Confusion reigns- unbootable WIN XP HDD

[francisco9]

Hi, My head is spinnging trying to piece this together. I had to lay
out the questions in succession so I would be sure to include
everything.

1: I have a MASTER HDD installed, "C" and "D" . IT'S PERFECT

2: I disconnected that "C" and "D" HDD, and installed another HDD, just
to test it. .

3: It would not boot!!! No how, no way!

4: So I set up the first "C" and "D" HDD as master and the
non-bootable HDD as a slave so I could peek in and see what the trouble
is.

5: Surprise...I learned that the SLAVE has "H" and "I" partitions, no
wonder it wouldn't boot when it was the only drive connected.

6: Now, I want to turn the "H" and "I" HDD into an independantly
installed bootable HDD. I never intend to use it as a slave, or for
data only. I intend to keep updating it so if my C and D HDD goes
south, I can simply swap it out, and work on it in my liesure.

7: How.. can I connect the "H" and "I" drive as the only Drive and get
it to boot. Or, perhaps better, how can I change the "H" and "I" drive
so I can use it as a sole bootable hard drive!

Don't ask hows come I have hard drive that doesn't have a "C"
drive...it had to have been be there when I loaded WIN XP on. No?

Thanks for any help or suggestions. Boy have I a head banger...my 78
year old brain can't think too hard before I headache! I'm like old
Mortimer Snerd now.

Mike
The trouble with this world is that there is too much apathy. But who
cares anyway!

 

[Doug Knox MS-MVP]

You're confusing things here, for sure. The "second hard drive", when installed in an existing and functioning operating system is assigned new drive letters. Since C and D were already in use by partitions, and you probably have a CD or DVD drive, and likely some of the USB card readers, the partitions on the new drive got H and I.

Does the "second" hard disk have an operating system on it? Which one? What are the indications besides "it won't boot"? In order to make it an installable, bootable hard disk, you need to install an operating system on it.

 

[Rock]

Hi, My head is spinnging trying to piece this together. I had to lay
out the questions in succession so I would be sure to include
everything.

1: I have a MASTER HDD installed, "C" and "D" . IT'S PERFECT

2: I disconnected that "C" and "D" HDD, and installed another HDD, just
to test it. .

3: It would not boot!!! No how, no way!

4: So I set up the first "C" and "D" HDD as master and the
non-bootable HDD as a slave so I could peek in and see what the trouble
is.

5: Surprise...I learned that the SLAVE has "H" and "I" partitions, no
wonder it wouldn't boot when it was the only drive connected.

6: Now, I want to turn the "H" and "I" HDD into an independantly
installed bootable HDD. I never intend to use it as a slave, or for
data only. I intend to keep updating it so if my C and D HDD goes
south, I can simply swap it out, and work on it in my liesure.

7: How.. can I connect the "H" and "I" drive as the only Drive and get
it to boot. Or, perhaps better, how can I change the "H" and "I" drive
so I can use it as a sole bootable hard drive!

Don't ask hows come I have hard drive that doesn't have a "C"
drive...it had to have been be there when I loaded WIN XP on. No?

Thanks for any help or suggestions. Boy have I a head banger...my 78
year old brain can't think too hard before I headache! I'm like old
Mortimer Snerd now.

Mike
The trouble with this world is that there is too much apathy. But who
cares anyway!

You can't just stick in another hard drive, even with an XP installed,
from another computer and expect it to boot. The H and I drive
designations had nothing to do with it. Moving a hard drive from one
computer to another generally needs a repair install of that drive on
the current system.

 

[Mikie G]

You're confusing things here, for sure. The "second hard drive", when installed in an existing and functioning operating system is assigned new drive letters. Since C and D were already in use by partitions, and you probably have a CD or DVD drive, and likely some of the USB card readers, the partitions on the new drive got H and I.

Does the "second" hard disk have an operating system on it? Which one? What are the indications besides "it won't boot"? In order to make it an installable, bootable hard disk, you need to install an operating system on it.

