NTLDR (HDD Caddy only) is missing on boot-up??

[Bebeto94]

I have a problem which isnt major , just a pain more than anything else , my comp is gigabyte mobo GNN7xp , 1 GB ram , athlon xp 3200 , windows xp pro sp1 . I have a spare HDD connected to the IDE for back-up purposes .Every month or so i`ll put the drive into the onboard caddy which sits in one of the 5 1/4 drive bays and back up all my essentials . My problem is if i boot the computer up with the drive in the bay i get "NTLDR is missing" press cntrl/alt/del to restart . However , if i wait until windows just starts to load and push the drive in then it sees it fine .What can i do to make the computer see this drive on boot-up ??? Something in the bios perhaps ?? Cheers , Steve , Plymouth UK


<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by bebeto94 on 09/16/04 03:59 PM.</EM></FONT></P>

 

[khha4113]

What the connection is between your removable HD and your comp ? Primary (or Secondary) Master or Slave?

Good or Bad have no meaning at all, depends on what your point of view is.

 

[Bebeto94]

From what i can see its master !!!!

 

[sjonnie]

You need to change the Master/Slave setup of the two drives. Your removable drive is becomin HDD0 when you insert it and reboot and hence when it looks for NTLDR on HDD0 it can't find it. When you add it later HDD0 is already assigned to the other drive. No big shakes, it's just that your BIOS is set to boot from HDD0. You can't set it to boot from HDD1 because when you take out the removeable hard disk there won't be a HDD1. Best thing you can do is just swap the master-slave cable assignments around between the two drives, that way the boot drive will always be HDD0 irrespective of whether you have the removeable in or not.

<A HREF="http://www.anandtech.com/myanandtech.html?member=114979" target="_new">My PCs</A>

 

[Bebeto94]

Thanks , i`ll give that ago , Steve , Plymouth UK

 

[Crashman]

It's not always that easy! For example, Western Digital drives won't work if they're single and jumpered as "master". They have to be jumpered as "single" or "cable select" to work singley (single mode requires the jumper be disabled).

That's why they come from the factory jumpered "cable select". And that works perfectly for adding/removing a second drive also jumpered as "cable select". Except that now you have the problem of making sure the cable is oriented correctly, with the removable drive on the middle connection and the master on the end connection.

And orienting the cable that way is impossible in many systems because the removable drive will be mounted too far away from the connector on the board to reach the middle connection.

But those are the snags, they can all be worked out.

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