"NTLDR is missing" ONLY when new HDD is plugged in

[colin_b88]

Hello all, and thanks for checking my thread. I have checked around for a bit and there's quite a few other threads going on with similar problems but none quite the situation I'm in.

I have a Dell Dimension 4600. Obviously several years old, so along the way I added a secondary HDD, filled it, and have now bought a new one to replace my slave drive. The mobo uses IDE and the HDD I got, the Western Digital 1TB Caviar Black, is SATA.

In a previous thread I sought the best way to connect it (as well as a new DVD optical drive) and went with an adapter found here: http://www.satacables.com/html/sata_to_ide_adapter.html

I've connected it, left the jumper on the adapter(unless I'm stupid, there is only 1 set of jumper prongs) and booted up the pc, it runs, but in My Computer I can't find the HDD.
In Device manager, I can see it but don't have options to really do anything except disable or uninstall.
During boot if I F12, it says not installed.
I DL'd a tool called TweakUI which was recommended in one of the other forums I checked using google, and it shows all drives checked off so I'm confident it's not just hidden.. but of course not positive.

After that I shut down, took off the jumper, booted up and it wouldn't go to my log-in screen or desktop, but straight to the F12 boot menu (bios?).

The wait for the adapters in the mail was enough, I just want to get this running haha.. Thank you guys!

 

[Paperdoc]

It looks like you BIOS uses a 2-stage system for specifying the boot device. The first level is to choose between wither a USB device or an internal device under control of the system BIOS (that last is your choice, of course). AFTER that choice is made there ought to be another place nearby where you specify exactly which internal device is to be used (or a sequence of more than one).

 

[colin_b88]

You are correct. In the pics of my BIOS I put in previous posts you can see all my options available. "Boot Sequence" gives me the options listed in my previous post.

"Hard-Disk Drive Sequence" gives me the option for floppy, cd, and C: in whichever order I desire. Yet C: is the only drive I have the option to use. There is no choice for the 250GB or 1TB to boot from. C: is without a doubt chosen in my BIOS, which is why I'm confused, and here, ha.

 

[Paperdoc]

Odd, all right. In most BIOS' today there is NO label like C: or D: or whatever for a HDD unit. Those letter names actually are assigned by Windows, and it always assigns C: to the HDD device it just booted from. So no surprise you can boot from the C: drive! All that line in BIOS is really offering is the priority order among floppy, CD and HDD. BUT it does not, as you point out, allow for selecting one specific HDD device among the several that are connected.

As a "shot in the dark" move, can you arrange it so that ONLY the 1 TB drive is a bootable drive, and no other bootable hard drives are connected? I mean, it would be OK to leave connected anywhere a HDD that does NOT have Windows installed on it, but connect ONLY one HDD - the 1 TB unit - that does have Windows installed. I wonder if the BIOS is smart enough to search through all the connected HDD devices looking for one that is marked bootable in its Partition Table?

 

[colin_b88]

This pic shows my options in boot sequence:

The 1TB has no OS, it's purely storage so I didn't expect it to really do anything anyway but I did what you said and hooked up only the 1TB and booted up. Tell me if I misunderstood..
This pic is when I disconnected the OS HDD and the 250GB HDD leaving only the 1TB connected, after the first message I press F1 and get the NTLDR message as per usual now when the 1TB is connected.

Again, my PC runs normally if the 1TB is disconnected, it's only when I plug it in that I get the NTLDR message..

 

[Paperdoc]

So the 1 TB has no OS and is not bootable. If it is the ONLY drive connected, you get the error messages in your second photo, including the missing NTLDR message. Makes sense so far. BUT when you reconnect the other HDD's and boot, you STILL get this message, and the only way to get rid of it is to disconnect the 1 TB unit.

That makes it appear that, for whatever reason, the BIOS gives preference to the SATA port that the 1 TB unit is connected to and ignores the other HDD's on the IDE port, unless there is nothing on the SATA port. Since you have two SATA ports, does it make any difference which one the 1 TB unit is on?

I notice in the first shot above that your boot sequence will try to use the DVD drive that is not installed. I presume this is the temporary situation that arose because you disconnected the DVD drive in doing your diagnostic work.

Maybe Dell Tech Support can suggest how to get the machine to boot from the IDE ports and NOT try booting from the SATA.

 

[x3style]

Your options should be in the Hard Disk Drive Sequence, i've see that option in your picture and its the only menu you have not scree shotted.

in that menu you should see both of you drives and i assume your 1TB drive will allway be higher in the order there unless you change that. After you select boot of Hard Disk C: it will go trough that Hard Disk Sequence list.

Take a screen shot fo that menu lets see what you have there.

 

[colin_b88]

Here's the pic, doesn't give much to go on..

That makes it appear that, for whatever reason, the BIOS gives preference to the SATA port that the 1 TB unit is connected to and ignores the other HDD's on the IDE port, unless there is nothing on the SATA port. Since you have two SATA ports, does it make any difference which one the 1 TB unit is on?

I notice in the first shot above that your boot sequence will try to use the DVD drive that is not installed. I presume this is the temporary situation that arose because you disconnected the DVD drive in doing your diagnostic work.

I tried the 1TB on SATA port 1 instead of port 0 which I originally had it on, and got the same results. NTLDR missing.

And in regards to the DVD drive that would be incorrect. With it plugged into the SATA to IDE adapter I could not get my BIOS to recognize it, upon boot I always saw "Secondary Drive 0 Not Found" next to it. I'd mentioned it's lack of success somewhere in a previous post. Just to try though I used the SATA cable I had in the 1TB (because I only have one) and it worked right away.. I think those adapters are just total b.s. and it really gets me I wasted 50 bucks on two pieces of junk I can't even put to use.

Whatever, I'll get another set of SATA cables. More Importantly I'm still stuck on this NTLDR. I just don't get why the 1TB worked fine for a week and then came across this problem, there's got to be something I can do..

 

[colin_b88]

I contacted Dell tech support and first of all, was on the phone for 20 mins, no biggie, the guy hung up on me after 1 minute for no reason. I called back and was then on hold for 1 HOUR AND 37 MINUTES.

But the second guy was a big help, so I figured I'd share it with you guys for your knowledge. He said that it can sometimes take up to a week for hardware to start affecting each other, which is why everything was fine for me for a while. Basically my computer is old. The RAM is dismal and my CPU is ancient. My stock parts can't handle all this amazing new high tech stuff I'm putting in, ie. 1TB HDD and DVD-RW optical on SATA ports. He said if it's not the RAM and stuff there's no other options other than the drive being dead(which I know is not true),

So it definitely wasn't the answer I wanted but just means I have to get a move on and build that new PC. Just makes me all the more excited and motivated though I guess.


Well anyway although we never quite nailed everything down here, to Paperdoc and the others I know I said it a hundred times throughout but thank you. Thank you for all your time and effort, I couldn't have gotten half as far sifting through outdated forums using google. If I ever need help with this stuff I know where to come.

 

[colin_b88]

Best answer selected by colin_b88.