screw up cause of low disk space

I have 2 sata drives and one IDE. My C drive, which is on the first sata drive, had only 3 gigs left. I unzipped a 3 gig file in drive H, to be stored also in drive H. But I didn't know that Windows temporarily stores unzipped files in the C drive.

After the unzip, Windows was moving files from the temporary C drive to the H. And that's when windows tells me C drive is low on space. So I checked, and only 120 megs left. So I cancelled the transfer, but Windows didn't take back all the space.

So I decide to reboot. I press on turn off computer, and like a retard without thinking, I press on turn off as it was saying it's gonna update my windows.
So it does the update and turns off.

When I turn it back on, it displays :

No array is definded........

press <ctrl + f> to enter fastbuild(tm) utility or
press <esc> to continue booting


If I continue booting, it says: Error loading OS
If I press ctrl +f, it brings me to some place where it seems I can set arrays(i know almost nothing about arrays)

So I put the WinXP cd in, and I try to repair Windows. So I press enter to install windows, but it doesn't see my two Sata drives. It only sees my IDE

I have no idea what's going on. can someone help me?
thx for reading all this

 

Looks like you have a raid controller that that motherboard.

Can you give some specs on that board? Was this home built? Store brand?

Were the two sata drives seperate hard drives in explorer? Or was it one drive?

In addition, since windows couldn't find the other sata drives, I'm guessing you may need to somehow download the sata/raid drivers. Yes, raid drivers, even if you are not raiding the hard drives.

You may also want to check the bios for raid controllers and turning it off. Sata to IDE instead of RAID. Something like that. Won't know until we know what brand of motherboard you have.

 

I'm sure something went wrong when windows was updating without enough disk space.

anyway, to answer your questions. My mobo is a K8V SE deluxe. I built the pc myself by buying the parts and assembling it myself. My first sata drive had two drives (C and D). My second sata drive was H. no raid here.


here's what I get by pressing ctrl+f:

Auto setup ........ [1]
view drive assignments ................ [2]
define array ....................[3]
delete array....................[4]
rebuild array.......................[5]

when I press 2, it brings me to this page:

Code:

Channel:ID          drive model    capacity      assignment   mode
1:SATA WDC      blablabla        fsajklklfds      free           U6
2:SATA Matrox   blalbalba        jklfdlkfd          free          U6

 

Disconnect all the drives except for the drive that holds c and d.

Boot the computer with just that.

Any improvements?

 

I get the same page as "no array is defined"

and then it says no hard drive detected

 

It appears that the motherboard is recognizing the drives, which is a good thing. Go into your BIOS and check the boot order with just drive C: connected. Make sure that drive is set to boot first, or second after the CD drive. To reinstall Windows, you may need the "F6" floppy disk that's usually required when installing WinXP to a SATA drive. When you boot to the CD, the very first blue setup screen will say "Press F6 to install third party SCSI or RAID drivers." and you need to press F6 when you see that, and you'll need the floppy already made and ready.... try booting to the recovery console (you might need the F6 floppy for this also) and fixing your boot.ini file and your boot sector.... follow the steps here: http://icrontic.com/articles/repair_windows_xp

 

I didn't have time to try this yesterday, i'll do it now.

btw, the C drive is recognized by the recovery console

 

actually, when I look closer, I see that my C: in the recovery console, is actually my C:\downloads in my windows. So I don't have access to c:\windows, nor any other directory that c:\downloads. basically I just have access to some iso game files and stuff like that.. weird...

so i guess i'll have to try with that diskette and f6

 

ok, I tried the F6 thing, and here's what it shoots at me:

Setup could not determine the type of one or more mass storage devices installed in your system, or you have chosen to manually specify and adapter. Currently, setup will load support for the following mass storage devices:

<none>

*To specify additional SCSI adapters, CD-ROM drives, or special disk controllers for use with Windows, including those for which you have a device support disk from a mass storage device manufacturer, press S.

*if you do not have any device support disks from a mass storage device manufacturer, or do not want to specify additional mass storage devices for use with Windows, press ENTER.





hmmm... what happens if I press on "delete array" in fastBuild?