Can not boot from HD, based on my skull [hard disk failure] [gig hd]
Q: This is probably a very simple problem which I will look like a TOTAL n00b, but here goes:
Ive got this WD200 20 gig HD, that gives me a sample headache.
Ill start from the beginning. I was not one of my computers to recognize and boot properly. I got “Primary Hard Disk Failure” messages from some BIOS, and others completely ignore. I was able to recognize it as a slave on one of my XP machines, I unleashed on Partition Magic and was able to finally find the Linux partitions to NTFS. (The guy I bought Linux installed on to test it before he sold). So now I have an extended NTFS partition on the disk, and can not boot. So now I would at least be able to have my computer recognize the drive, so I can get for installing XP on the right,?
What would cause my computer gives me a “primary disk failure” when I go to start it up and install XP on? So far I managed to get through the first part of installing XP, but when the computer restarts and goes to the second part of the installation, I get those nasty error HD and now can not finish I up.
Right I have put the hard drive as my slave and I see all the stuff, that came from the XP installation. What in sam hell is happening to me? 977 503 977 503. . . Help, Im losing my mind @ #% $.
Re:sorry if this sounds dumb.
But when you try to set the wd drive as master do you totally remove jumper( jumperless)?
if not, pleast try posting it that way.
if you do, i'm fresh outta ideas.
Good luck
Re:Oh my God in heaven. . .
You're abso-fruitly right.
I swear, I wonder about myself sometimes. (http://support.wdc.com/techinfo/general/jumpers.asp)
I hadn't thought of that at all. I thought I tried it as master w/ a slave plugged in at some point but probably not. I'll give that a shot, I'll bet you nailed it.
Thanks!!!
Re:on alot of current drives, master actually means master with something else as slave. if you're running the drive as single (the only thing on the chain), you can just remove the jumper or turn in sideways (horizontal)
Re:Here's an update. I have no idea what's going on. I've got the drive working now by setting it to cable select. It's humming away right next to me installing XP. I tried fdisk /mbr and that didn't help either.
Other than a physical wiring problem (broken trace on a pcb) I can't think of a reason that jumping it to 'master' FUBARs it. Does anyone have a good explanation? I'm 100% stumped.
Re:What does fdisk /mbr do? I've never used that switch before.
Re:If you have a windows 98 Boot disk around, fdisk this baby. First fdisk /mbr, then Fdisk and delete all non-DOS partitions, then shut down, restart, and format the entire dirve as FAT-32. When done, use the Windows XP disk to reboot, reformat, repartition, etc. Make your primary partition bootable, format it as NTFS, format whatever other partitions you create for Linux or whatever you want.
On a drive that size, I may be stating the obvious, but just in case. You need to have an 80 conductor, 40 connector Ultra DMA ATA100/133 ATA cable on it to begin to get full performance. You might also want to get an ATA controller card if there is not one on your motherboard. They run about $19 to $29 depending on where.
OR
Go to the Western Digital site and download the drive preparation tools, read ALL the stuff on that site related to that drive and other large Western Digital drives. You will find the Western Digital software easy and very useful. Their detailed information on how to use the drive is also excellent.
Re:Whoops, this is a primary partition. But here's another clue I got from Partition Magic: on an info screen it says "This partition crosses the 1024 cylinder boundary and may not be bootable" It looks like I could cut this partition down to like 8GB and it would work. How is this possible? On this motherboard I've had 80GB hard drives running.
Re:Ok, giving that a shot right now. I'll let you know what happened in a little while (half hour maybe).
Thanks!!
Re:Can't boot from an extended partition. An extended partition has an MBR that points to a boot sector. That boot sector is in fact NOT a boot sector but another MBR which points to a boot sector (this is how you can chain partitions in an extended partition). The bootloader doesn't play with that, yo.
You need a primary partition to boot to.
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Tags: gig hd, hard disk failure