First. What type of drives are the 300 and 80 Gb drives. IDE or SATA? If they are IDE, then you can select Cable Select for both and plug them in on the same cable. Boot drive is on end connection, not center. Same is true for Master/Slave jumpered drives. Boot drive on end of cable. SATA should be no problem as each has separate cable.
Your thinking is on the right track. Windows XP system partition and boot partition can be on the same partition or separate partitions. Quick way to resolve partial system/boot partitions, would be to click on Start|Run. Type msconfig and press Enter. Click on the BOOT.INI tab. Click on "Check All Boot Paths. If prompted regarding removal of an invalid boot path on the 80Gb drive, accept the removal. Be careful. It's easy to remove the wrong one.
Download and install Data Lifeguard Tools 11 for Windows. Under the Setup for a new drive you will find tools to delete all existing partitions, create a new one and format your old 80Gb hard drive. Did you use the Western Digital software to clone your old drive and make it the boot drive? Or did you do a clean XP install on the new 300Gb?
Yes, they are both Western Digital IDE drives. I've tried the whole CSEL option thing. Both drives are in their correct positions (i.e. the new drive is on the end of the cable in the primary position and the old drive is on the secondary drive connector). I initially had them jumped as such: master jumped to dual/master (pins 5/6) and slave jumped to dual/slave (pins 3/4). This is when I first noticed the problem so I jumped them both to CSEL (pins 1/2) and still got the same problem. After that I tried jumping the master back to dual/master and left the old, slaved one in CSEL ... still no luck. Then I tried setting the new one back to CSEL and then set the old one to dual/slave. Once again, I still get the same problem. I just checked the BOOT.INI and that says everything is fine. This is a strange problem. I don't understand why it works for a cold boot but not a "restart" boot.
Yep, again, I've tried all that stuff. At first, I tried to use Data Lifeguard to clone the existing old disk to the new one and then define the new disk as a boot disk. However, whenever I did this and set the drives up according to their placement (as defined in the instructions) I would get the same problem I am having now except that I wasn't even able to get Windows XP to boot up. Neither of the drives could ever be recognized and thus never booted. After some investigation, I determined that it was probably due to a second partition that I noticed on the old Dell drive that wasn't being copied over to the new one. I figured that this partition was the DellUtility partition. Therefore, I completely disconnected the old drive and did a clean format and Windows XP installation on the new drive. After this, everything booted up fine using only the new drive. I then re-connected the old drive and copied the files that I wanted from the old drive onto my new drive. After this, I disconnected my new drive and then used the Window's XP installation disk on the old drive to start the process to install Window's XP on it but stopped after I got to the part where it asks if you want to delete the existing partitions on the drive. At this point I simply deleted the partitions (it noted two partitions so I deleted both of them thinking that this would delete the hidden partition) and stopped the installation process there since I didn't need another Windows OS drive. This was the only way I could figure out to delete the hidden partition since Data Lifeguard would not let me access or copy it (since it was “undefined”) and the disk management wouldn’t let me reformat it. Now what I’ve noticed is that if I format the drive using Data Lifeguard, the drive will sometimes show a 24 MB unformatted section on the drive in data management. When it does this I’ve tried to delete the formatted section – thus making the entire disk unformatted (both the original formatted section and the 24 MB section together) – and then format it as a primary partition using data management. However, I still continue to get the same problem. I honestly have no idea what is going on. I guess I’ll just have to always shut the system completely down to restart the computer.
There's your problem. The 24mb partition on the old 80Gb is the Dell Diagnostics partition. It's neither FAT nor NTFS. It's gotta go. If I remember correctly, the Windows XP system partition was actually referenced from the Diagnostics Partition, making the boot partition the second partition. What's probably causing your problem is that your 300Gb system partition gets confused when it sees, in effect, two boot partitions. One of which has nothing from which to boot.
Use the write zeros option to completely erase the 80GB drive. To be safe, connect only the 80Gb and boot from the Data Lifeguard Diagnostic Disk.
Of course, another solution to the problem would be to put the 80Gb on the same cable as your CD ROM drive (Assuming of course that you only have one CD or DVD drive).
Well, I think I finally got it. It looks like the Set to Zeros thing actually did work. All I had to do was set both jumpers back to CSEL and it now seems to restart just fine. Not sure why it won't work with the jumpers set to dual/master and dual slave respectively but it's not a big deal. Thanks for all the help.
Quick question. I just used Data Lifeguard and noticed that when I go to "View Hard Drive Information" it shows both the 300 GB hard drive and the 80 GB hard drive on the Primary IDE channel and nothing on the Secondary IDE channel. Shouldn't the 80 GB hard drive (the old one) be on the Secondary IDE channel?
I'm stumped. I thought that would work but it is still having the restart problem. I did a full set to zeros and it still won't recognize on a restart. I still need to do a full shutdown to get the drives to be recognized. I need both rom drives on the system so that really isn't an option. Eventually I'll just have to completely replace the Dell hard drive. Seems like a big waste. Thanks for all the help though. I'm at a loss.
