Boot as 2nd drive = boots OK: as only drive it fails.

[- Bobb -]

Neighbor had pc not booting. I have same model so put his drive in my PC
to save his pictures/music etc in case needed to reinstall XP. When I put
the drive in my Pc, ( cable select - his was second connection on primary
IDE cable) I booted my drive and it announced - "need to scan secondary
drive - was shutdown improperly" , so I let it scan/fix his drive and I
could see his files in XP - copied to CD - all set.

Rebooted and ON MY PC I have had 2 boot options on MY primary drive, ( I
often have several drives in there) so I elected to now boot his ( as
secondary drive). His drive booted up - looked good. I bought back to his
house ( thinking I was done) and it hangs (his only disk drive). It
STARTS to boot and looks good .... just before it would be at the user
profile screen ( 2 users) it hangs at a "XP Home Edition" screen. I
removed what I could from his box in case something hanging it, but same
thing, so I brought it back to my house. Put back in as secondary drive -
booted it -- OK. HOWEVER, if I make it the ONLY drive in my PC ( as with
his) using primary IDE cable - master connector , it hangs on my PC too -
same spot. I then had it as ONLY drive on my pc - using primary IDE
cable - slave connector - same thing. so , ( FINALLY !) to my question:
What is different OS-wise when it is hooked up as the secondary drive ?
What is happening JUST before the user names appear on-screen.

Also .. more info ... in no case on either Pc using either connector can I
get Safe Mode ( or any other F8 option) to work when I boot that drive.IT
will let me SELECT any of the F8 options ( Command Prompt, Safe Mode ,
debugging etc), but it does the same things onscreen, hangs at same spot.
I expected it to get me to a C:\ prompt - WHY is it getting me to the XP
user profile screen ??? AND when after hanging I do a hard power-off, it
never notices that I powered it off. I EXPECTED it to announce- shutdown
improperly - need to scan disk - it doesn't. Back in as second drive (
with another XP drive as primary) and still works fine.
It's late so I'll sleep on this one for now.
Any thoughts ?

 

[Timothy Daniels]

It sounds like your friend's hard drive has corrupted boot files because
your hard drive's boot files (specifically ntldr) can boot his hard drive,
but his hard drive can't boot itself on your system or his.

*TimDaniels*

 

[- Bobb -]

Sorry, I didn't word it properly: boot loader works.
With his drive on my Pc as a second drive - I can boot/log onto his XP
drive.
When his drive is only one in there:
It starts to boot - ( loader) , see XP Home startup screens, 1 minute
later dev mgr scan happens ( little boxes scanning left to right) , hear
the beep, then video goes blank ( normal so far), and then an XP logo
window appears: and HERE's where it's different - as second drive THAT XP
logo screen shortly therafter ( 1 second?) shows "Windows is starting ...
" ( in 800x600 font) and a few seconds later I see their 2 profiles (
logon icons)
When it's the ONLY drive, I get to "Windows is starting ... " ( in smaller
font (1024x768?) ) and that's it. It doesn't do that last bit. The 2
profiles are on HIS drive so - when it DOES work - it's fetching that
logon info from his drive.

At startup if I press F8 and choose SAFE MODE I see the SAFE MODE window
but then same XP logo window and hangs then too. I tried SAFE MODE with
command prompt - same thing.

Can someone tell me - that far into boot - what is happening ? What files
is it using ? Keep in mind it DID run scandisk and perhaps changed/deleted
SOME file. I can't get a log file ( bootlog.txt) to work. It's ALMOST
there and I don't know " what's NOT working?". Since I have same PC as he
does, I can copy any system file needed - but what ??
I'm debating renaming his system32 folder and copying mine into there to
see if that works, but would like to learn hw to troubleshoot it.

Since no Safe Mode, I'm assuming some system file damaged. I did boot my
drive and rename his pagefile.sys in case it was corrupt. It created
another when I booted as only drive - same symptoms.


Thanks

 

[- Bobb -]

Sorry, I didn't word it properly: boot loader works.
With his drive on my Pc as a second drive - I can boot/log onto his XP
drive.
When his drive is only one in there:
It starts to boot - ( loader) , see XP Home startup screens, 1 minute
later dev mgr scan happens ( little boxes scanning left to right) , hear
the beep, then video goes blank ( normal so far), and then an XP logo
window appears: and HERE's where it's different - as second drive THAT
XP logo screen shortly therafter ( 1 second?) shows "Windows is starting
... " ( in 800x600 font) and a few seconds later I see their 2 profiles
( logon icons)
When it's the ONLY drive, I get to THAT XP logo screen where it SHOULD
then say "Windows is starting ... " , but only shows XP logo ( in
smaller font (1024x768?) ) and that's it. It doesn't do that last bit.
The 2 profiles are on HIS drive so - when it DOES work - it's fetching
that logon info from his drive.

At startup if I press F8 and choose SAFE MODE I see the SAFE MODE window
but then same XP logo window and hangs then too. I tried SAFE MODE with
command prompt - same thing.

Can someone tell me - that far into boot - what is happening ? What
files is it using ? Keep in mind it DID run scandisk and perhaps
changed/deleted SOME file. I can't get a log file ( bootlog.txt) to
work. It's ALMOST there and I don't know " what's NOT working?". Since
I have same PC as he does, I can copy any system file needed - but what
??
I'm debating renaming his system32 folder and copying mine into there to
see if that works, but would like to learn hw to troubleshoot it.

Since no Safe Mode, I'm assuming some system file damaged. I did boot my
drive and rename his pagefile.sys in case it was corrupt. It created
another when I booted as only drive - same symptoms.


Thanks

 

[Timothy Daniels]

I'll defer to a WinXP MVP on this...

*TimDaniels*