Dual-Boot (2 SATA HDD) Problem: Primary HDD Gone; Other HDD Won't Boot ("no boot device")

ColdOnCanon

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I thought that when the one HDD didn't boot, the second one would. But first, the CONFIGURATION…

I started with a Western Digital 80GB HDD that was the C drive, naturally. I added a Seagate of the same size, and managed to make it the (primary, or "system") C-drive, while the WDC became the secondary drive. Both HDD are partitioned, with XP on both "system" partitions (C of the Seagate and D of the WDC are where XP is installed (no mirroring), while data drive E belongs to Seagate and data drive F belongs to WDC).

I added the Seagate about 1 ½ years ago, because I feared that the WDC might be approaching the end of its tether; it turned out to be the other way around, though, since I installed the Seagate, I have used it almost exclusively (I only use the WDC to copy files, and I keep it updated). Both, as indicated, are SATA drives, and the machine is a workhorse of a Dell Dimension 9200/ XPS 410.

I was running Windows Update last evening, which was taking forever (I turned it on and off 2-3 times). Finally I allowed a Java update, thinking I would return to the Windows Update later. Java got stuck in trying to configure itself on the Mozilla Plugin page – it would go neither forward or backward. I didn't want to force-close Firefox because I had a string of pages that I wanted to "keep", so I kept trying to close that piece of Java-s**t when finally I heard the whining sound that signals a grave HDD problem (maybe it ALWAYS means HDD failure!). I forced the machine shut, for fear of damage, waited until the monitor "pilot light" had turned orange, then powered it up again. The whining sound returned, so I forced it shut again.

After cleaning it this morning, I powered it up only to discover that the one HDD, the Seagate, or primary HDD, wasn't readable, plus it said "no boot device". It recommended I press F1 or F2. F1 looped to nowhere, while F2 took me to system startup/ BIOS, etc. There, I advanced port 0 (WDC) first to boot sequence position two (with CDROM at one), and when that didn't pay off, I returned and advanced it all the way to the top, but still with no luck (I still get the "F1, F2" startup page, and F1 loops still to nowhere). I was wondering if I should physically remove the damaged Seagate and put the apparently healthy WDC in its slot? Btw, in the Drives section there in F2 it says that SATA 1 is not present (in parentheses), while nothing (parentheses or not) is written in the same (right-hand) column for the SATA 0 and the SATA 3 drives, though the Sata 0 drive is named as the WDC HDD.

I have read around (today) that the reason why the boot sequence has dropped out (with the apparent death of the Seagate HDD, i.e., Drives C & E) is because THAT file happens to be located on the "system" drive, the now-broken Seagate HDD C Drive!

Any suggestions? (I prefer to let this stand for a day or so to collect, hopefully,many suggestions before deciding on which procedure-suggestion to follow.)

In your suggestion-replies, please don't speak "in shorthand" – please make everything EXPLICIT, as were you addressing a DUMMY (you would be on SAFE ground!).


Thanks!
ColdOnCanon
 

ColdOnCanon

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You wouldn't mind repeating that in DUMMY-English? : -) Are you suggesting I pop the XP Pro (Home was installed originally) CD in the machine and see if it can locate the "missing" Seagate HDD? My problem with that is that I risk overwriting the D drive of the WDC HDD, which might, however, reassign the WDC drive as the C drive, thus fixing up a boot path. As to recovering the current C & E drives, I am thinking of purchasing SpinRite. If I have understood you correctly, how about I try the fresh-install and if it doesn't find the Seagate drive, I cancel, pull the Seagate drive and then do the fresh-install on the WDC drive (which I move over to the bay where Seagate is currently sitting), then when I purchase SpinRite, I pull the WDC, replacing it with the Seagate and run the SpinRite module? Is that a nutty plan?

Thx!
 

ColdOnCanon

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Thanks, popatim,

I'll try that first thing tomorrow - I don't dare commence such a project at 11 PM, because I will not rest, once started, until I have reached the goal, or have made so many goof-ups that I concede defeat and have to throw in the towel, at some unGodly hour near daybreak!

I'll post a response as soon as I get to the bottom of this tomorrow. Thanks a million, it looks like a SOUND way forward!

ColdOnCanon


UPDATE Sunday afternoon, 20 Oct 2012 (Thanks again, popatim!):

Well, I tried my best, I really did! I even went into BIOS and set up a password because the "fixmbr" procedure asked for it — not that this mattered a whit, because it turned out that I could have proceeded without setting up an Admin Password.

I did everything right: I went first into F2 (BIOS, in XP) and changed the boot sequence so that CR-ROM was triggered first; the last standing HDD [the WDC disk, set to D ("system") and F ("data") drives before the crash], second.

I then inserted the XP Pro SP3 disk in the CD-ROM and shut down the PC, then restarted it, and when I got to the F1/F2 fork, I chose F1 and it started loading the installation/ recovery disk. I chose "R" for Recovery, then "1" for the only disk available, C:\Windows (the WDC disk). It then asked for a password.

I didn't have one (so why was it asking for one?!), so I just hit "enter" and DOS returned ""Incorrect password, retry?" (roughly), so I just hit "enter" again, and this brought me to "C:\Windows", which didn't seem to be following the procedure, so I entered "exit" and it started to reboot again, whereafter I pressed "F2", entered BIOS again and this time, I set up a password, exited BIOS and shut down the PC and started it up again, after the monitor light had turned from blue-green to orange-ish.

