all you need to do is go through the "repair" part of the task, it will look as if its going to reinstall windows and will probably give you the option to format a partition, but you can pass on formatting just keep plodding along the repair root and installation path etc.. it will re write all the windows files for you without touching your "my documents" bit.
HOWEVER i do have a slightly different approach to rescuing your data. by its natural being windows XP is designed with security in mind and will protect your data from being read by another person on another computer with your hard drive in it. the way you can get around this security loophole is simple. if your not bothered about windows and just want your data back,(please tell me you put important stuff on a different partition) and IF all your partitions are formatted as NTFS, all you need to do is get hold of PARTITION MAGIC and CHANGE the FILE FORMAT from NTFS to FAT32 but DO NOT FORMAT THE DRIVE, just CHANGE THE FILE TYPE. it will do its thing and warn you that you will lose all security descriptors, but hey you want your data back yeh ? thats the way i had to do it after i STUPIDLY ENCRYPTED my files on my other partitions. when i reinstall windows the encryption key was different and i couldnt access ANY files, that is untill i changed the file table to FAT32 it works dude, and you can always reformat after you get your files back and make a fresh windows again. PS FAT32 will not let windows XP run, it will be useless, but you will be able to access the HD on a win 2K, win ME, win 98, win 95 machine and should be able to at least get back into your files and get your data back

 

hmm that is very interesting. ill try the recovery thing first. i would much rather salvage the hdd than reformat it b/c dial up is not friendly to updating things. thank you very much.

 

Ok I have made a little progress. Now the computer hangs after it says Verifying DMI Pool Data...........Update Success. I did this by doing Method Two on this site http://www.dewassoc.com/support/win98/verify_dmi_data.htm. I tried the recovery console but it doesn't seem too helpful but I'm gonna go read up on it.

 

Kabump

 

ugh so umm does anyone know anything that could help me?

 

Google the phrase "Verifying DMI Pool Data" -- with the quote marks. You'll get several hits that address that issue. Perhaps one of them will point to a solution.

 

Wait a minute.....Why arent you supposed to switch the MOBO on Winxp?

 

If its WinXP OEM, its supposed to recognize your MOBOs S/N (or some other identifying number on it) so by switching MOBOs, XP will see different S/N's and yell at you...basically

 

check this
on your friends machine he has to take ownership of the drive he should right click on the letter and from there security and ownership rights
this will add a id number to the file system will not hurt the info or any other setup
the xp os has seen the time stamp and you will have to add a new reg key or reenter look for fix's for this
this can only be done from cd boot device
if you had partitioned the drive properly you could have just reinstalled the OS
the rule for safe hard drive setup is main c; about 8 to 10gb
breakup the rest no larger than 35% of disc make the rest ext2 file system ,but ntfs is OK