Computer Hope
Hardware => Hardware => Topic started by: Scotus on April 06, 2005, 10:08:56 PM
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i got 2 hard drives on my computer. one is the primary master the other is
the secondary master. they are set up as follows:
Primary Master=HDD #0(the C: drive)
Primary Slave=N/A (nothing conected)
Secondary Master=HDD #1(what was my D: drive before the xp reinstall and has all the backup data on it)
Secondary Slave=CD-ROM (the CD burner)
all the jumpers are set to cable select as this is how the system was setup before the xp reinstall. before i reinstalled windows XP pro everything worked fine but after XP pro was reinstalled nothing. the BIOS can see the second drive. widows can see the second drive in the device manager and in the disk manager but i cant access the drive in windows explorer. it doesnt have a drive letter and the disk manager wont let me give it one. if it helps this is a basic disk the disk manager says its online, healthy and active the file system is NTFS the whole hard drive is a single partition. the disk manager will only let me delete the partition thats on the disk but that is something that i just dont want to do because it is a back up drive. the drive was my d: drive and was a single NTFS partition before i reinstalled windows xp and was used as a backup for all the important info on my computer. i have tried different IDE cables and the power cables are good too. this drive has all my back up data on it and would hate to have to format it to get widows to access it. if anyone has ideas that would help i would be thankful.
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}{'lo scotus!
I just have a few basic suggestions and you prob'ly know more about this than I do so humor me ok ;D .
try setting the jumpers on your hard drives as slave and master accordingly instead of cable select.
I've never seen a secondary master when there was no secondary slave and no primaray slave. I think your second HDD needs to be set to primary slave NOT as secondary master wich the BIOS is seeing right now. Hopefully that will be solved when you set the jumpers to slave and master and not cable select. After you have set the jumpers go back into BIOS and check to see if it still thinks the second HDD is a secondary master. If it does try to change it in BIOS to a primary slave.
I could be wrong, I've only slaved HDD's twice now but its always been just that, a slave HDD not as a secondary master.
HTH! Signed,
Red.
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I just reinstalled XP and have the same problem. It was fine before, now it does't hane a directory letter or appear in the "my computer" folder. Let me know if you find a fix.
-Eric
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I have the same problem. Please let me know if you find a fix. Thanks Rob Williams
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as of now (april 19/2005) i have still not found a sollution, but i have tried a few different file/format recovery appz. the one that looks the most promising is recover my files. catch is you need to buy the software to save files and the search is rather lengthy to save all the lost files. ie. my 80 gig drive set to find all files types takes about 5 days. yes i said days. but im not sure if the saving of the files will work in the process of scanning and then im going to save the files since i purchesed a copy of the software. will post with the results. only other thing i can think of this being is a configuration problem but i dont know of what type. or maybe the mbr was wiped out some how. im not sure how though
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Hi Have you gone into disk management and formatted the new hard drive. Right click my computer go to manage and in the computer management window go todisk management and you will see all the drives listed hard as well CD right click on the new drive and format it to your computer.
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In Disk Management, are you able to right-click on the drive and select Change Drive Letter? Does it show up as having a drive letter?
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Hi Have you gone into disk management and formatted the new hard drive. Right click my computer go to manage and in the computer management window go todisk management and you will see all the drives listed hard as well CD right click on the new drive and format it to your computer.
Its not a new drive its a backup drive with all my files saved on it from before the xp pro reinstall...
In Disk Management, are you able to right-click on the drive and select Change Drive Letter? Does it show up as having a drive letter?
there is no drive letter nor will it let me change that but the drive does show up in disk management it also shows up in the bios and the post when i start the computer. the only place i cant see the drive is windows explorer because it doesnt have a drive letter. this is quickly becoming a frustrating problem >:( but its something id like to try and get fixed so all the files that are saved on the drive are not lost...
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I have the same problem, I just started another thread to find out about this problem and happened to come upon yours after going through the previous threads. Did you ever get this fixed or does anyone know how to fix this?
