Please help! Problem with HDD installation

Hi Guys,

I had a problem with my PC this morning, I brought it into MicroCenter. They told me pretty much to replace the Mobo, Graphics card, CPU. So I said, fine, at least I wont have any problems. 500$ later...
Im at my house, putting this thing together in the new case. I see that there is only one IDE slot on the motherboard, but I have a IDE cable with 3 female ends so its plugged into the mobo, then the HDD and then the CD Drive

Problem is I start it up and I can't boot from it, the CD Drive works but the HDD doesnt show up on the boot list. The HDD is straight from my old pc and has windows XP installed. The new mobo is a gigabyte S-Series GA-P35-DS3L/S3L

I ran some utility called XpressRecover2 but an error window popped up that says ide drive does not exist or all primary partitions are occupied

Please help guys Im 500$ in the bucket and I really need this PC running today.

 

I would be able to paypal 20$ or so if someone could help me solve this, on this thread or can call me <snip> desperate! :cry

 

First, make sure that the HD is powered. Those molex connectors sometimes must be pressed in a bit harder than you'd think is nessesary. Second, try to boot with only the HD connected. Third, double check the jumpers on each device. The usual config for this is HD = Master, and CD = Slave. The Master device is always the furthest down the cable, as in:
[MB]=========[CD]===[HD]
For cabling convenience, you could change the jumpers so that the CD is Master and the HD is slave, so long as the master device is the last one in the chain.

 

Hi prometheos, thank you for the advice
I removed the IED ribbon from the CD Rom, now it goes HD=unplugged=HDD

I start it up normally and it says Disk Boot Failure insert system disc
I built my old computer a long time ago, I don't have the windows disc anymore. the guy at microcenter told me that with these parts I should be able to run from my drive OK

If I now hit F12 and go to the boot menu, I click Hard Disks and the only listing under Hard Disks is Bootable Addon Disks, I click it and it gives me the disk boot failure again.

 

Your situation doesn't sound good. Without the ability to boot, there isn't much to offer. Do you have a friend with an XP disk. If you borrow that disk, you could try the XP repair option. Other than that, I don't know what to tell you.

 

No now I'm at the point where I will probably buy windows. So If I buy XP, I can try repairing it, or re-installing it right? I am worried that this whole ordeal is going to leave me with a blank HDD

 

I would try to salvage it, even if it meant buying another XP CD. If salvage isn't possible, then, at least you'll be ready to format and start again. This time, you'll have the original CD.

 

Last question. Since my new Mobo has only 1 IDE slot, does that mean I can only power two resources?! Meaning MOBO=CD=HDD? And nothing else? So I can't have two HDDs without taking out my CD Rom Drive? Or can I buy an IDE cable that has 3 slots?

Thanks :cool

 

I am having a similar problem with a new WD HDD. One thing I know is that when you update to a new HDD, XP remembers the previous setup on the PC. You can't just take your old HDD and slap it into a new, different PC. I have been told by a professional PC repairman that I have to buy another copy of XP Pro. But, cheer up! You can get an OEM version of XP Pro on eBay for about $60. Check it out. Then you will have a new XP Pro CD. I hope this helps, John A. Rish:wave

 

Ok Guys, I suspect that this problem might have something to di with the fact that my old setup was 86x and my new processor is 64x i think. I downloaded the 64x ubuntu and burned it to a cd. I try booting from it and hit install and the monitor goes black and the green light goes orange.

:<

If I get ubuntu or a new xp running, can I get the old files off of my old HDD even though its 86x?

thanks

 

I belive you can only have 4 IDE devices on a normal mobo. The older ones would have 2 ports on the mobo, for 2 IDE cables to hook up in totall 4 devices.

If you got a new motherboard that is different from yours, you most likely need to reinstall your OS.

You should be able to get your files, but be carefull installing different OS's. You might want to try a 'live CD' Linux first to make sure all will work. If your mobo only has one IDE slot, you can have 2 devices. Or you can get an add on card and add SATA, IDE drives via that.

You seem to be bouncing around a bit. If you have data on a hard drive you need to salvage, take your time, and it should work out. Don't just start installing stuff.

E