Incredibly odd hard disk problem.

[chrisb]

Ok...so for my system specs I'm running an athlon x2 3800+, 2 gigs of ram, and 8800 gts, and vista ultimate 64 bit.

Ok, so I'm using two hard drives: IDE and SATA. I bought the sata one about 2 weeks ago. My brother lent me his Vista disk so I could install it on my sata. This all leads up to the problem. Earlier I read the thread on the AMD General discussion about how the person with the new sata hdd is getting lower than expected performance, and then he decided to unplug his IDE hard drive and saw that it increased the sata performance a lot. I don't know what sense that makes, but i'm in a similar boat and decided hey I might as well try it I won't know until I do.

This leads up to the ultimate problem. My IDE hard drive is completely wiped with no data on it, as I deleted my partition, and then installed Vista onto my sata, and it is now my primary hard disk. After unplugging the sata, I boot up and get the infamous "boot disk failure, insert system disk and press enter" message. I restart, go into my bios, and make sure all of my settings are correct. My boot order is HD, then CD, and my hard disk boot sequence is my WD160(sata) as number one, and then "bootable flash in cards" or whatever as #2. I press F10 to save the changes, and I get the same boot error.

So I plug my IDE hard drive back in, set the boot order to WD160, WD120(ide), and then I still get it. So I set the boot order to WD120, WD160, and it works, and I have NO clue what sense this makes, because my WD120 has no data on it. I'm trying to just boot from my sata alone. I may need to set a jumper, as my hdd didn't come with on, so that my motherboard can clearly distinguish. I know it doesn't make much sense seeing as how IDE and SATA are on different channels, but I might as well.

 

[akhilles]

1st off, it's not a good idea to unplug a harddisk or use bios to swap the boot order of the harddisks AFTER Windows install. Before is ok. Still don't mess with it. Leave everything as is. They'll work just fine.

Windows will either not boot saying something is missing or change the drive letter resulting in an usable drive or even locking you out of windows.

After enough lessons, what I've learned to do now is use the newer/bigger harddisks as backup drives & older/smaller ones as OS drives & never change the order or unplug it unless I sell it:

C = 80GB (XP SP2)
D = 320GB (DATA/BACKUP)
E = N/A OR SAME AS D:
...

However, the "boot disk failure, insert system disk and press enter" error means the bios can't find a boot record on any drives. I'm sure you know you have to eject floppy/cd/dvd before booting windows. You can try moving your sata drive to sata0/1 connector or to the 1st sata chipset if the board has 2, then disable the other sata chipset in bios. If no luck, swap the connection & disable the 1st sata chipset. If still no dice, you may try clearing cmos & set up boot order to cd/dvd 1st, floppy 2nd & harddisk last.

 

[Zorg]

1st off, it's not a good idea to unplug a harddisk or use bios to swap the boot order of the harddisks AFTER Windows install. Before is ok. Still don't mess with it. Leave everything as is. They'll work just fine.

I've done exactly that for years and never had a problem, I don't know what you are talking about.

 

[notherdude]

I've done exactly that for years and never had a problem, I don't know what you are talking about.

Me too. I've got four OSes I can boot from by pulling up the boot manager popup in my BIOS. Ubuntu, Vista 32, Vista 64, xp . . .Works OK so long as you don't forget which drive is what and end up formatting the wrong one.

It would be a PITA to have to plug them in and out.

 

[Zorg]

He must have had some kind of problem specific to his circumstances or actions and generalized it.

 

[croc]

Me too. I've got four OSes I can boot from by pulling up the boot manager popup in my BIOS. Ubuntu, Vista 32, Vista 64, xp . . .Works OK so long as you don't forget which drive is what and end up formatting the wrong one.

It would be a PITA to have to plug them in and out.

OpenSuse, Vista 32, Vista 64, XP 32 and xp 64. Each with their own drive. Not to mention data drive for everything else.

I prefer to plug them in and out, then there is no confusion. A bit of a PITA, but my poor old neo 550 only has so many drive power molex's, and I can only mount so many fans....

 

[Zorg]

I have NO clue what sense this makes, because my WD120 has no data on it. I'm trying to just boot from my sata alone. I may need to set a jumper, as my hdd didn't come with on, so that my motherboard can clearly distinguish. I know it doesn't make much sense seeing as how IDE and SATA are on different channels, but I might as well.

It makes no sense, I can't even follow your post. Unplug your IDE and go into BIOS and set the boot disk to the only drive left. It should already be set because it is the only one there. be sure to note what the BIOS calls it. See if that boots. If it does install the second (IDE) drive and go back into BIOS to confirm the boot order and try to reboot. There are no straps on the drive with regards to having an additional drive installed. Did you install Vista with the second drive installed, Its possible Vista installed a boot loader on that drive. I had a hard time finding the procedure to rebuild the Vista MBR. I found this thread, Restore Vista boot manager - Neowin Forums, scroll to the top. I hope it helps. You may need to reinstall Vista. Next time remove all other drives when loading any OS.

 

[cbxbiker61]

My guess is that you had the IDE configured as the first/boot drive when you installed the OS. Windows probably wrote to the Master Boot Record to the IDE drive. That would be why you can boot with that drive in.

You should be able to write an MBR to the SATA. That'll probably fix you up.

 

[Zorg]

My guess is that you had the IDE configured as the first/boot drive when you installed the OS. Windows probably wrote to the Master Boot Record to the IDE drive. That would be why you can boot with that drive in.

You should be able to write an MBR to the SATA. That'll probably fix you up.

Thanks for backing me up on that theory.

 

[chrisb]

I apologize Zorg for my scrambled post. I know it is a lot of information and attempted to make it as thorough as possible, but you pretty much guessed it right with what you told me in your previous post in "Posted on 10-28-2007 at 09:20:52 AM".

Thanks for the clarity guys I will be sure to give it all a try.

 

[Zorg]

Are you in Europe? We all see different times based on the local time setting, but I know what post you were talking about. My time for that post was "Posted on 10-28-2007 at 03:20:52 AM". I really think that if you fix the MBR your problems will go away, if not reload Vista.

 

[chrisb]

So I tried the methods mentioned, only whenever I do boot /scanOs it says "successful. number of windows installations: 0" even though the Vista DVD can detect it's own partition. /Fixboot also does nothing because it says it cannot find the bootmgr. So, if I try to build the boot manager up using

E:\boot\bootsect.exe /nt60 C:, then it will say "successfully copied", which I think is in vain, because when I go back to do the other commands I still get the same stuff.

Sigh. Should I unplug my IDE while I do this? My main problem is if I unplug my IDE, then my SATA alone will not recognize Vista installed on it in the Windows Vista DVD screen.

edit; Ok so I unplugged my IDE, and while Vista doesn't show the SATA partition, if I go into the command prompt, and do ScanOs, and then RebuildBcd, it will detect 1 installation, and then whenever I select yes to add it, it says "element not found". I'm about to just reformat.

edit;(FIXED!)I used EasyBCD to create a bootmgr file because it detected that mine was missing, so when I booted without my IDE, I got the formal Vista message saying that it couldn't find the file so I put in my vista dvd, repaired, and boom I'm good to go. Typing this without my IDE plugged in.

 

[Zorg]

Congratulations, I thought it might have been a dual boot problem. Sorry I missed your post. I'm working out of three machines which makes it hard to stay on top of all the threads. As I said, it's always a good idea to remove all HDs before loading an OS, unless you want dual boot.