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Hard drive boot problem


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#1
leeelliottsr

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My computer suddenly refused to boot windows from the C:. I tried reformating; it booted from the cd drive and apparently reinstalled xp OK but it still refused to reboot from C:. I changed the cables to make drive D: the primary drive and installed xp on it. It still refused to reboot windows from the drive. I suspect the HD controller on the motherboard is defective. Am I correct? This is a Pentium III Micron millennia Max GS133 computer with a Tazer II S1854 Via 133a 4X motherboard. Would A new ATA 133 drive controller solve the problem? Thanks for your opinion.
Lee Elliott
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#2
Doby

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Hi Lee and welcome to GtG,

correct me if I am wrong but the way I see it you tried to load windows on 2 different hard drives and you can not boot from either.

So the first thing I would try is another ide cable and I would also set the jumpers on the drives to master and slave instead of CS (cable select)

You could also try taking out the original primary drive in case it failed and is the problem and try install windows on the secondary drive, in this case make sure the jumper on the drive is set to master.

I would like you to try these before we say that the HDD controller on the board is bad.

Could you also explain what happens when you do try and boot from either drive in the configuration you now have

Rick
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#3
leeelliottsr

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Hi Rick,
Thanks for the suggestions. I replaced the cables and disconnected the older drive, setting the new drive at single drive jumper. When I booted, I got the infamous "DISK BOOT FAILURE, INSERT SYSTEM DISK AND PRESS ENTER".
I then booted from Symantech's Recovery Disk and ren checks on the drive- found no problems. I booted from the XP Professional disk, reformated the drive completetely with NSFS and installed XP. All went smoothly including the boots during installation. But when I then shut down and booted again, I got the same message.
Any thoughts?
Thanks,
Lee

addendum.
Rick, I just checked the BIOS and the order of booting was Floppy, CD, HDD-1 which seemed correct. However, on impulse, I enabled a fourth boot: "another device". This caused the HD to boot and it acts OK now. I do not know why but it works. ?????
Thanks for your help.
Lee

Edited by leeelliottsr, 25 August 2005 - 02:54 PM.

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#4
dsenette

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you don't have any floppies, usb drives, or flash memory (from cameras) in any of your drives when you boot do you?
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#5
leeelliottsr

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No.
When i first looked at the BIOS, it was set so the third boot was HDD-2. I changed it to HDD-1 but it still woiuld not boot. Later, I added the "Other Device" choice which works.
Lee

Edited by leeelliottsr, 25 August 2005 - 06:26 PM.

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#6
Kurt_Aust

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If it's available try setting order to:

1. FDD
2. CD-ROM
3. HDD-0

At least in my BIOS it works this way:

HDD-0 = Primary Master
HDD-1 = Primary Slave
HDD-2 = Secondary Master
HDD-3 = Secondary Slave

Hope this helps.
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