Disk boot failure

[craigwatanabe]

Okay I'm building a computer for a friend with salvaged parts and some new.

The new parts include mobo, power supply, cables. The salavaged includes the 40gb hard drive.

I have a USB to IDE cable that allows me to hook up an internal hard drive to this cable and power supply then route that hard drive to another computer thru the USB port. When detected I go to my "computer management/disk management utility and it sees the USB driven hard drive. I then format with NTSF to creat a "healthy" disk.

But when I take that hard drive and install it in this build, on boot up I get this Disk Boot Failure Insert System Disk message in the BIOS.

Should I be formatting in FAT32 or is NTFS the correct format? Before I plunk down some kala for a new hard drive I'm asking you folks out there if I'm doing anything wrong...and don't tell me to buy a Mac

Mahalo,

Craig

[helen]

Re: Disk boot failure

You might have to check the computer's BIOS to see if booting from a USB disk drive is a valid option.

Oh wait. The disk drive in question now is it hooked up to the computer via the USB port or is it on the IDE cable?

[craigwatanabe]

Re: Disk boot failure

It's hooked up to the IDE cable.

I'm using my laptop to reformat a Western Digital 40GB internal hard drive via a USB to IDE cable, so the hard drive sits basically on my desk with power and an IDE cable attached to it. The other end of the IDE cable routes to my laptop's USB 2.0 port. From there I use the laptop's "Computer Management/disk management" utility to reformat that hard drive.

Once the hard drive is reformatted I disconnect from the laptop and install the drive into a computer I'm building. That's when the problem occurs.

I have tried NTFS and FAT32 and neither will take. I still get a Boot Disk Failure message. I know the hard drive works because when I re-attach it to my laptop thru the USB connection, my laptop recognizes the drive and I can even write to it and read that information.

I'm wondering if I'm formatting the hard drive incorrectly. I gave up at 4am this morning and am seeking help in this build.

Thanks for your input, any at this point helps

[cezanne]

Re: Disk boot failure

Why can't you format it on the new system instead of going back and forth with your laptop?

[lurkah]

Re: Disk boot failure

Once the hard drive is reformatted I disconnect from the laptop and install the drive into a computer I'm building. That's when the problem occurs.

I have tried NTFS and FAT32 and neither will take. I still get a Boot Disk Failure message. I know the hard drive works because when I re-attach it to my laptop thru the USB connection, my laptop recognizes the drive and I can even write to it and read that information.

What you have at this point is a non-bootable NTFS-formatted data storage disk. You're getting the "Boot Disk Failure" message because you have no operating system installed on that hard drive for the computer to boot from (also check that the Master/Slave/Cable Select jumper settings are correct). What you need to do is to insert your Windows XP installation disk in your CD or DVD drive and then reboot the computer and choose the option to "Press any key to boot from the CD" (make sure the CD or DVD drive is listed in your BIOS setup as a bootable device). The Windows installation program will walk you through the rest of the install, which will probably include formatting your hard drive partition to NTFS all over again (I'd also choose the Full instead of the Quick format option for doing this).

[craigwatanabe]

Re: Disk boot failure

That seems to make sense. I was beginning to wonder if the formatting was the issue.

One big problem though...the IDE2 connection doesn't seem to want to detect anything during boot up.

Originally nothing was detected during boot up with the hard drive on IDE1 (set to master) and the CD-ROM drive on IDE2 (set to master)

Both had new cables and I even tried using another pair.

Here's the funny thing though, after realizing no drives being detected on either IDE1 or 2 I was beginning to think both IDE controllers on the mobo was bad so I powered down and pulled the hard drive cable off IDE1 plugged in the CD-ROM drive. That left me with no hard drive to install onto but I just wanted to see if the BIOS would detect the CD-ROM drive in IDE1 thru the controllers. It did and it continued to go to the Windows Setup.

Because there was no hard drive installed at that point I shut down. No sense right with no hard drive installed. I'm gonna try installing both the hard drive and CD-ROM drive on IDE1 making the hard drive the master and the CD-ROM drive the slave, knowing that it'll slow down performance but at this point I'm just wondering if I can get this thing to run.

At that point I'm thinking the BIOS will give me a disk read error again before the slaved CD-ROM drive can load the OS.

