How do I find my rdisk number?

[4745454b]

Without going into windows, how do I find my rdisk number? I'm trying to add a harddrive to my wifes machine. Even though the drive is jumpered as a slave, for some reason it prevents windows from loading. You get the select windows build option, but when we select the correct choice, it says it can't find windows. Is there something on the ultimate boot CD that could help me? The only idea I have it to try changing the boot.ini file info in note pad/dos, or plug the new drive in and run the repair function off the windows CD. (neither of these sound good...) Any help?

For background info, she currently has 2 drives. The boot drive is a 120GB drive thats jumpered master on the primary IDE. There is a 30GB drive jumpered as master on the secondary, along with a dead DVD drive that is waiting to be replaced. I jumpered the new 120GB as a slave, put it on the middle of the cable, and thought it would work. The 120GB is the bootable drive, the 30GB used to have the previous build.

 

[mike99]

If you have 80wirecable(and you should!), try putting BOTH drives as Cable Select (CS).

Mike.

 

[bob8701]

I thought by go to bios, you can change the boot order, and you only set master and slave jump for have two hard drives on the same cable.

 

[4745454b]

@mike, I'm asking about how to find the rdisk number with a program from the ultimate boot CD and have already mentioned properly jumpering the drives, and you want to make sure I'm using an 80wire cable??? Even if I wasn't using an 80wire, I'd just be limited to ATA33 speeds. I don't normally like using CS, I like to jumper them myself.

@bob, I thought about that to. I've already tried changing the boot drive, which is what lead me to this line of thinking. If I change it to the new 120GB drive, it says ntldr missing, which is what I'd expect from a newly formatted drive. If I select the 30GB, it hangs, with just a blinking line in the upper left hand corner.

Looking at the boot.ini file, the OS is on rdisk1, partition 3. (her F drive) For whatever reason, when I plug the new drive in, even though its a slave on the same channel, it must be effecting the rdisk number. Does anyone have any ideas???

 

[rexter]

This is something you don't normally need to know sonce it's ahigher level of experties. Are you using NT or Server version? and It can't be Apple/Mac since you said Windows.

Like mike99 say try using CS as the the ribbon sometimes place at the wrong HD. Does the HD you're adding has OS installed? and Do you use Dual Boot on that system? since you mention

but when we select the correct choice, it says it can't find windows.

.

Check the bios if the drive is registering, and remove the dead optical drive. It might help.

 

[4745454b]

The boot drive is a 120GB drive thats jumpered master on the primary IDE. There is a 30GB drive jumpered as master on the secondary, along with a dead DVD drive that is waiting to be replaced. I jumpered the new 120GB as a slave, put it on the middle of the cable

I'm not sure why people keep suggesting this as the fix. I've been working on computers for almost 2 decades now, I know how to setup cables, drives, etc. I even pulled the original drive so that I would know how it was jumpered. (it was CS, its now master.) I didn't mention, the optical drive has already been removed. (unplugged power and data.) The new drive has arrived, and I'm putting it in tonight or tomorrow.

The new 120GB was formatted before I removed it from my computer, so it is a blank NTFS drive. Removing the cables from the back of it allows the computer to boot normally. Adding the drive to the primary channel is what prevents the boot.

My current thinking is to put the boot drive and the new DVD drive on the same channel. The old 30GB and the new 120GB will go on the secondary channel. I'm hoping that the computer will see the other device as an optical drive, and it won't F up the boot.ini file. If anyone else has any (good?) ideas, I'd love to hear them. To put the boot 120GB and the optical drive close enough to run off the same cable with be a PITA.

P.S. all drives are properly seen in the bios, thats how/why I was able to chose the boot drive.

I've already tried changing the boot drive, which is what lead me to this line of thinking. If I change it to the new 120GB drive, it says ntldr missing, which is what I'd expect from a newly formatted drive. If I select the 30GB, it hangs, with just a blinking line in the upper left hand corner.

I don't mean to be rude, but don't you people bother to read the previous posts if your going to suggest something???

EDIT: the OS is XP w/SP2. (pro if you think that matters, it doesn't.) It used to dual boot, but we removed the win2000 build some time ago. (we did finally remove it from the boot.ini file yesterday.)

 

[rexter]

Anyhow, I once have the same problem like that 5 years ago and find a solution buy changing the jumper to cable settings. For some reason the motherboard and cannot read one of the hard drive after I updated the firmware of my optical drives. My bios were updated also. Two hard drives was the same make and model and had to remove 1 DVD Drive to work.

