Hard Drive problem =\

[Xab]

I'm having a really odd problem with one of my hard drives. The following drives are in my system:

Fujitsu MAS 15,000RPM SCSI drive (This is the drive Windows is on)
Hitachi 160GB SATA drive
Maxtor 250GB SATA drive
Plextor SA712A SATA DVD/RW Drive
Toshiba IDE DVD-ROM Drive

I wanted to try out Vista, so I installed a copy to my E: drive, which was the Hitachi. After I did this, it completely hijacked my computer, and I was no longer able to boot into Windows XP. It also changed my E: drive to the C: drive, something which I cannot reverse.

I reformatted completely, and reinstalled windows to my SCSI drive. The problem is, though, (other than Windows forcing itself upon the D: drive) that anytime I try to boot up with my Hitachi drive enabled, it gives me all kinds of errors, like "NTLDR is missing" or "Error loading operating system".

The BIOS is set to boot from the SCSI drive first, NOT the hitachi, so I have no idea why it does these things. If I disable SATA channels 1&2 in the BIOS, Windows loads up just fine. But anytime it finds that Hitachi drive, I get errors and Windows doesn't boot.

Anyone able to help at all?

 

[ChemGeek]

Try booting with the SCSI drive only, installing the latest motherboard/chipset drivers and then reboot and enable the SATA drives. You have three differnet controllers at work there, you could easily limit that to two (removing the IDE drive). If you think it is the drive itself that is bad, you can try to only use that drive and see if you can load windows on it and boot from it alone (only to format it afterwords). I would try the chipset drivers first. Also, you can try to flash the BIOS.

I find the SATA parameters on several BIOSs to be rather criptic and hard to understand. You might simply have the SATA controller set up worng in the BIOS. You need to set it to your BIOS's equivalent of an IDE channel or SATA as IDE channel 3 and 4 (or something like that, not as primary).

 

[iroast]

you can always set everything else to slave via jumpers?

 

[maverick2604]

when an windows installs, the default drive HAS to be named C. so it seems as tho vista has over written some of your system files, or made it so the bios does not know where to find the OS to hand the computer over...

other than disable the extra drives, i would uninstall vista, and reinstall windows on the original drive...

 

[Xab]

Well right now Windows XP is installed on the SCSI drive and it boots up just fine. The problem is that it changed my system drive to D: , and made my 250GB backup drive C: . And if I enable those SATA channels, the computer just won't boot.

 

[ChemGeek]

Yeah, the BIOS is setting the SATA as the primary drive. The options on every motherboard are differnet. You just need to get it on the right one.

 

[Xab]

I have the Fujitsu SCSI drive set as the first boot device in the BIOS, that was one of the first things I checked. Unless it is somehow overriding me and not showing.

 

[ChemGeek]

Yeah, it is not the boot sequence that is causing the problem, it is the SATA configuration. There should be two or three different cinfigs for the SATA controller, like "primary 1 and 2", "secondary 2 and 4", and/or "IDE master/slave"....something like that. I had that problem with my IDE DVDRW, it would not allow me to boot form SATA if that was not set correctly. You might have to read the mobo manual for the full details becuase all boards have different settings and wordings in the BIOS. Sorry i am not being specific.