How do you reformat a hard drive in a new system (no OS) or even in another computer so it isn't a non-bootable storage disk?

Should I put both drives on one IDE cable but make the CD-ROM drive the master just so the BIOS will read the CD-ROM first?

On the boot menu I have the CD-ROM as first boot then HD as second (no floppy)

One thing though...why isn't IDE2 recognizing anything connected to it? Possible BIOS issue here?

Thanks

Craig

[helen]

Re: Disk boot failure

BIOS vary, so what I am suggesting may not be available. If the option exist set each of the 4 IDE points as auto and see what the BIOS thinks of the devices that are attached to it.

For instance some BIOS would see it as:

primary master
primary slave
secondary master
secondary slave

Set all four to auto, save it, power down, hook up the stuff, power it up again and see what it thinks is out there.

[craigwatanabe]

Re: Disk boot failure

Right now the BIOS defaults all IDE points to auto so it's looking but can't seem to find anything on IDE2.

[helen]

Re: Disk boot failure

You could use either the CD-ROM or the hard drive for this but I would suggest the CD-ROM set it to slave and plug it to the slave connecters to IDE1 and see if it detects it as a slave. Then plug it to IDE2 and see it it detects it as well.

Then set the CD-ROM to master and plug it to the master connector to IDE1 and see it detects it and then plug it to IDE2's master connector.

If it works on both IDE1's master and slave and nothing on IDE2, then either the IDE2 cable is bad or IDE2 controller is broken (or bad or fried). You could swap cables between IDE1 and IDE2 and repeat the process. If IDE1 doesn't respond then you got a bad cable and all you got to do is get a new one. If IDE2 still doesn't respond then the controller is not working and you will need to replace the motherboard (assuming the controller is on the motherboard) or not use IDE2 at all.

[craigwatanabe]

Re: Disk boot failure

Ugh I was afraid of that. No the IDE2 cables are fine. When I checked for bad cables the first thing I did was move the CD-ROM drive cable from the IDE2 slot to the IDE1 slot and it was recognized!

I'd love to run everything off of IDE1 and just let IDE2 sit idle but this person wants two optical drives, so I need two IDE controllers.

Darn this is a brand new mobo too! I'd hate to have to RMA this board as DOA.

[helen]

Re: Disk boot failure

Two whacky suggestions.

1) Check around the BIOS to see if there are any options that deal with the IDE controllers, maybe there is an option that enables/disables IDE2.

2) If you don't want to return the motherboard and don't mind spending a few extra tens of dollars, you might want to consider getting an PCI IDE controller to replace the failed IDE2 controller.

[craigwatanabe]

Re: Disk boot failure

I am considering a controller card but because this mobo is warranted I may want to get this one repaired or replaced. As for settings I've looked at all the CMOS settings and can't find anything to disable or enable IDE2.

I've got two more Intel boards coming in a couple of days so I'm not too desperate at this point. This really sucks to have a new board mess up like this

[lurkah]

Re: Disk boot failure

Here's the funny thing though, after realizing no drives being detected on either IDE1 or 2 I was beginning to think both IDE controllers on the mobo was bad so I powered down and pulled the hard drive cable off IDE1 plugged in the CD-ROM drive. That left me with no hard drive to install onto but I just wanted to see if the BIOS would detect the CD-ROM drive in IDE1 thru the controllers. It did and it continued to go to the Windows Setup.

Just curious. Is the hard drive's ribbon cable attached directly to the motherboard, or is it attached to a Promise Ultra controller card? If it's plugged into a controller card, then the hard drive won't appear in the BIOS listing of IDE devices.

[i-hungry]

Re: Disk boot failure

How do you reformat a hard drive in a new system (no OS) or even in another computer so it isn't a non-bootable storage disk?

If you had a Windows 98 system on the good computer then you could the format command on it to make it bootable.

format x: /s

x: = whatever drive letter it is.

It will be bootable as a Win98 in DOS mode.

If you can get that to work on the other computer AND the CD-ROM then you may be able to load WinXP. Maybe.

Not exactly a convenient way to do thing but I have done it on systems where I had very few choices to install an OS and make things load work.

[speedtek]

Re: Disk boot failure

You may also have to use a program called diskpart.exe to toast the partitions that NTFS creates and makes them non-bootable. The newer laptops need to be done this way when upgrading XP Home to Pro.