Hardrive Installation

Hi peps,

I got an old computer as a gift. It came with a 333 mother 256 mem. It also came with XP and 4.4 gig (2.5 on Western Digital Drive and a 1.5 Seagate Drive). So, I wanted to give it some hope by putting more hardrive. I bought a Maxtor 40 gig to replace a seagate 1.5 gig hardrive. My goal was to leave the primary drive as it would still have the OS on it. Somehow the computer did not recognize the Maxtor HDD. I changed the BIOS settings to Auto Detect HDD, but it got stuck on detecting the Secondary HDD. So, I tried to put things back to their original setting. Reinstalling the Seagate Drive back. I ended up getting NTLDR missing. So I did some research got the boot disk. and i'm now stuck in DOS mode with not a clue to what to do next...Please help..

 

ME 2! does it say its not an operational disk or something?

 

No, I don't get that message, my message is just in Dos Mode
A:\>

 

You mention that it's an older machine.

I suspect that you may have a machine that has a BIOS limitation that will not allow the BIOS to see a drive larger than 8.4GB. If so, go to Maxtor's site and get a copy of the MaxBlast drive installation software. It includes a drive overlay that allows older BIOSes to see larger drives. The page here may help, but be sure that you get the right version for your system. The document here may also be useful. Pay careful attention to whatever documentation comes with MaxBlast -- it's important.

Can't help you with the "NTLDR missing" message -- I've no idea what that relates to. It may relate to the filesystem you're using on your boot drive; perhaps it relates to the OS on that drive. Google the phrase -- at least one of the 25,300 hits you'll get should be useful.

What filesystem and OS are you using? The information may be needed to guide you to a solution. Filesystem possibilities include FAT16 (used with DOS/Win9x), FAT32 (used with Win98/SE), and NTFS (Windows XP). There are several other filesystems as well. OSes include Windows 9x/Me/NT/XP, Linux, etc.

 

Thanks Rob,

What I ended up doing was using the Maxtor HD on my other comp HP 1 gig mem, 3.2 mother, and 120 HDD. it worked out well. I changed the BIOS settings and then used the MaxBlast3 Software. It was a relief to finally complete something successful. Now I have 40 gigs free. Thankyou for you Help. I'm going to post up another plea for help with trying to get the other computer back to it's originality. I tried connecting the hardrives back the same way they originally were, but I keep on ending on DOS mode after booting it. The HDD are NTSF

 

NTFS, huh? Not my area of expertise. Time for me to withdraw in favour of someone who can offer competent advice.

 

The appearance of a DOS-mode A:\> prompt suggests that you have booted from a boot disk in your A: drive. What response do you get when you remove the boot disk from your A: drive and attempt to boot from C:?