Will not boot.

[sierobin]

In diskpart it's just like you'd install a new copy of windows onto a drive. You can just choose what partition there is nothing else. Can't set active or anything of that sort.

As for the IDE port, how would one tell which port they're plugged into? I've never heard the term I'm sorry to be a newb, I'm currently a CST student so I don't know all the terminology yet.

[sierobin]

Sorry for the double post I just ran a CHKDSK and I got "CHKDSK found one or more errors on the volume." Could this mean anything at all?

[dahlarbear]

1.  IDE Channel/Port.  You look very carefully at the motherboard for annotation of IDE 0, IDE 1 where the IDE cables attach to the motherboard.

2.  Is this an older computer trying to boot a very large capacity hard drive?

3.  Any SATA ports on this motherboard or just the two IDE ports?

4.  Is there just one partition on the hard drive?

5.  Backup Data.  If the data is important to you, back it up before trying to recover the hard drive.

6.  Chkdsk Errors.  Yes, you'd want to fix them.  If you run "chkdsk" to fix/repair errors you cannot stop or abort it without risking filesystem corruption.  You must let it run to completion and if it finds bad sectors could take hours to repair.

When you have time to let it finish, run "chkdsk /p /r".

7.  Map command is nondestructive.  It just lists the drive letter assignments by Recovery Console operating system.  Give it a whirl to see how the drive letters were assigned.

[sierobin]

1. I thought that's what you meant, I tried switching the IDE cables between ports which were both unsuccessful.

2. No this is just a 40GB hard drive and yes it's a relatively old computer.

3. No SATA ports just the two IDE ports.

4. Yes just one partition except there is unpartitioned space (8MB).

5. This is a siblings computer, the information on the disk isn't of much importance.. just some music and third party applications.

6. Running it now, we'll see what happens :]

7. I tried the Map command, it just lists the HardDrive as C: and the other letters for the two CD-Rom/DVD-Drive and the Floppy for the other.

Thank you both for replying to my thread as well I really appreciate your time.

If I installed a new copy of windows, do you think this would rid of the problem? I don't want to go through that pain to have it not work.

[dahlarbear]

If I installed a new copy of windows, do you think this would rid of the problem? I don't want to go through that pain to have it not work.

Hmmm...  Was the Windows XP operating system on this hard drive installed by this computer.  By design Windows XP is meant to be installed by the computer system it is to run on.  The installation is dependent upon the hardware environment.  There are six different versions of the HAL and two different versions of the kernel not to mention numerous registry entries it creates that are hardware dependent.

Meaning you can't expect to move a hard drive containing Windows XP to another computer and have it boot up.  I'm not saying it's impossible; just that it's not worth your time trying.

You might be able to do a "repair" install, but I've never tried it for the above situation.

I don't know if a reinstall would fix the problem, because I can't explain the weirdness of the IDE device "jumpers".  Is the hard drive on the IDE cable by itself (single).  Some drives (Western Digital) have three jumper settings (Master, Slave, Single).  And one of those settings might be represented by no jumper.

What operating systems were on the three hard drives you tested and were any built on this system?

[sierobin]

Ah this might actually be it. When Windows XP was installed it was on a completely different computer. So all the hardware in this computer is completely different.

The CHKDSK is stuck at 52% by the way.

The IDE cable is only plugged into the hard drive so yes you can say it's "Single." I do not think there is a option for this, the only three that I see there are 2CS (Cable Select), SL (Slave) and MA (Master). I tried taking the jumper out completely but that still does nothing. Perhaps I should try a repair install but if I'm going that route I might as well just reinstall windows entirely.

The other 3 hard drives were not made on this system so that's probably the reason for this as well. In the past I've never had this issue that's why it wasn't a concern to me, but what you're saying makes total sense to me. So do you think my next step should just be reinstalling Windows completely?

[patio]

Repair Install of XP

I suggest reading it thru first and printing out a reference copy...
Remember to collect all the neccessary drivers as well before starting...

[sierobin]

Well I opted to try a fresh install.. it's actually installing onto the disk and everything seems to be going just fine.

Like I said nothing was important on the disk at all and I have all the necessary drivers saved on my pen drive already, so installing everything won't be much of a hassle to deal with.

If this goes well I guess I have the solution lol.

[sierobin]

It worked everything is installed and working, the drive is fine and everything.

Thank you all for the replies and for the learning opportunity :]

[sierobin]

Edit: It's still not working, the floppy drive is saying there is no boot diskette in the drive. I unplugged the floppy restart the computer and the XP logo came up and it appeared there was a kernel dump (Blue screen basically). Now it's at the blank screen with a blinking underscore.

Now the drive is just unpartitioned completely after a FRESH install of windows. Apparently not? lol

[dahlarbear]

I would have done the "repair" install, because I need to gain more knowledge about what works and what doesn't.

I'd feel safer with the "clean" install, however, I'd be assured there wasn't extra junk on the system (especially in the registry?).

If the chkdsk stuck at 52%, I'd assume it found some damage (file system corruption or bad sectors), and was still working to recover/move the data.  My experience with this is limited, but I did have a chkdsk stall on me (for about twenty minutes) before it recovered and continued on.  In that case it discovered and attempted to deal with a large number of "bad" sectors on the disk.  So I have some reservations about the disk you may be using.

I also wonder if boot hard drive needs to be cabled to IDE port 0 (IDE primary channel) of motherboard.  I'm not sure that BIOS will search the secondary IDE channel (IDE port 1) for the drive.  Though many CD-ROMs (boot device?) attach to the secondary IDE cable, so maybe I'm wrong.  It's so hard to run all of these questions down.

Please let us know how it goes...  What worked and what didn't...  Thanks.
--dahlarbear

[Computer_Commando]

Is the Windows CD you are using from an HP, Compaq, Dell or any other branded computer?

[sierobin]

Is the Windows CD you are using from an HP, Compaq, Dell or any other branded computer?

No

[sierobin]

Ok so I have the floppy unplugged and did a new fresh install. I've restarted and shut down the system completely.

Everything seems to be working just fine, I'm actually posting from the computer as I'm typing this.

Anyhow, thank you all for your help.

[Computer_Commando]

This has happened to me before.  Bad FDD will cause all kinds of Windows errors, even with no disk inserted.  Any bad hardware will cause Windows installations problems.