SATA + IDE hdd boot trouble

[AMD_Gamer]

ok i figured out what is going on but i dont know why, i have a MSI K8N neo4 SLI i have 2 harddrives, one is a IDE on the primary IDE channel and the other is SATA, now i use the SATA as my boot drive.

here is the problem, my SATA drive will only boot up if i have the HDD wich is just a storage drive installed and set as the primary boot device, if i disconnect it or change the boot sequence so the SATA drive is first the system wont boot, it gives me some kind of boot from cd error and press enter.

what the hell is causing this to happen i ahve tried everything? :mad:

also if i add a new hdd it wont work either

[drizzt81]

boot loader must be installed on the IDE drive then.

[AMD_Gamer]

boot loader must be installed on the IDE drive then.

so the problem i have is common? it does not make any sense to me? the SATA disk is what has windows why wont it boot from it? can someone explain what the hell is going on here?

how would a bootloader help me out?

[drizzt81]

I assume that this happend:

you had both an IDE and a SATA drive installed when you installed windows last. The boot order was something like:
CD-ROM
IDE
SATA

When windows installed, the boot files got placed on the IDE drive, hence the IDE drive needs to be booted from, rather than the SATA drive.

Reinstalling windows with only the SATA drive connected should fix it.
There may be a different solution that I am not aware of. I may also be wrong, but this is what comes to my mind.

[AMD_Gamer]

I assume that this happend:

you had both an IDE and a SATA drive installed when you installed windows last. The boot order was something like:
CD-ROM
IDE
SATA

When windows installed, the boot files got placed on the IDE drive, hence the IDE drive needs to be booted from, rather than the SATA drive.

Reinstalling windows with only the SATA drive connected should fix it.
There may be a different solution that I am not aware of. I may also be wrong, but this is what comes to my mind.

ok now how come if i leave everything the way it is then simply add another hdd it still wont work? it should still boot up like always just with an extra storage drive?

[Lazn_Work]

Which drive has the hidden system files ntldr and ntdetect.com?

That is your boot drive, no matter where windows is, that drive is your boot drive.

You can fix it.. but you have to make the partition on the SATA drive with windows on it active, and you need to move those files to that drive... If it doesn't work.. then I recomend removeing all drives except the CD drive and the SATA drive, reinstalling windows on to it. (repair should work) then and only then adding back your other drives.

==>Lazn

[AMD_Gamer]

Which drive has the hidden system files ntldr and ntdetect.com?

That is your boot drive, no matter where windows is, that drive is your boot drive.

You can fix it.. but you have to make the partition on the SATA drive with windows on it active, and you need to move those files to that drive... If it doesn't work.. then I recomend removeing all drives except the CD drive and the SATA drive, reinstalling windows on to it. (repair should work) then and only then adding back your other drives.

==>Lazn

i found those files on my storage drive not the one im trying to boot from WTF!?

ok exactly how do i do this, i showed hidden files then moved those two files to the hdd im trying to fix but it still does now work ???

[AMD_Gamer]

also still how come even if i leave this configuration the same and then just simply add another hdd it wont work?

[Tormond]

Is the drive you are adding SATA or IDE? My guess is that what is happening is your drive order is getting screwed up again as it looks something like this

IDE drive (has the ntloader on it)
SATA or IDE Drive (whichever) is either the secondary IDE (which puts its drive letter before the SATA drive or you have the SATA below on the 2nd-4th SATA connector and the new drive is on one before that also making that drive letter ahead of the old SATA drive)
SATA drive (where windows is)

The problem that you have more than anything is that you have ntloader (the "boot" sector of windows if you will) on a different drive than the actual Windows installation (IE the boot sector is on the IDE drive and the actual windows files are on the SATA drive) so you are going to keep having weirdness anytime you change/move drives until you remedy this problem. After you get the "boot sector" and the windows files on the same drive you should be able via the bios to go in and set the boot drive to whatever you want it to be (as long as the ntldr is on that drive)

[AMD_Gamer]

The problem that you have more than anything is that you have ntloader (the "boot" sector of windows if you will) on a different drive than the actual Windows installation (IE the boot sector is on the IDE drive and the actual windows files are on the SATA drive) so you are going to keep having weirdness anytime you change/move drives until you remedy this problem. After you get the "boot sector" and the windows files on the same drive you should be able via the bios to go in and set the boot drive to whatever you want it to be (as long as the ntldr is on that drive)


yes im pretty sure this is the problem now, so how exactly do i fix this, i found the hidden files on my storage drive and moved them to the SATA drive that has the windows installation, still no go,

next thing i did was disconnect the drive with the mbr on it, then tried to run the windows xp repair and all it gives me is the option for the command line repair so i did FIXMBR and FIXBOOT, still no good,

how do i go about fixing this?

