[useless]

Hello,

I decided to add an old Hard Drive (mac formatted) as a second hard drive to my XP machine and ran into some not serious...and then serious problems.

I installed the hard drive and I couldn't see it in Explorer etc but it was listed as installed and working fine in Device Manager. I figured that it wasn't showing up because it was mac formatted but since it wouldn't mount, I didn't know how to re-format it!

So...I TRYED to get into Bios...The boot up screen told me to hold Cnrtl + S. So I did and it didn't work. So then I tried Delete...and it didn't work. So then I tried F2...and that didn't work. So then I tried Enter...and that REEEEAAALLLYY didn't work. Infact, it was from that point forward that everytime I turn on my machine it boots to a black screen with a white cursor at the top left....and that's it.

Does anyone know how to get my computer out of the black screen and into BIOS or Windows or ANYthing? IF I am lucky enough to have my computer back up, does anyone know how to make it see my second hard drive?

Thank you VERY much in advance!

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remove the extra drive, the main drive and any other additional pci cards (keep video), reboot

bios will go nowhere, but will complain. Reinsert the primary drive.

Does it boot?

Add back pci cards

does it boot

reinstall back up drive, but make certain that it is properly configured as slave to the other's master (cable select is of dubious worth)

[gerryf]

remove the extra drive, the main drive and any other additional pci cards (keep video), reboot

bios will go nowhere, but will complain. Reinsert the primary drive.

Does it boot?

Add back pci cards

does it boot

reinstall back up drive, but make certain that it is properly configured as slave to the other's master (cable select is of dubious worth)

[useless]

Hi gerryf,
thanks for the fast reply. I will try this tonight but I'm not sure if it will work as windows WAS working fine with the second drive in it before I screwed it up by trying to get into BIOS.
The second drive IS configured as a Slave but it's still worth a check.
Thanks again!