Hello all, the short vers. is I tried to install XP on a secondary HDD, it didn't install properly (never saw gui, only "Disk read error"). When I replugged in the primary HDD (which was running w2kpro) the secondaryHDD appeared as a removable drive. Ran fixboot from XP installer on secondary HDD (w/ primary disconnected from comp.), didn't fix anything. Plugged primary back in (so both HDD's connected), after w2k start up screen got BSOD w/ unmountable boot device error, restarted, screen says I have 10mb partition and prompts me to point to select proper boot device/media... which of course I can't, as none of the drives 'cept floppy are visible to PC and I don't have a bootable floppy yet.
Yes, that was the short version. Here's the long:
1- Reformatted the New Drive (Drive 2) in windows2000 using GUI
2- Shut down comp, unplugged Old Drive (Drive 1), restarted computer
3- Started to install xp onto Drive 2, did not format using XP disk
(as it should have been formatted already in w2k)
4- After loading all files to Drive 2, displays "A hard disk error
occured. Press ctrl alt del to restart"
4- Press c.a.d. and returns same error screen, never see XP GUI
5- Shut down, replug Drive 1, restart
6- W/in wk2, reformat drive again
7- Shut down, unplug D1, restart, reformat D2 w/ XP disc, re-install,
same error appears
8- Shut down, Double check jumpers on D2 are set to "cable select"
9- Restart with D1 & D2 plugged in, in w2k see that D2 is mounted as
removable drive, not a standard hard drive. Explore drive and see all
the install files are on it.
10- Run check diskutility (rom w/ win2k's computer management GUI) on D2, checks out fine
11- Shut down, unplug D1, restart, run XP fixboot to re-write boot file on D2
12- Restart, same error as 4
13- Shutdown, plug D1 back in, restart, blue screens after win2k start
up, I believe w/ the unmountable boot volume error, which says "if
this is the first time you've seen this error, restart your computer"
14- Restart computer, same blue screen
15- Shut down, Remove battery from motherboard for 15-20 minutes
16- Restart, no blue screen, no windows 2k screen, @ start up prompted
to DEL for SetUp
17- On set up screen, comp unable to see any drive but the floppy.Go
into bios and comp still sees nothing
18- Shut down comp, unplug all drives, plug in D1, restart, same
result (can't see drives)
19- Repeat process w/ D2, CD, same result, shutdown.
* * *
So two problematic points, step #4 and step #11 above.
Was able to run w2k until I step #11, when I ran fixboot off the XP
cd, which I assumed was supposed to write the boot sector on C (which at the time would havebeen D2, the intended XP drive.) Have NO IDEA why it would cause
issues w/ w2k unless I had the wrong drive plugged in. I double
checked that I didn't, but who knows... I'm planning to plug the D1 drive into my friend's machine just to make sure it's accessible and I've lost no data. At this point getting that back into my box and running win2k is my primary objective. Deal w/ XP later.
Any suggestions on how to get the PC to see the drives again? Is this now a mobo issue? @!(#!()!!! Confusion reigns, and I am his queen.