:mad:

[Lazn_Work]

The thing to do is a repair install of windows, with only your SATA drive installed, then in your BIOS make sure that SATA is your preferred first boot device (after cdrom).

This should clear it up.

The other way to do it would be to get a knoppix or windows PE boot cd and make the windows partition active, and the partiton on the IDE drive not active. (a partition has to be active to boot from it, and according to MS you can only have one active partiton on a PC at a time.. not technically true.. but still)

==>lazn

[AMD_Gamer]

The thing to do is a repair install of windows, with only your SATA drive installed, then in your BIOS make sure that SATA is your preferred first boot device (after cdrom).

This should clear it up.

The other way to do it would be to get a knoppix or windows PE boot cd and make the windows partition active, and the partiton on the IDE drive not active. (a partition has to be active to boot from it, and according to MS you can only have one active partiton on a PC at a time.. not technically true.. but still)

==>lazn

i did just that, i disconnected the drive that has the mbr installed, booted from the windows xp pro cd and the only repair options i have is the command line one, how do i do this repair install you are talking about?

from the command line i did the FIXMBR and FIXBOOT but those did not work

[Lazn_Work]

also still how come even if i leave this configuration the same and then just simply add another hdd it wont work?

Simple.. ntldr looks at drives like this:

device\hardisk0\partition1
device\hardisk1\partiton1
device\hardisk2\partiton1
etc.

When you only have the two drives, for whatever reason your IDE drive is hardisk0 and your SATA is hardisk1

But when you add another drive, it is taking the device lable of hardisk1 and moving your sata to hardisk2.. So ntldr is looking for a windows install on your new drive..

I am not sure if you can in your bios change around the priority of your SATA device or not, but really you want ntldr to be on an active partiton on your SATA drive.. then you don't need either of the other drives to boot, but they can be there as storage drives.

This exact problem is why you really only want one drive, with one parttion when you install of windows, then add other drives and partions AFTER you have windows working the way you want.

==>Lazn

[AMD_Gamer]

Simple.. ntldr looks at drives like this:

device\hardisk0\partition1
device\hardisk1\partiton1
device\hardisk2\partiton1
etc.

When you only have the two drives, for whatever reason your IDE drive is hardisk0 and your SATA is hardisk1

But when you add another drive, it is taking the device lable of hardisk1 and moving your sata to hardisk2.. So ntldr is looking for a windows install on your new drive..

I am not sure if you can in your bios change around the priority of your SATA device or not, but really you want ntldr to be on an active partiton on your SATA drive.. then you don't need either of the other drives to boot, but they can be there as storage drives.

This exact problem is why you really only want one drive, with one parttion when you install of windows, then add other drives and partions AFTER you have windows working the way you want.

==>Lazn

ok makes alot of sense to me now,

but i found the hidden files and moved them to the hdd im trying to boot from and it did not work, maybe because i did not set it to an active partition how do i do that?

[Tormond]

Google is your friend :)

This guy got it working doing this give it a shot (http://ask.metafilter.com/mefi/20100)

[Lazn_Work]

Google is your friend :)

This guy got it working doing this give it a shot (http://ask.metafilter.com/mefi/20100)

I actually just went through something very similar of this last night with my roomate on his PC..

With his bootmagic 8 did not like XP Pro 64bit, and it was no longer booting.

So we ended up using knoppix to make the right partiton active, and then the recovery console to rebuild the MBR..

==>Lazn

[Tormond]

Simple.. ntldr looks at drives like this:

device\hardisk0\partition1
device\hardisk1\partiton1
device\hardisk2\partiton1
etc.

When you only have the two drives, for whatever reason your IDE drive is hardisk0 and your SATA is hardisk1

But when you add another drive, it is taking the device lable of hardisk1 and moving your sata to hardisk2.. So ntldr is looking for a windows install on your new drive..

I am not sure if you can in your bios change around the priority of your SATA device or not, but really you want ntldr to be on an active partiton on your SATA drive.. then you don't need either of the other drives to boot, but they can be there as storage drives.

This exact problem is why you really only want one drive, with one parttion when you install of windows, then add other drives and partions AFTER you have windows working the way you want.

