Booting with two hard drives in primary channel fails

[Sid Elbow]

That partition was only 7.8 MB, not GB. Maybe I shouldn't have deleted it
without knowing what it was for, but I hated to waste a drive letter on it.

FWIW ray, if all you're worried about is the drive-letter, You can use
Disk Management to remove the drive letter and effectively hide the
partition.

 

[Sid Elbow]

I distinctly remember that when I went to My Computer/Manage/Computer
Management/Storage/Disk Management, Disk 0 had c: as the primary partition,
about 137 GB, and e: as a separate tiny partition shown to the right of c:.
(D: was assigned to the DVD burner in the secondary master position.)

IIRC 8 MB (it might show as 7.8) is the minimum partition size you can
create in Win2K. If it was located after the c: partition, my guess is
that you had some finger-trouble during the install and accidentally
created a second, minimum-sized partition. (Wouldn't be that hard to do:
some of the stuff in that dialog is not exactly user-friendly.)

In any event it's unlikely to be any kind of boot partition at that size
and in that location so deleting it shouldn't have hurt anything. Did
you check what, if anything, was on it before deleting? I would guess it
was empty.

 

[Ray K]

IIRC 8 MB (it might show as 7.8) is the minimum partition size you can
create in Win2K. If it was located after the c: partition, my guess is
that you had some finger-trouble during the install and accidentally
created a second, minimum-sized partition. (Wouldn't be that hard to do:
some of the stuff in that dialog is not exactly user-friendly.)

In any event it's unlikely to be any kind of boot partition at that size
and in that location so deleting it shouldn't have hurt anything. Did
you check what, if anything, was on it before deleting? I would guess it
was empty.

I don't remember check its contents.

 

[Ray K]

on the cable.

That last one is actually one of the ones I mentioned.
In any event, the jumpering is shown here:

http://wdc.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/wdc.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=1542&p_created=#jumper

To run this drive as master with your other drive on the same IDE
cable/channel, the WD5000JBRTL needs to be jumpered as "Dual Master"
with the other drive jumped as "Slave" or "Dual Slave" (whatever they
call it) per its own jumper specification.




The "small gap" does sound like a cable-select cable but I would be very
wary of anything from someone's "junk" drawer when you are already
having problems. If you were originally running a master/slave system, I
would buy a new, regular cable at a computer store (rather than Best Buy
etc) - it should only cost a nominal sum. Then set up the jumpers correctly.

If you do want to pursue cable select, it might need a change in the
BIOS setup .... some systems can do it without, simply by using the
appropriate cable; some need to set it in the BIOS as well I think.

The new mobo includes ide and sata cables. I'll use the new one.

 

[Ray K]

In any event, the jumpering is shown here:

http://wdc.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/wdc.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=1542&p_created=#jumper

To run this drive as master with your other drive on the same IDE
cable/channel, the WD5000JBRTL needs to be jumpered as "Dual Master"
with the other drive jumped as "Slave" or "Dual Slave" (whatever they
call it) per its own jumper specification.

One of the other drives is a Seagate ST3160023A, 160GB. I may have had it
misjumpered. To use it as a slave requires removing all jumpers; I don't
think I ever had it unjumpered. So with the Seagate unjumpered and the WD
jumpered between pins 5 and 6 to make it a Dual Master, I rebooted. The BIOS
now recognized the Seagate with the correct model and capacity. Again, the
boot seemed to fail, with just the mobo name and number on the monitor. The
hard drive activity light was fully on, not just flickering. I walked away
for a few minutes and when I returned, the activity light had just gone off
and an error message finally appeared: "Primary master hard disk fail." So
perhaps that little 7.8 MB partition that I deleted is needed just when
something is connected as a primary slave.

After installing the new mobo, I do a fresh install of W2K and keep all the
partitions it creates.

Sid, Vanguard, and the rest of you who responded, many thanks for all the
effort you've put in on my behalf.

Ray

 

[Ray K]

Just to close out this thread:

Before replacing my mobo, I tried one final experiment. During the first
installation of W2K with my new 500GB drive, W2K created a c: partition and
a second tiny 8 MB, not GB, partition. Even though I did not have a second
drive connected on that IDE cable, the 500 GB drive was jumpered as a Dual
Master in anticipation of the final configuration.

Not knowing the purpose of the 8 MB partition, I deleted it. Someone
suggested that it would have been used to recognize the primary slave. So
when I installed W2K for the final time with the old mobo, I left the 8 MB
partition alone. Even with it present, when I connected the slave normal
booting still didn't take place. So its presence or absence didn't cause my
original problem of not being able to boot with anything connected as the
Primary Slave.

I've replace the mobo and for whatever reason, devices connected to the
Primary Slave connector no longer interfere with booting. I've successfully
transfered files from my old c: drive and its two other partitions to
partitions on the new 500 GB drive.

As an aside: I used a free partitioning program called Easeus Partition
Master 4.0 Home Edition to dice the drive into five partitions. Works quite
well.

Thanks, again, to all for your suggestions.

Ray

 

[Sid Elbow]

Not knowing the purpose of the 8 MB partition, I deleted it. Someone
suggested that it would have been used to recognize the primary slave. So
when I installed W2K for the final time with the old mobo, I left the 8 MB
partition alone. Even with it present, when I connected the slave normal
booting still didn't take place. So its presence or absence didn't cause my
original problem of not being able to boot with anything connected as the
Primary Slave.

This might have something to do with the 8 MB partition:

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=225822


Otherwise put ' 8 MB partition ' (without quotes) into Google ....
there's a number of other interesting hits. Most of it references XP but
it sure sounds like what you are getting.

 

[Rarius]

As an aside: I used a free partitioning program called Easeus Partition
Master 4.0 Home Edition to dice the drive into five partitions. Works quite
well.

May I ask why you have diced up your drive? Five partitions seems a bit
excessive!

Rarius

 

[Don Phillipson]

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/bn-review/note.asp?note=23650055&cds2Pid=22560

May I ask why you have diced up your drive? Five partitions seems a bit
excessive!

Perhaps actual experience suggests RayK found his 5 partitions "work
quite well" and this organization is not "excessive" in his system the way
he likes to use it.