Will not boot.

[sierobin]

I have a computer that will not boot. Simply the hard drive will not boot up. The thing that is weird with the situation is that the only way the hard drive is even recognized is if it's not set on master by the jumper. I used Knoppix to see if the HD actually had an OS on it and Windows XP with all it's files are still on the drive.

I can access the data on the drive by Knoppix, but it will not actually boot to windows. I tried setting the jumper to Cable Select but I just get stuck on a blank screen with a blinking underscore. I honestly don't think it's the hard drive as I tried 3 different hard drives in the computer without any actually going anywhere.

I can't seem to locate my XP cd to try and run recovery (don't think that'd do anything anyway), but the problem seems to be something wrong the IDE set up but I'm not sure. If the jumper is set to Master, I get an error saying it couldn't find the hard drive or no hard drive is present.

Could someone shed some light on my situation? I've been working on this for hours now with no actual progress.

[patio]

If the HDD is being recognised properly by the BIOS and it does not boot properly it's a Windows issue...not the drive.

[sierobin]

Ok but it's only recognized properly if the jumper is not set to Master. Even if it's set to slave with the master IDE end plugged in the drive is recognized.

Isn't that a little strange?

[patio]

What else is on this IDE cable ? ?

[sierobin]

Nothing, only the harddrive. That's what I don't understand lol.

[patio]

Try it with no jumper and hooked to the end connector...

Normal setup:


MB===========================Slave========Master.

[sierobin]

Yeah I've tried this without a jumper. The drive is recognized but will not start windows. If I load up Knoppix the drive is there and has everything still on it.

That's how I guess the only reason I came to the conclusion that it's an IDE problem but I've already switched out the IDE ribbon cable and I still get the same thing. Could it be something in the BIOS that is messing it up?

[patio]

Unlikely...
Boot to the XP CD and choose the first R option to load the recovery console...
At the prompt type fixboot and hit Enter.
Remove the CD and re-boot....
If no joy-joy repeat the above procedure but this time at the prompt type fixmbr and repeat the process...

[sierobin]

Ok doing so now in a few minutes I will let you know how things work out. ( I found my XP CD finally lol)

[sierobin]

Ok I did both with no go. When I did the fixmbr (Fix Master Boot Record) I got something saying, "This computer appears to have a non-standard or invalid master boot record."

Unless that's just the default message it sends out that's what it says lol.

[patio]

Yes.
That's a standard message...did you select "Y" and reboot ? ?

[sierobin]

Yes for both fixboot and fixmbr.. I tried booting after each with no go. Just the blinking underscore with a blank page.

Should I switch the jumper to Master? However the drive is no longer recognized when it's set to Master like I said lol.

[dahlarbear]

If it still won't boot after Patio's instructions, verify the hard drive has a primary partition set "active".  Won't boot without an active system partition, but you'll be able to mount and view data from another operating system.

I believe status can be checked and/or changed using "Diskpart" command within Recovery Console.

The "Map" command maps drive letters to physical device names.

I would also guess your Knoppix system would have a partition editor that would allow you to inspect the disk partition structure (GParted, Gpart?).

[sierobin]

There is a partition on C: (obviously or else I couldn't get into it with recovery).

Uhmn I'm kind of unsure what you're asking me here lol. Diskpart just shows the partitions on the disk which can be deleted or made into unpartitioned space.

As for Map I wouldn't need to use I guess since the partition is already set to C: right?

[dahlarbear]

If diskpart can be used to delete and create partitions I assumed you should be able to specify primary partitions and set active if desired.  Been awhile since I've looked at it.  If you enter "diskpart" without parameters it enters the program.  Not sure what options available at that point or how you exit program (quit, exit, Ctrl-C?).  But if you tried three other hard drives without success (no reason to believe primary partition isn't set active).

What IDE port (0 or 1) are you plugging the cable into?