==>Lazn


Yeah what he said :) Basicallly you need to open the ntldr file and it will look something like this

default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(1)\WINNT

you need to change that to

default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT

This changes it from Boot from drive 0 (the IDE) but the windows files are on drive 1 (the SATA) to Boot/Windows files are both on Drive (0) (where teh SATA is drive 0 as it is the only drive in the system

[AMD_Gamer]

what about doing that fdisk /mbr like that guy said?

[AMD_Gamer]

also how do i run the windows repair, only option for repair i see is the console version

[Lazn_Work]

what about doing that fdisk /mbr like that guy said?

That can rebuild your MBR, but it will not set an active partiton. You need that to boot as well. If you have a 9x boot disk, I think you can use fdisk to set an active partiton..

Here is a nice little description of the boot process. http://www.windowsnetworking.com/articles_tutorials/Building-Using-Windows-XP-Boot-Disk.html


==>Lazn

[Lazn_Work]

also how do i run the windows repair, only option for repair i see is the console version

You have to go furthur into the boot process..
http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/XPrepairinstall.htm

==>Lazn

[AMD_Gamer]

That can rebuild your MBR, but it will not set an active partiton. You need that to boot as well. If you have a 9x boot disk, I think you can use fdisk to set an active partiton..

Here is a nice little description of the boot process. http://www.windowsnetworking.com/articles_tutorials/Building-Using-Windows-XP-Boot-Disk.html


==>Lazn


so get a windows boot disk, do fdisk /mbr to create a mbr then use fdisk to set the active partition?

[Lazn_Work]

so get a windows boot disk, do fdisk /mbr to create a mbr then use fdisk to set the active partition?

Worth a try. I have not done it that way because I don't have floppy drives in any of my comptuers, but according to Microsoft it can be done..

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=315261

==>lazn

[AMD_Gamer]

You have to go furthur into the boot process..
http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/XPrepairinstall.htm

==>Lazn


lol, thanks but i got warning # 2

Warning!! #2
If the Repair Option is not Available

[Lazn_Work]

lol, thanks but i got warning # 2

Warning!! #2
If the Repair Option is not Available

Hmm ouch. Now what?

Do you need SATA drivers to install windows? (press F6 on boot)

==>Lazn

[AMD_Gamer]

whats the best way to make a simple boot disk on a cd i can have fdisk ok,

i have the ultimate bootcd but cant figure out how to boot the normal way and get a command line i could do fdisk /mbr and use fdisk

[Tormond]

Probbaly the easiest way would be to go to

Bootdisks Aplenty (http://www.bootdisk.com/)

Just make sure your pop up blocker is ready :) I use the files on this site (keep a copy of most of them on my WD Passport drive and on my notebook) for going to customer sites

[AMD_Gamer]

Probbaly the easiest way would be to go to

Bootdisks Aplenty (http://www.bootdisk.com/)

Just make sure your pop up blocker is ready :) I use the files on this site (keep a copy of most of them on my WD Passport drive and on my notebook) for going to customer sites

lots of options on that page wich is a good one?

[Tormond]

Umm I actually just noticed that he makes you pay to download now so ignore my earlier post. I hate when websites do that.

Try Here for Info (http://www.ntfs.com/missing-corrupted-system-files.htm)

I would suggest just booting off the Windows XP disk and using the recovery console to make changes etc (this is just like a dos prompt for the most part)

[AMD_Gamer]

ok everyone thanks for all the help i fixed it and it was very easy!

i just did this from this page http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/XPrepairinstall.htm


"Reboot, this time taking the immediate R option and if the CD letter is say K: give these commands

copy K:\i386\ntldr C:\
copy K:\i386\ntdetect.com C:\


(two other files needed - just in case)

1. Type: attrib -h -r -s C:\boot.ini del C:\boot.ini

2. Type: BootCfg /Rebuild

which will get rid of any damaged boot.ini, search the disk for systems and make a new one. This might even result in a damaged windows reappearing; but gives another chance of getting at the repair"



everything works great now thanks for the help everyone, i knew there was an easy way to fix this without formatting, :D


well now that i got my new hdd installed its time to install vista beta! :D

[Tormond]

Hehe, well glad you got one of them working. Good luck on getting Vista to install. 20 burned ISOs, 5 different Hard Drives, 4 different machines, direct mounting the ISO, Installing from Windows XP Pro, Installing from XP64. Booting from the 32bit disk, booting from the 64bit disk and about 19 hours until I gave up. Ordered the DVDs (and about 20 min after I ordered them MS sent me an e-mail telling me that they were sending them to me as part of my MAPS subscription for free :mad: )

[drizzt81]

nice thread. Glad the OP got it working :)