[a0193270]

NO dice Murray! I had everything just as you had said.

This is really frustrating...any other suggestions? I read in another forum that maybe I can use some sort of hard drive reader that can plug into a USB port and maybe I can possibly read it then??? If I take the drive out...everything boots fine.

Tony

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Your new drive.. Is it ATA-66, 100 or 133?? Or is it marked EIDE??

Murray

[Murray S.]

Your new drive.. Is it ATA-66, 100 or 133?? Or is it marked EIDE??

Murray

[a0193270]

It says ATA Ultra-100 for the Hitachi Deskstar(new drive)
The Western Digital Caviar drive(old drive) says Enhanced IDE(I don't see a speed asssociated with it. The drive is not listed on the website either)

Is this the issue?
Thanks!

[Murray S.]

Could very well be.. Very possible your mobo is ATA-66.. some hdd's will lower their rating to work but not always..

You may need a PCI IDE adaptor card installed in order to use the new drive!!

Murray

[a0193270]

The new drive works just fine as long as the other drive isn't installed. I assume your statement,

"You may need a PCI IDE adaptor card installed in order to use the new drive!!"

applies only if I want to try to use the old drive as a slave? I just want to try to access/copy some of the data off of it. If I can't...its not the end of the world. In this case, would I still need the PCI IDE adaptor card? Is there an easy way to determine if my mobo is ATA-66?

Thanks!
Tony

[Murray S.]

Search your mobo on the manufacturers website.. It will tell you there..

As for the data (not sure why I didn't think of this before), do you have a burner on the system that you can use to copy that info from the old drive and then place it on the new drive after??

Murray

[a0193270]

I do have a burner on my system. My plans were to do exactly what you are saying. I just can't boot into XP, or any operating system for that matter, when the bad drive is installed. That's why I'm trying to find any other options of accessing it on this PC. I'll try to find out the mobo info.

[Murray S.]

Can you try the bad drive on another system??

Murray

[a0193270]

I unfortunately don't have another system, but I'll try to figure something out. Thanks for the idea.

[Murray S.]

It can be anyone's system.. Just need to borrow it for a few minutes to test the hdd in it..

Murray

[a0193270]

OK...so I found out the mobo in my PC is ATA-66

As far as trying to use the old drive in another system...well that hasn't been so easy. I remembered I still had my wifes old computer in the basement in a box. This thing is ancient! I can't find jumper settings to ensure the hdd in it is set to master. The hdd installed is a Quantum Fireball TM3200A. I went to Maxtor's site to try to figure out jumper settings and i don't think they even support this any more. There are only 4 pins on this thing. When I used my old hdd in this system, the computer automatically tried to boot from it instead of the Quantum hdd, and the PC said it couldn't detect the drive.

Any suggestions?

[Murray S.]

Worst case scenarion - the controller is gone and you are going to be forced to use a data recovery company to rtrieve whatever they can from the hdd..

Tough way to learn about backups!!

Murray

[a0193270]

Thanks! I really appreciate all the help!
You guys run a top notch forum here!