Message Edited by BrianDP1977 on 12-27-2005 07:19 PM
Glad the Set to Zeros trick worked. As for your question on Primary and Secondary channels. If two drives are on the Primary cable, one is Master and one is Slave. Same for Secondary cable. The Cable Select takes care of which is which, as does setting one drive as Master and the other as Slave. Controllers used in newer systems seem to prefer the Cable Select method, especially if drives differ greatly in storage capacity or were built by different manufacturers.
tgsmith
2.9K Posts
0
December 27th, 2005 00:00
BrianDP1977,
First. What type of drives are the 300 and 80 Gb drives. IDE or SATA? If they are IDE, then you can select Cable Select for both and plug them in on the same cable. Boot drive is on end connection, not center. Same is true for Master/Slave jumpered drives. Boot drive on end of cable. SATA should be no problem as each has separate cable.
Your thinking is on the right track. Windows XP system partition and boot partition can be on the same partition or separate partitions. Quick way to resolve partial system/boot partitions, would be to click on Start|Run. Type msconfig and press Enter. Click on the BOOT.INI tab. Click on "Check All Boot Paths. If prompted regarding removal of an invalid boot path on the 80Gb drive, accept the removal. Be careful. It's easy to remove the wrong one.
Tony
tgsmith
2.9K Posts
0
December 27th, 2005 01:00
BrianDP1977,
Go here: http://support.wdc.com/download/index.asp?swid=1
Download and install Data Lifeguard Tools 11 for Windows. Under the Setup for a new drive you will find tools to delete all existing partitions, create a new one and format your old 80Gb hard drive. Did you use the Western Digital software to clone your old drive and make it the boot drive? Or did you do a clean XP install on the new 300Gb?
Tony
BrianP1977
11 Posts
0
December 27th, 2005 01:00
BrianP1977
11 Posts
0
December 27th, 2005 03:00
Yep, again, I've tried all that stuff. At first, I tried to use Data Lifeguard to clone the existing old disk to the new one and then define the new disk as a boot disk. However, whenever I did this and set the drives up according to their placement (as defined in the instructions) I would get the same problem I am having now except that I wasn't even able to get Windows XP to boot up. Neither of the drives could ever be recognized and thus never booted. After some investigation, I determined that it was probably due to a second partition that I noticed on the old Dell drive that wasn't being copied over to the new one. I figured that this partition was the DellUtility partition. Therefore, I completely disconnected the old drive and did a clean format and Windows XP installation on the new drive. After this, everything booted up fine using only the new drive. I then re-connected the old drive and copied the files that I wanted from the old drive onto my new drive. After this, I disconnected my new drive and then used the Window's XP installation disk on the old drive to start the process to install Window's XP on it but stopped after I got to the part where it asks if you want to delete the existing partitions on the drive. At this point I simply deleted the partitions (it noted two partitions so I deleted both of them thinking that this would delete the hidden partition) and stopped the installation process there since I didn't need another Windows OS drive. This was the only way I could figure out to delete the hidden partition since Data Lifeguard would not let me access or copy it (since it was “undefined”) and the disk management wouldn’t let me reformat it. Now what I’ve noticed is that if I format the drive using Data Lifeguard, the drive will sometimes show a 24 MB unformatted section on the drive in data management. When it does this I’ve tried to delete the formatted section – thus making the entire disk unformatted (both the original formatted section and the 24 MB section together) – and then format it as a primary partition using data management. However, I still continue to get the same problem. I honestly have no idea what is going on. I guess I’ll just have to always shut the system completely down to restart the computer.
tgsmith
2.9K Posts
0
December 27th, 2005 04:00
BrianDP1977,
There's your problem. The 24mb partition on the old 80Gb is the Dell Diagnostics partition. It's neither FAT nor NTFS. It's gotta go. If I remember correctly, the Windows XP system partition was actually referenced from the Diagnostics Partition, making the boot partition the second partition. What's probably causing your problem is that your 300Gb system partition gets confused when it sees, in effect, two boot partitions. One of which has nothing from which to boot.
One way to get rid of it is to download the Data Lifeguard Diagnostic for DOS: http://support.wdc.com/download/?cxml=n&pid=999&swid=2
Use the write zeros option to completely erase the 80GB drive. To be safe, connect only the 80Gb and boot from the Data Lifeguard Diagnostic Disk.
Of course, another solution to the problem would be to put the 80Gb on the same cable as your CD ROM drive (Assuming of course that you only have one CD or DVD drive).
Tony
Message Edited by tgsmith on 12-27-2005 01:17 AM
Message Edited by tgsmith on 12-27-2005 01:18 AM
BrianP1977
11 Posts
0
December 27th, 2005 23:00
BrianP1977
11 Posts
0
December 27th, 2005 23:00
BrianP1977
11 Posts
0
December 27th, 2005 23:00
Message Edited by BrianDP1977 on 12-27-2005 07:19 PM
tgsmith
2.9K Posts
0
December 28th, 2005 00:00
Brian,
Glad the Set to Zeros trick worked. As for your question on Primary and Secondary channels. If two drives are on the Primary cable, one is Master and one is Slave. Same for Secondary cable. The Cable Select takes care of which is which, as does setting one drive as Master and the other as Slave. Controllers used in newer systems seem to prefer the Cable Select method, especially if drives differ greatly in storage capacity or were built by different manufacturers.
Tony
BrianP1977
11 Posts
0
December 28th, 2005 01:00