Hard Drive Recognition

J

Jethro

Strange anomaly here.

I have two HDDs, drive 1 on Primary Master & drive 2 on Primary Slave.

My OS is WXP PRO SP2.

I use the drive 2 slave for backups.

I made a clone backup of the drive 1 Master onto the drive 2 Slave.

Seemed to work fine - the backup program recognized the presence of
both drives and did the clone backup.

Afterwards, the BIOS recognized both drives, and I can boot from
either by altering the Boot Drive in BIOS. However, if I re-boot from
drive 2 Slave, My Computer (and Windows Explorer) will not recognize
the existence of drive 1 Master at all. This despite the fact that
Device Manager recognizes both drives and says both are working
'properly'. Whereas, if I re-boot in the original setup from drive 1
Master, My Computer (and Windows Explorer) will recognize the
existence of drive 2 Slave just fine. What am I missing here?

Thanks

Jethro

neither boot drive will recognize the other drive.
 
R

Rod Speed

Jethro said:
Strange anomaly here.
I have two HDDs, drive 1 on Primary Master & drive 2 on Primary Slave.
My OS is WXP PRO SP2.
I use the drive 2 slave for backups.
I made a clone backup of the drive 1 Master onto the drive 2 Slave.

Thats your problem, you have to be very careful with the detail of doing
that with the NT/2K/XP series. The simplest approach is to do the clone
from CD etc so you can stop it booting after the clone has been done,
and then DISCONNECT the original before booting the clone for the
first time. XP will claim to have found new hardware and will ask to
be allowed to reboot. Accept that offer, and let it reboot. After that
has happened, you can connect the original drive again and boot
either one and not have the problem you are seeing.

If you dont disconnect the original for the first boot of the clone,
you end up with a considerable mess with the boot involving both
drives and strange quirks like you are seeing because XP gets
seriously confused about what it is booting.
Seemed to work fine - the backup program recognized
the presence of both drives and did the clone backup.
Afterwards, the BIOS recognized both drives, and I can boot from
either by altering the Boot Drive in BIOS. However, if I re-boot from
drive 2 Slave, My Computer (and Windows Explorer) will not recognize
the existence of drive 1 Master at all. This despite the fact that
Device Manager recognizes both drives and says both are working
'properly'. Whereas, if I re-boot in the original setup from drive 1
Master, My Computer (and Windows Explorer) will recognize the
existence of drive 2 Slave just fine. What am I missing here?

See above.
 
D

DaveW

The problem with your boot situation is a little complicated to explain, but
basically by making a CLONE of your Drive 1 and installing it on Drive 2,
rather than doing a FRESH install of the OS and your applications on your
Drive 2, you have a setup where Drive 2 CANNOT recognize Drive 1 due to how
you originated it (by cloning). Hopefully this simpler explanation will
help you.
 
J

Jethro

The problem with your boot situation is a little complicated to explain, but
basically by making a CLONE of your Drive 1 and installing it on Drive 2,
rather than doing a FRESH install of the OS and your applications on your
Drive 2, you have a setup where Drive 2 CANNOT recognize Drive 1 due to how
you originated it (by cloning). Hopefully this simpler explanation will
help you.

Thanks
 

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