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I suspect that Windows still sees the 2nd drive as a bootable drive. Try renaming boot.ini on 2nd drive. When you reinstalled Windows on your primary drive, was the 2nd drive installed at the time? What does boot.ini on primary drive say?
http://www.computerhope.com/issues/ch000492.htm
http://www.computerhope.com/issues/ch000648.htm
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How would I rename the boot.ini? Yes the second drive was installed when I installed XP. How would I be able to check the boot.ini on the main drive? Thanks for giving your advice, its greatly appreciated.
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...
1. How would I rename the boot.ini?
2. How would I be able to check the boot.ini on the main drive?...
1. http://www.computerhope.com/renamehl.htm
2. Instructions in links provided above.
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Ok the boot.ini on the primary drive is
[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi<0>disk<0>rdisk<0>partition<1>\WINDOWS
[operation systems]
multi<0>disk<0>rdisk<0>partition<1>\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional
Thanks for the links, but im a little lost at that point. I am not sure still on how to edit the boot.ini, which command should I use if any? The way I read the articles I think the setting is right, is it? Thanks again for all this help.
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Try to get it to "dual boot"
Multibooting with Windows XP (http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/setup/learnmore/multiboot.mspx)
Add what is shown in bold. Make the names whatever you like so you'll know which you are booting to. Be real careful, if you make a mistake, it might not boot at all.
You can also do this from Windows. Right-click My Computer---Properties---Advanced---Startup and Recovery--Settings--System Startup--Edit
[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi<0>disk<0>rdisk<0>partition<1>\WINDOWS
[operation systems]
multi<0>disk<0>rdisk<0>partition<1>\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional HDD #0" /fastdetect
multi<0>disk<0>rdisk<2>partition<1>\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional HDD #1" /fastdetect
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Would it be alright to change the timeout from 30 to 10 without any problems? Im checking into the links now, I just checked boot loader and saw that on the last line it has this multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /fastdetect I didnt see that before. Should I still add the bold line?
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Or should I just add the HDD #0" into it?
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Everything between the " " is the text you see on the screen when you boot. Put anything there you like. Make timeout whatever you want.
You are adding:
multi<0>disk<0>rdisk<2>partition<1>\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional HDD #1" /fastdetect
rdisk<2> is the 3rd IDE device
partition<1> is the 1st partition on the device
I still don't know if any of this will work. Continue booting to HDD#0 and see if Windows will automatically assign a drive letter to HDD#1. If not try to assign it manually. If that doesn't work, try booting to HDD#1 and Windows should assign a drive letter to HDD#0.
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If the rdisk is set to 3 wouldn't that boot from my cd drive? I have both hard drives on the 1st IDE and two cd drives on the second set of IDE's.
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I think I may have found the solution, http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;330140 Do you think that may be the problem, considering I have used Go Back on that drive before? Any ideas as far as what to do? Thanks again for all your help. I'm curious as to know how do you know about all this, I would like to be able to figure these things out, how did you do it?
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It worked, I just setup the spare drive as the master, booted it up and disabled Go Back, set the drive back to slave and everything is back to normal. I would like to thank you again for all the help Computer Commando, I appreciate it as well as others do im sure.
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It worked! Cool!!!
Microsoft said: "...This problem may occur if you have used the Roxio GoBack program on the hard disk. The problem occurs because Roxio GoBack modifies the master boot record (MBR) and changes the partition type on the hard disk. This can cause the drive to be inaccessible in Windows XP, even when the hard disk appears in Device Manager and in Disk Management console. "
All this because of Roxio? I've never had much success with Roxio. It's never worked very well. I guess that's why Adaptec got rid of it. I use Nero.
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I actually didn't use that, I think that it came with Norton SystemsWorks that I use for my antivirus, one of the extra features it came with. But yes it did work and i'm in a lot better mood and more relaxed now that I know I won't have to lose the drive. I know I have said it before but I would like to thank you again for all the help you gave me, its very appreciated. One last thing, Happy 4th, and be safe everyone.