Have you changed the jumpers to make it a secondary drive?

Sorry, just re-read your post and I think I misunderstood. The system won't boot regardless of which HD you have installed? Are the other HD's including the faulty one out of the machine? Very strange.

thanks for help going to sleep on it....jumpers....right forgot about that...

There aren't any jumpers on SATA drives.

Are yo saying that it is not detecting the drives properl? Try going into the BIOS setup and checking what diskdrives it says it can see.

F2 that Bios set up right....

I did replace the main drive with another...in case it was something else and it found hardware and got to the desktop

with the original in it...spends ages trying to load Windows XP before...giving up with that message

can I get to the desktop without using the HD say booting from the original CD....then seeing if I can acess the C drive via control panel....

afrid I dont know to much about hardware side...

Foale

I'm assuming that you are using Windows XP and the NTFS file system.

You can't boot into windows from a CD drive, but if your other hard disk can boot Windows, you should be able to mount your dodgy one as a secondary drive and access it that way.

It's best to mount a dodgy disc as a secondary drive because that means it is not doing the work of running Windows. Copy any data that you have not backed up and then open a command prompt, change to your drive to be repaired and run chkdsk /f

Can anyone help. Before I changed the HD on my PC, I had a paid for copy of "Total Recorder" from www.highcriteria.com. I've lost that, and High Criteria's website seems to be down. I've still got all the registration details.

I don't suppose anyone has a copy of the program they could send me? I'll try the website again in the morning

SC

Sorry I can't help you here. But for future problems, I have a directory called Setup that contains copies of all programs on my computer. As a bonus, it is often quicker to copy a CD to the hard drive and run the instalation from there than to install from CD.

Seymour Clearly

The web site seem to be back up again now:

http://www.highcriteria.com/

Optimist, thanks - I know I should have done this.

Doc, thanks - I don't seem to be able to get the website again this morning. Will have a go at work later.

Optimist / Symour...thanks for all the help....

re 6244...I have XP dont know about. NTFS...however I am going to try your suggestion... get it up and running using alternate HD...then try adn access it as secondary drive and copy over...

Lets see how that goes...

NTFS is the normal structure to allow seamless large hard disc partitions Foale.

Have got "Total Recorder" now :-)

thanks...once I have booted on the alternate drive...control panel cant recog the other drive...as a secondary one.. do I need a particular selection with my jumpers at the back...or does it not matter?

Seems odd that I need to still press f1 even with the disk that does boot it into Windows...and SATA primary and secondary drives still not recognised...thus the F1 button needed

foale,

I would've thought that it would be easier to put the dodgy drive into a good machine that boots rather than to put a different primary drive into the faulty machine.

foale

Try using disk manager

See my post 6223 -

On XP Start Button - Control Panel - Administrative tools - Computer Management. Then click on Disk management.

Control panel has to be in Classic View for the above to work but there are several alternative ways to get there. You must be logged in with Administrator rights.

Be careful.

Hilary is or course right about sing a different computer if you have one.

Anothe good way is to take the disk out and use an IDE/SATA to USB adaptor (40 from Maplins).

Hils good idea...with try dodgy one on here this arvo....


Have a Maplins down the road...
what does that do..Optimist

Foale

It will allow you to connect a hard drive to the USB port on any compuer. Works the same as an external hard drive but without the casing.

This is the model you need it will connect to SATA, IDE and Notebook drives. It is listed ad 25 but they also list one without the SATA connection for 40. I think they have the prices mixed up they tried to charge me 40 for mine. Print the page off and take it with you.

Foale,

Can I also suggest that you look on eBay. I presume these little goodies are what you need, in which case they're a tenner delivered.

Well spotted Hilary those do the same job

someone suggested a caddy..presumably not golf