At Wits End...

[Waltermydoinhere]

Went to friends house to help him move his stuff to his new coolermaster case. He also got a new WD3200AAKS (320g sata drive) that he wanted to install.

MOBO - MIS K8N NEO4
CPU - amd 3500+

He had two old IDE hard drives (20 gig and 40 gig) previously that he had files on that he wanted to use on his new system. So, moved all hardware successfully to new case, fired up the system, went to BIOS where new 320 was recognized. Set boot order and rebooted.

System booted to old IDE drive.
Ok, so I unhooked them, hooked ONLY new SATA drive up (btw, we're also installed a new SATA DVD drive but that part hasn't been an issue thusfar)

Booted with only SATA drive in. Installed windows (very quickly I might add) set the timezone, the language etc...

THen it prompted for a reboot.

I thought this was my opportunity to put the old IDE drives back in since all of the drivers and utilities were placed on them before the new install.

Booted up and it booted to old IDE drive.

Checked bios again, made SURE boot priority was set.

Same thing..

So, I was reading on the net looking for folks with similar issues and found a whole host of similar problems with no FIX.

So, I unplugged ide drives and thought I'd just boot up on the SATA drive, then install drivers via CD that I could burn on my laptop.

Bios sees sata just fine, then error about not having a drive or something.
Reboot, check bios, recheck connections, attempt repair of windows installation. It SEES the "old" new installation on the C drive, it will attempt a repair, then when it goes to reboot, no drive. (sorry cant remember exact error...

So, it was 3am, I decided to bring it home and work on it from here. I thought ok, I'll just load up windows on the ide drive, format the Sata from there and give it all another shot.

Oh, one of the "FIXES" listed on the net was to attempt a repair of windows on the sata drive. Well once when I did this it was on the IDE drive, not the sata drive. When it went into the install part it got stuck at "Windows will be installed in 34 minutes) FOREVER. It never finished install even after 4 hours. (had to get a few hours of sleep)

So, I am now UNABLE to boot to new sata drive, unable to reinstall windows to old IDE drive, (didn't want to WIPE it if I didn't have to)

So, I took the sata drive, out and tried putting it in my sons system. He currently has a sata drive as his boot drive and an IDE drive for storage. I unhooked the IDE drive to use the power connector (with a sata adapter) and hooked up the "new" 320 gig sata drive. Made sure it was seen in BIOS and boot priority was still to original sata drive...and I get: DISK BOOT FAILURE, INSERT SYSTEM DISK AND PRESS ENTER...

SO, not only do I have my friends system in shambles...but now I've HOSED my son's PC as well...

HELP?!!?

 

[occdavid]

You lost me at the end with your sons computer... are you saying you get the DISK BOOT FAILURE error on his when you put his HD back in? or just that your sons wouldnt boot to your fiends new Sata HD?

On your fiends computer I'm putting my $'s on a Bios setting is not correct for what you are trying to do. I see a K8N Neo4 Platinum PCB1.0 and 3.0, not sure which one is yours but after a quick scan through the 1.0 manual, the bios has a number of place where to set boot priority(device) and Hard disk boot priority (HDs only). Also see a setting for "Boot Other Device" which lets the system try to boot from other devices if it fails on the 1/2/3/device list.

 

[g-paw]

Agree it sounds like a BIOS setting but also make sure that the SATA is installed on the first SATA connector on the mobo. Some boards also have 2 set of connectors, one set for RAID and the other for non RAID. Also check the boot.ini file in msconfig and make sure the SATA is set as the first boot.

As for your son's machine usually you get this message because the hdd isn't being recognized. I'd try the diagnostic/repair software from the hdd mfg. In the worse case, format the hdd and reinstall Widows. If he has his data stored on a second driver you shouldn't have to worry about losing data. If you have to do a reinstall be sure to take out the data drive first to made sure that Windows is on the C drive

 

[bigblack]

Take the sata disc to your friend's pc and try to get to boot into windows before adding more discs. This might mean a reformat/reinstall of win xp. After you have booted into windows, try to add your old discs. Search for a Bios setting that might being inhibiting you to do so. I think your son's pc will boot again if you install it's old disc back, unless you have being tampering with it's bios to make your friend's disc work...

 

[goldragon_70]

Ok, so your son has an Sata drive originally in his computer, does that still boot when it's connected back?

If so and the new drive that your trying to set up in your friends computer, might be defective, and needs to be replaced. 8)

 

[martyjs]

I had the same problem about a month ago.

The issue is with the boot partition on the old drive is set to "Active". The only way I could fix it is put in in another system with XP (making sure the drive is a slave) Running the Computer Management tool in the Administrative Tools section, then run the Disk management tool and turn the Active off.

I think it has something to do with the BIOS giving the IDE drives priority.
That fix the problem for me, any disk management tool should do it.
Good LucK