[njlock]

I recently got a blue screen error, (did'nt get the error code), I actually was'nt in the process of doing anything, I had returned to the room and the computer was frozen on this blue screen. Anyway when trying to restart it goes to this "sata primary drive 0 not found, sata secondary drive 0 not found" then inabout 30 seconds I get a " press F1 to continue or F2 for setup(?)" At first when I tried to press f1 to continue, it would'nt do anything, so I was able to get into the "f2 setup?" I was messing with settings (I Know, dangerous and stupid, but I was getting desperate) I remember setting All the drives (sata and hard drives?) to auto, and I think I disabled fast boot? Still was'nt able to get the computer to boot. I went back into the setup and went thru these settings again I don't think I changed anything, when I went to save changes and exit It surprised me by going to windows startup, now when I restart it goes to the "sata primary drive 0 not found, sata secondary drive not found" then to the "press f1 to continue" and it'll boot.
How can I get this back to a normal boot sequence?
Thanks Dave
BTW I have 2 hard drives connected with the wide ribbon connector going to the mother board.
ALso 2nd hard drive is a Western digital 300g, after I got it to reboot I used the software that came with drive (data lifeguard tools) to copy the boot drive (my "C" drive ) to the 300g westerndigital. I assume I can switch drives now and reboot off the newer, larger drive, but I'm unsure if I need to change jumper settings, or cable/ribbon positions, or if this can be done in the setup?
my "C" drive I'm booting from now is the one that came with my dell 4600 desktop--st380011a
my "G" drive is the western digital "WDC wd30000JB-00kFA0"

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Enter system setup by pressing f2

Use the arrow keys to highlight the Boot Sequence menu option and press <Enter> to access the pop-up menu.

Press the up- and down-arrow keys to move through the list of devices.

Press the spacebar to enable or disable a device -- disable the sata drives if they are present

Press plus (+) or minus (–) to move a selected device up or down the list. Move the 300 gb drive to the top.

if you made a true bit by bit copy, the 300gb drive should boot

[gerryf]

Enter system setup by pressing f2

Use the arrow keys to highlight the Boot Sequence menu option and press <Enter> to access the pop-up menu.

Press the up- and down-arrow keys to move through the list of devices.

Press the spacebar to enable or disable a device -- disable the sata drives if they are present

Press plus (+) or minus (–) to move a selected device up or down the list. Move the 300 gb drive to the top.

if you made a true bit by bit copy, the 300gb drive should boot

[njlock]

Thanks Gerry, That solved the boot problem, I guess I changed the settings for these sata drives. Do you think there may be a problem with my hard drive that made it get the blue screen error and gave me initial problems booting? or possibly a random hardware/software error that worked itself out? (I did run a norton disk dr diagnostic and repair) Do you think There may be a problem with the hard drive? Would you reccommend trying to get the 300g drive to boot as my main drive, or keep the original 80g drive that came with my system? ( I've been using the 300g as a norton ghost backup folder)
If I did swap the 300 to boot, can I rename it as "C" so I would'nt have to wory about paths not being correct for shortcuts etc? (and obviously change the original "C" to another letter?)

I was'nt able to change boot settings for the hard drives. options were/are;

Drive Configuration:
sata pri & sec set to off (now), (THANKS AGAIN)
pri master drive hard disk st38001(my 80g)
pri slave drive hard disk wec... (300g) (I do not see a way to swap this?)
secondary master & slave drives = cd-roms

Hard Disk Drive Seq.
1. system bios boot
2. usb drive

Boot Seq.
1 hard disk c (can't/don't know how to change) (checked)
2 IDE cd-rom (checked)

[gerryf]

not all motherboards allow you to switch the boot disk on the fly...in fact, few do.

If you swap the jumpers on the drives and set the 300gb as master and 80gb as slave, you do not need to worry about c or d...windows will take care of that.

Once again, this assumes that the 300gb drive was correctly cloned.

Always use the fastest drive as the boot drive

[njlock]

Thanks again gerry, I guess I'm gonna leave it alone as long as I don't have any more problems.
I really appreciate your quick responces!!
Thanks Again, Dave

[njlock]

This morning, I had same original problem. the computer would'nt boot, actually upon starting up system got the blue screen again (stop. oxoooooof4 (oxooooooooo3, ox866d8da0,0x866d8f14,0x80604450) (last time was while I was up and running in middle of day) then shut down manually, attemepted to restart, went back to the primary drive 0 not found, secondary drive 1(?) not found press f1 to continue f2 for system setup.
f1 did nothing, f2 got me into sys setup, went thru drive configuration, yesterday it was recognizing my 2 hard drives, today they were listed as unknown drives.
I tried restarting a few times with no positive results. I then started pressing on the hard drive conectors, and it got to windows startup and then just got stuck on the starting desktop wallpaper. Shut down manually again, blew out all the dust in the box, disconnected hard drives and took them out to observe settings (to attempt to swap drives (c & g ) , I noted that ribbon/cable was kind of twisted weirdly so I attempted to staighten them out, reseated and reconnected everything, restarted, nada. Tried another ribbon from an older machine ( I got these ribbons around somewhere, but now that I need one, can't find it) no good, nada.
Ok now just connected my original c drive without secondary drive g, got an primary drive 1 not found, then it just booted and now its on, and I'm afraid to shut it down again, I did transfer my critical files to another computer here till I get I get this one straighten out, but again I'm afraid to shut down.
Do you think the drive may be going bad? ( its a seagate), or maybe the twisted ribbon is causing the problem? Does the blue screen + or error code tell you whether its a hardware or software problem?
Any other possible causes of this problem?
Thanks Dave

[njlock]

ok 1 day later, and I bought a new hard drive cable, no change, except, I seem to be able to start it now with the original 80g hard drive, and not when I have the 2nd hard drive (western digital) it goes into the primary disk 1 not found, press f1 to continue, thing, but then will boot when I press f1, is it possible the 300g western dig hard drive is causing this problem? I may try hooking this up to another computer to try to isolate the problem. Any help or feedback would be appreciated
Dave

[njlock]

ok, I may have found the problem, I was trying different jumper settings, they were both cable select, I tried setting primary seagate 80g to master, and the wdc300g to slave, nada. I then put the segate back to cable select, and left the wd on slave, I've restarted normally a couple of times, so "MAYBE??"
But why all this time (6 months) they were working fine, both cable select? Just one of those things, well I'm gonna put my box back together and hope for the best.
Again any feedback would be appreciated.

[gerryf]

hate cable select

Cable select requires a special cable, for one thing

Use master and slave settings and put them on different controllers

Sometimes, harddrives conflict with each other from different makers. I do not know why, but I've run into it more than once. WIsh I would have thought of it earlier