Added new SATA HD to my system, now it won't boot up

[captain62]

I have a Gateway DC2.8 system with 3 250 GB HDs on it. I added a 320 GB HD to it and now it won't boot. All drives are SATA and it is not raided. I did briefly unplug the system drive and move the sata cable but later moved it back

Every time I try to boot it up it goes to checkdisk and gets to 28% on step 2 and stops. If I forego the checkdisk it will get all the way to the start-up chime and then reboot.

I tried running the recovery on it and it goes corrupt. Any idea what I can do to save this sucka? I have all my kid picks on that drive or I'd be tempted to nuke it and start fresh. i also have a bunch of good docs. on there I don't want to use.

 

[captain62]

I'd like to add that I did try to boot the system when I forgot to re-power up the system drive which was sharing power with the new HD. So when I booted it up it just hung on the initial screen. When I reopened the case I realised the system drive had no power so I plugged it back in It started the problems.

 

[Holmwood]

1. Will it boot when you unplug the 320 GB drive? (unplug both power and SATA).

2. I'm not familiar with that Gateway model, but a lot of companies run pretty close to the line on power supplies for their cheaper model. Even though a drive is only (guessing) 10-13W, have you tried unplugging the second 250 GB drive (power and SATA), and booting with just the boot 250 and the new 320?

3. You could also always try booting with a Linux Liveboot CD, like KnoppixLive, and examine the contents of your drives.

If (1) works, I'd try (2). If (1) doesn't work, at least you know your problem isn't the new drive, and now you just have to deal with a bad drive.
Good luck.

 

[captain62]

Well I have unplugged the new drive and taken it out of the system... I tried to make everything how it was before the problem with no luck.

 

[ej4love]

try rebooting and pressing f8 to go to last known good start up, if that doesn't work, press f2 and go into bios and see if it recognize the new and old hard drive. you can safely reinstall windows on the new drive if it is recognize. and that will help you transfer the data from the old drive to the new. keep in tuch.