Member Avatar for BertC

I recently tried to install a second hard drive to my system running Windows XP Professional. I am studying IT and wanted to play around with partitioning, permissions, etc. The first hard drive is a 250 G WD SATA-300 with NTFS. The second hard drive is a Seagate 250 G EIDE formatted with NTFS.

When I first installed the second drive, it had jumpers set and the computer kept looking at my floppy as the first boot device. When I finally realized what was going on (I'm new at this), I removed the jumpers and reset the boot sequence in CMOS. Now it boots to my C drive with the OS on it. However, before it boots, it comes up with a message saying that "the C drive has errors on it and must be checked for consistency. Please run CHKDSK."

This message started the first time I tried to boot the system after installing the second hard drive, even before fixing the jumper settings. It will not go away. I press a key and it skips the checking disk part, but what is going on and why does this keep happening?

Also, when the computer does boot up to the desktop, a message with a balloon pops up in the lower right hand corner saying that "The file or directory C:\WINDOWS\Prefetch\NWIZ.EXE-2DOF9FBC.pf is corrupt and unreadable. Please run the CHKDSK utility." What does this mean? I haven't been able to find out anything about it.

Is there anyone that might be able to help me clear this up? I'm hoping to clear it up so that I can install my XP system on a second computer without having to wait another 4 months to do it. Thanks for your help in advance. Bert

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  • Latest Post Latest Post by caperjack
Member Avatar for caperjack

so run the chkdsk and get it over with ,right click on the harddrive icon in mycomputer and go to properties/ tools and check to do a chkdsk and fix errors ,reboot computer ,don't hit a key let it run run the check disk

Member Avatar for BertC

so run the chkdsk and get it over with ,right click on the harddrive icon in mycomputer and go to properties/ tools and check to do a chkdsk and fix errors ,reboot computer ,don't hit a key let it run run the check disk

It seems to have worked. I did run chkdsk several times before, but it did not fix it. After I posted my thread, I noticed that some programs were gone, including Windows Media Player. Now, everything is back and working, so far as I can tell. It boots up cleanly, no problem.

I still want to install a second hard drive. As I said before, my C drive is a SATA drive. The second drive, which I bought before I knew anything about computers, is a EIDE drive. I see no reason why these won't work in the same computer.

Is there anything I need to do before installing this second hard drive to make sure the installation will be successful? Any thoughts Mr. Caperjack is much appreciated.

Member Avatar for caperjack

it is safe to delete all files in the prefetch folder ,might get rid of the error .
make sure you set the eide to master ,and set boot order in the bios ,making the sata bottable before the ide drive .
i postting a old thread here might have some infoe of interest in it .i have never done what you are trying to do so have no on hands experience with it .
http://www.daniweb.com/forums/thread10331.html

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