Basically, I was presented with the same sequence, but this time, having taken a second look at the "fixmbr" webpage, I realized that "C:\Windows" was in fact where I was supposed to be in order to type in "fixmbr", so this time, when the procedure rejected my password and I hit "enter" for a second time, taking me directly to "C:\Windows", I plugged in the "fixmbr" as directed, hit "enter" and was asked whether I wanted to continue because if I wasn't having trouble accessing my drives, "fixmbr" could do more harm than good. I entered "y" and hit "enter", and the procedure informed me that the master boot record (MBR) on drive C had been restored to "default". I was jubilant! Alas, prematurely!

I removed the installation disk, shut down and rebooted, hoping for the best, but it delivered me to the same-old, same-old F1/F2 fork in the road. Installation disk back in the CD-ROM, and back at "C:\Windows", I entered "fixboot", then hit "enter" and received a message that "fixboot" was not a valid command (!), with a suggestion to enter "HELP" to find out more, which I did.

I studied the commands carefully, then executed a series of them, beginning with "BOOTCFG /SCAN" and ending with "BOOTCFG /Redirect useBiosSettings", where I had CD-ROM as the first drive to load, then the WDC HDD. Out with the installation CD-ROM, reboot, and another disappointment: nada (same-old, same-old F1/F2 fork in the road!).

I could just do a full repair, but that might ruin a lot of stuff (I have lots of downloaded files and software there, since I try to keep the stuff requiring antivirus checking on the system drive together with the other critical files where a virus would park itself), OR, I could just do a fresh install, but that might involve ERASING the entire drive [btw, "BOOTCFG /SCAN" showed ZERO details, i.e., it showed NO partitioning on the C drive whatsoever… they might be there, maybe Bill Gates is simply an IDIOT… calling drives for "ports" part of the time and "drives" part of the time and maybe even "volumes" part of the time suggests that the fixated-on-the-details/little-picture, Bill-Gates-the-geek should have allied himself with an English major, possibly a philosophy major… these latter learn the discipline of LOGIC as a preliminary building block!].

Summa summarum: I hesitate to do anything at this stage that could erase the data on those two drives; I'm hoping to recover the data, since it is INVALUABLE (which is why I had two drives, with almost everything on the one copied to the other!).

Here is a snapshot of my system at present:

Controller bus #00, Device # 1F, Function #02: 03 Ports, 02 Devices
Port-00: Harddisk WDC WD800JD-75MSA3
Port-01: No device detected
Port-02: CDROM, TSSTcorp DVD +/- RW TS-H653A
AHCI BIOS installed
Drive 1 not found: Serial ATA, SATA-1
No boot device available.

Any non-draconian suggestions are highly welcome!


Thx!
ColdOnCanon


 

popatim

Titan
Moderator
Hmm. How sure are you XP was installed to this drive and not the other drive that's not listed?

At This point I would stop until you can get this backed up. I only see the one drive listed. If you have no current backup then get an external drive and backup this drive first thing. There are plenty of free ones that can be run from a cd/dvd.

Theres alot on the hirens boot cd http://www.hiren.info/pages/bootcd
(download here: http://www.hirensbootcd.org/)
I would use macrium reflect to create an image to a harddrive and make a second copy to dvd.

After you get your data safely copied it looks like you might be able rebuild the boot configuration since it seems windows is there. From the same command line type : bootcfg /rebuild

When/If it asks "Add installation to boot list? (Yes/No/All)". - Reply Yes.
Next it will ask you to "Enter Load Identifier:". - Type in Windows XP or whatever name you want to identify this installation.
Lastly it will ask you to "Enter OS Load options:" - to which your replay with /fastdetect
 

ColdOnCanon

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Dear popatim,

I'm sure (that the disks are partitioned and configured as earlier indicated), because I did it all myself, with XP Pro SP3. Anyway, how can I copy a drive that I can't even access?? (I didn't see any product on Hiren's that pointed specifically to the copying of broken/ inaccessible HDD, only a tool -- COPYR.DMA Build013 -- that allows access to bad sectors within a drive. But you believe that the Hiren's program, Macrium Reflect 4.2.3775, can do this?)

Would it maybe be an idea to REMOVE the undetected disk (the original boot disk, Seagate) and put the detected one (WDC) in the bay where the Seagate was, then try the "fixmbr"/ "fixboot" procedure first?

It would be great if I could copy the disk that is detected, but how can I do that when I can't even access it, to repeat myself?!

Thx!
ColdOnCanon


UPDATE some minutes later... (good you can't see the egg on my face, popatim!)

Yeps, Macrium Reflect is the item! They don't offer much of a product description, but then, what can one expect for free?! I found a Youtube video explaining everything, after having learned what Windows PE was for a critter (the link is here, in case anyone else needs this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZfQ6xB3pCh4). To learn about Windows PE, go here: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc766093%28v=ws.10%29.aspx, and to bone up on MR before watching the video, go here: http://www.macrium.com/help/v5/How_to/Rescue/Create_a_Standard_Windows_PE_Rescue_Environment.htm.

Thanks again, popatim! I might try pulling the "dead" HDD first, but then, who knows what MR might turn up if I leave everything, as is?!!

Ciao!
ColdOnCanon