two hdd's, no boot?

alex

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I have an A7N8X-X motherboard and two Maxtor 80gb hard drives. I have winxp
home on one, and the other is cleanly formatted (theyre both NTFS). The
computer boots up and works fine when I have just the first Winxp drive
plugged in - when I plug in the second (formatted) drive, the computer just
goes to the POST screen and stays there, and never boots to windows, I can't
even hit DEL to go into the BIOS. All of my IDE spots are filled if it makes
a difference...cd-rw, DVD-rom, 2 hdd's....

Any help would be appreciated!
 

Dee

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Alex wrote:
> I have an A7N8X-X motherboard and two Maxtor 80gb hard drives. I have winxp
> home on one, and the other is cleanly formatted (theyre both NTFS). The
> computer boots up and works fine when I have just the first Winxp drive
> plugged in - when I plug in the second (formatted) drive, the computer just
> goes to the POST screen and stays there, and never boots to windows, I can't
> even hit DEL to go into the BIOS. All of my IDE spots are filled if it makes
> a difference...cd-rw, DVD-rom, 2 hdd's....
>
> Any help would be appreciated!
>
>

Are you positive the jumpers are set correctly for the 'master' and the
'slave' drive?
 
G

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"Dee" <dee@home.net> wrote in message
news:itWGd.157$811.123@fe61.usenetserver.com...
> Alex wrote:
>> I have an A7N8X-X motherboard and two Maxtor 80gb hard drives. I have
>> winxp
>> home on one, and the other is cleanly formatted (theyre both NTFS). The
>> computer boots up and works fine when I have just the first Winxp drive
>> plugged in - when I plug in the second (formatted) drive, the computer
>> just
>> goes to the POST screen and stays there, and never boots to windows, I
>> can't
>> even hit DEL to go into the BIOS. All of my IDE spots are filled if it
>> makes
>> a difference...cd-rw, DVD-rom, 2 hdd's....
>>
>> Any help would be appreciated!
>>
>>
>
> Are you positive the jumpers are set correctly for the 'master' and the
> 'slave' drive?
>
Look into the boot sequence
 
G

Guest

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"Alex" <blaghlakj@goaway.org> wrote in message
news:YBVGd.1359$cx2.1236@trndny03...

|I have an A7N8X-X motherboard and two Maxtor 80gb hard drives. I have winxp
| home on one, and the other is cleanly formatted (theyre both NTFS). The
| computer boots up and works fine when I have just the first Winxp drive
| plugged in - when I plug in the second (formatted) drive, the computer
just
| goes to the POST screen and stays there, and never boots to windows, I
can't
| even hit DEL to go into the BIOS. All of my IDE spots are filled if it
makes
| a difference...cd-rw, DVD-rom, 2 hdd's....

I had a similar problem using a HD in a mobile rack, and swapping it with a
new rack corrected it. I would narrow it down by first checking the
jumpers on the drive (set to CS or slave if positioned as slave on the
cable's middle connector), next changing the cable, then try another HD as
the second drive.

If it still does it, change both drives to the other controller. If it
works then, you might suspect the controller.
 
G

Guest

Guest
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"Alex" <blaghlakj@goaway.org> wrote in message
news:YBVGd.1359$cx2.1236@trndny03...
>I have an A7N8X-X motherboard and two Maxtor 80gb hard drives. I have winxp
> home on one, and the other is cleanly formatted (theyre both NTFS). The
> computer boots up and works fine when I have just the first Winxp drive
> plugged in - when I plug in the second (formatted) drive, the computer
> just
> goes to the POST screen and stays there, and never boots to windows, I
> can't
> even hit DEL to go into the BIOS. All of my IDE spots are filled if it
> makes
> a difference...cd-rw, DVD-rom, 2 hdd's....
>
> Any help would be appreciated!

Don't use CS. Set to Master or Slave via jumpers. It sounds like you've got
the drives set to CS and when you add the 2nd one, the cleanly formatted
one, then it becomes the master HD and of course it contains nothing to boot
to.
 

alex

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Mar 31, 2004
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"mad NATer" <x@nospam.com> wrote in message
news:vr8Hd.39856$Zv5.9480@bignews1.bellsouth.net...
> "Alex" <blaghlakj@goaway.org> wrote in message
> news:YBVGd.1359$cx2.1236@trndny03...
> >I have an A7N8X-X motherboard and two Maxtor 80gb hard drives. I have
winxp
> > home on one, and the other is cleanly formatted (theyre both NTFS). The
> > computer boots up and works fine when I have just the first Winxp drive
> > plugged in - when I plug in the second (formatted) drive, the computer
> > just
> > goes to the POST screen and stays there, and never boots to windows, I
> > can't
> > even hit DEL to go into the BIOS. All of my IDE spots are filled if it
> > makes
> > a difference...cd-rw, DVD-rom, 2 hdd's....
> >
> > Any help would be appreciated!
>
> Don't use CS. Set to Master or Slave via jumpers. It sounds like you've
got
> the drives set to CS and when you add the 2nd one, the cleanly formatted
> one, then it becomes the master HD and of course it contains nothing to
boot
> to.
Thanks for all the advice - I'll look into it.