I know there are a million threads of these, but.

A

Aceharding

n00b
Joined
Dec 21, 2006
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28
None of them work for me.

I installed Windows XP w/ SP2 on a new, well not really NEW, but a reformatted drive and it's saying "Error loading OS".
It WAS "Error Loading Operating System" before I ran WD's Lifegaurd program on it and tried to restore the MBR. The jumpers are in the correct place as with the ribbon config. (Master [Hard DRive] on the grey [middle] and the Slave [DVD drive] on the black [end])
I've tried using Windows Recovery and did fixmbr and fixboot but they don't work. I've tried accessing the hard drive through Auto, Large, CHS, and LMB. (Or whatever they are)

I've tried reinstalling it on another drive but I get the same message. I've tried reinstalling it on the same drive, nothing. I've formatted that hard drive like 3 times already, doing quick installation as well as full format. I've deleted the partition beofre I installed WIndows, I've kept the parition beofre installing Windows, they both don't work. I can't install 2k then upgrade because I don't have 2k. I've updated my BIOS to the latest version as well.

I've installed WIndows using the 6 boot disks, I've tried Installing WIndows with the CD. Both a no go.

The only other solution that I've read up on is to fill the hard drive with 0s. But I can't seem to figure out which program to use. ANy help here?

Oh btw, my motherboard is A7n8x -x
 
WD has a utility that will do a low level format, check their website
 
True low level formatting is a bad idea, and it's only supposed to be done once in the lifetime of a drive - at the factory when it's manufactured.

The first issue I noted is that you've got the hard drive and the CD/DVD drive on the same cable: is there some really good reason you're doing that considering it's going to cause the XP installation to take nearly twice as long as the drives being on seperate cables, aka seperate controllers?

At this point with all that you've done, I'd suspect either: a bad drive (or two) or the IDE controller is just dead. I've seen this issue over the years myself, and it turned out in several cases to be a dead drive (even one that was brand new and just taken out of a factory shrink-wrapped box; the other times the IDE controller was just flaky and unreliable).

This is one of those situations where you can beat yourself and that machine to death trying everything to get it working and you never get anywhere. Sometimes, as I've learned the hard way, stuff simply doesn't work and there's no logical reason for it that you can find.
 
Well, they should work. I had the 70GB drive for 3+ years and it hasn't coughed once. I installed the 250 one as a second drive and decide to try to make it my boot drive because my 70GB was infested with trojans. (My WoW account got hacked)

After reformatting both drives, I couldn't get the 250 one to work at all so I decided to RMA it. SO in the meantime, I'm trying to get my good ol' 70GB one to work. And I reverted it back to the way it was for 3+ years. (Having both the HD and the DVD Drive on the same cable. maybe it's the ribbon... I did switch to a cooler looking one when I bought the HD Drive.

Oh and when I had the DVD Drive on a different ribbon, I can't choose to boot up from the CD.

edit>> So I should just use a Zero-Fill utility?
 
Well, to be honest, I've never heard of a 70GB hard drive. 60, 80, even 74GB Raptors, but a 70? That's just too odd there...

If having the CD/DVD drive on another cable (meaning another controller) doesn't work, then something is amiss in your BIOS for whatever reason. Either the drive is there when attached or it's not; if it's not, and it's attached and power is there as required, then something is really wrong.

If you honestly believe zeroing out the drive will help, go for it. I personally don't think that'll make any difference at all, and would suggest you find a 98SE CD or boot floppy and restore the factory MBR to the drive(s) with the command:

fdisk /mbr

at the command prompt after booting off the CD or floppy. This does everything you'd effectively need to be able to use a drive again. You can even then run fdisk again and remove all the partitions off that drive, leaving it clean as a whistle, and then do the fdisk /mbr command again at the command prompt (after a reboot to make the partition deletions recognized).

After that procedure, that drive is as good as factory blank, and nothing on it would cause any issues.

The only other solution would be as I said: either the drive itself is now defective for some reason, or the IDE controller is bad, possibly both of them because you seem to also be having issues with the CD/DVD drive attached to the Secondary.

Hope this helps...
 
I mean 80 GB.
Well it sees the drive as the secondary master beforehand and could read it when I was still running windows along with the 250GB drive. And I could install Windows XP with it using the boot disks when it was on the other ribbon. It just that I couldn't boot up straight from the CD.

Whatev, I'm throwing in the towel. If the Zero Fill and fdisk /mbr doesn't work. I'm buying a brand new motherboard and Processor and will wait for my RMA'ed Hard Drive to come in.
 
bbz_Ghost said:
and would suggest you find a 98SE CD or boot floppy and restore the factory MBR to the drive(s) with the command:

fdisk /mbr
Click to expand...

So boot up with the Win98 SE boot disk, go into C: then do fdisk /mbr.
Then delete the partition using fdisk, then do fdisk /mbr again and start installing WinXP again and format the hard drive to NTFS right before installing right?
 
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