Mr. Knox,
Thanks so much for taking your precious time. I see now why the 'H' and
"I" letters came to being. Both drives do have WINXP Home installed on
them as I mention below.

When I boot, the screen goes to an all black with white type,
apologising for the problem, etc, then goe on to offer several
different ways of booting: Safe Mode / Safe Mode with Neworking / Safe
Mode with Command Prompt / Last Known Good Configuration / and another,
I beleive is "Windows Normally"

Whichever option I select, the pc stops dead while booting, depending
on which option selected...in any of the Safe Modes, it goes through
some of that long list of files and stops and freezes at one specific
file.

In any other option, the screen goes black and time maches on without
it! I waited ten minutes hoping it would only continue, but alas.

I went to re-load WINXP but I did not find the Repair Option..instead a
message read that what I have on the hard drive is older than what I am
about to install. I don't get it because this will never be used for
online internet so I didn't load any SP updates or my ISP software.

Oooops I'm out of aspirin! I hope you can help! God Bless you and
yours, Mike

 

[Doug Knox MS-MVP]

Mikie,

Repair the Windows XP Installation

Configure your computer to start from the CD-ROM drive. For more information about how to do this, please refer to your computer's documentation or contact your computer manufacturer.

Remove any floppy disks and ZIP disks from their respective drives. Insert your Windows XP compact disc (CD) into your CD-ROM drive or DVD-ROM drive, and then restart your computer.

(You can also boot with a Windows 98/Me Startup disk with CD support and run WINNT.EXE in the I386 folder on the CD, assuming your hard disk is not NTFS formatted)

When the "Press any key to boot from CD" message is displayed on your screen, press a key to start your computer from the Windows XP CD.

When you see the following message displayed on the Welcome to Setup screen, press ENTER:

To setup Windows XP now, press ENTER.

At this point an option to press R to enter the Recovery Console is displayed. Do not select this option.

On the Windows XP Licensing Agreement screen, press F8 to agree to the license agreement.

Make sure that your current installation of Windows XP is selected in the box, and then press the R key to repair Windows XP.

Follow the instructions on the screen to complete Setup.

 

[cquirke (MVP Windows shell/user)]

1: I have a MASTER HDD installed, "C" and "D" . IT'S PERFECT

2: I disconnected that "C" and "D" HDD, and installed another HDD, just
to test it. .

3: It would not boot!!! No how, no way!

Lucky - if it booted into Win95 or later, Plug-n-Play would have torn
the installation to pieces. If XP, you'd have Windows Product
Activation stabbing you in the back, too. Bad dog, no biscuit!

At this point, I'd ask about the two PCs involved here, expecting to
hear that one is older than the other, to the extent that different
BIOS capabilities apply to the way "large" HDs are addressed.

Even when the HD is small enough to be addressed by both PCs,
differences in the CHS geometry applied can cause the PCs to read the
same HD differently - and thus see different sectors as defining the
partitions and volumes on the physical disk.

4: So I set up the first "C" and "D" HDD as master and the
non-bootable HDD as a slave so I could peek in and see what the trouble
is.

5: Surprise...I learned that the SLAVE has "H" and "I" partitions, no
wonder it wouldn't boot when it was the only drive connected.

No, not really. What is seen as "H:" and "I:" when the HD is the
second HD, would likely have been seen as "C:" and "D:" when the HD
was the sole drive in the system.

6: Now, I want to turn the "H" and "I" HDD into an independantly
installed bootable HDD. I never intend to use it as a slave, or for
data only. I intend to keep updating it so if my C and D HDD goes
south, I can simply swap it out, and work on it in my liesure.

You must process (partition) the HD in the PC in which it is intended
to be used - and as this will likely trash the current contents of the
HD, these contents should be backed up first.

Don't ask hows come I have hard drive that doesn't have a "C"
drive...it had to have been be there when I loaded WIN XP on. No?

"C:" is merely an identity the OS assigns, typically to the first HD
primary partition it sees. There is nothing inherent in the HD, its
partitions, or its volumes, that sets the drive letter.