That's why I suggest CS because it does me good at that time, maybe the Motherboard is starting to act as well. If you have time and patience try power down the board for couple of days to get the capacitor emptied. And take battery out. It might not help but at least you can cross one possibility.

Anyway here some link hope it'll help.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/249108
http://www.windowsitpro.com/Articles/Index.cfm?ArticleID=14730&DisplayTab=Article
http://www.windowsitpro.com/Articles/Index.cfm?ArticleID=14730&DisplayTab=Article

 

[rexter]

Have you check the cable already?

 

[SomeJoe7777]

Connect your new drive. Use your Windows XP CD-ROM to boot into the recovery console and rebuild boot.ini with the bootcfg utility.

See http://thpc.info/how/editbootini.html method #6 for the step-by-step. I'd advise to back up the existing boot.ini first just in case you need to go back to it.

 

[ZOldDude]

Some brands of HD do not work with other brands as a 2nd drive -unless- you change the jumper to CS.

 

[4745454b]

That sounds great joe, just one problem. I throw my disk in, and it never gives me the option to select the R for the recovery console. I put my win2000 disk in, and booted to the recovery console, but it lacks the bootcfg command for some reason. (even though I read online that it should be a part of the disk...) It sounds like this is what I want to do, but I can't do it.

Scrolling down to #9, I read about EDITBini, and that is on the UBCD. When I tried to use it, it claimed that it couldn't open the file. (GRRRRR, now I'm getting pissed off!) It seems like everywhere I turn, it just isn't working. I'm tempted to try doing a repair install. I know that will work, but its like using a cannon to kill a fly. Keep those ideas coming, but I'll probably try the repair install tonight or tomorrow.

 

[4745454b]

Looks like I'm wrong, and I'm completely out of ideas. I thought I had the idea of the century. On the new 120GB drive, I loaded a second copy of windows. I went into msconfig, and edited the boot.ini file that way. I tried everything, nothing worked. Using the info from the harddrive manager, I entered what should have worked. When it attempted to boot, it claimed that the system32/hal.dll file was missing or corrupted. When I went back into the new build of windows to copy the file over, it blue screens when you double click my computer.

From here on I was only banging my head against the wall. If you let the new build sit long enough, it will blue screen. (stop code is 0xbunch of zeros 9c or 9e, I can't remember which.) Messing with the boot.ini file trying to put it back the way it was results in the "missing hal.dll" error. I've changed cables, no difference. For whatever reason, my copy of windows XP won't allow me to do a repair install. It tells me the partition that has the old build doesn't have enough room to install a new copy. If I tell it to install on the same partition as the new build, rather then offering to repair that build, it tells me that its not a good idea to have 2 copies of windows on the same partition! (no sh!t sherlock, thats not what I'm trying to do anyways.)

I do not understand any of this. None of this should be happening. I plug new drive in, tell the bios to boot from X drive, and it should. I should be able to change the boot.ini file with info from the harddrive manager. Adding a working harddrive to a working system shouldn't make everything crash. The machine now sits dead, unable to boot at all.

 

[SomeJoe7777]

I wonder if somehow your old hard disk has developed a hardware problem. Run the manufacturer's diagnostic on it to make sure it doesn't have bad sectors or something like that.

Once the system has started complaining about missing Windows boot files (hal.dll) and is blue screening, this is looking less like a configuration problem and more like a hardware issue.

 

[4745454b]

Looks like I can confirm the hardware failure. I took nearly everything out except for the new drive. I re-installed windows on the empty drive, and had her use it for ~30min. Shut it down, and tried to add just the old 120GB (jumpered as master). For some reason the bios wouldn't even see it. I went ahead and tried adding both drives, and it worked now. However within about 2 min after loading windows, a horrible clicking noise was heard. I told her to start pulling info off of the other drives RIGHT NOW. She got about 2 folders off before they disappeared in windows.

Tonight after work I went ahead and tried adding the 20GB, and all is well again. It looks like the old 120GB drive was dying. (I find this a bit odd as it never gave us problems, but we are running the new 120 and the 20GB and all is well...) I am going to try to get as much info off of it before we get rid of it. This really sucks, I was hoping to increase the amount of space she had... (anyone want to sell me a 120GB+ drive for cheap???)