disk added bootup fail

[Andy]

I don't knopw wherre I've gone wrong - Can you help
please? I added a MAxtor hard disk as an increased
storage device to my XP pro based pc without, I thought,
any prob. Disc was identified and formatted by XP and
appears in the startup screen as the Primary Slave. The
bootup then freezes with the message DISK BOOT FAILURE,
INSERT SYSTEM DISK AND PRESS ENTER.

Original disk is jumpered to master as it always has
been. New disc (MAXTOR) is jumpered to slave.

Both are connected on the same ribbon.

When i switch off and disconnect new HD system boots
normally. Sw off and connect new HD and boot fails.

Details

Pri Master disk: LBA, UDMA 33,8455MBparallel:378
Pri. Slave Disk: LBA, UDMA33, 122gb SDRAM at row : 02
"verifying DMI Pool Data........."
DISK BOOT FAILURE etc.......

 

[francesco]

Hi! I have a similar trouble: this is the text I've posted on ME newsgroup :
"Hi! I've a problem with my sister's PC. She has recently installed (twice?)
Windows ME on her PC, and, I don't know why, now she has the folders
Windows and Windows.000 (this one with only few sub-folders). Many programs
are wrong, printer can't install, OE dosen't start.... I want to format and
make a clean install. But we have a problem: the PC has 2 HD (C with OS and
documents and D, a HD from another PC that may be useful to store backups of
data). I can't format C (important docs for her). I would like to copy data
from c to d and then format C and clean install. But here it happens
something strange. On bios boot all is right, bios is able to see both HDs,
but when winMe starts it hangs on "mode con ...". If I reboot at this point
bios doesn't see the second HD (D). If I turn off computer and start again
bios sees again both HD. I've tried to boot from Boot Restore Floppy Me to
be able to format c and than install ME from CDROM. The same sequence: bios
ok, freeze at mode con, restart, bios doesn't see HD D, turn off PC,
restart, bios ok at POST, boot hangs. Any suggestion??????? Thanks"

 

[Bob Harris]

In theory, adding a slave drive should be easy. Well, so much for theory!
I noticed that you list both drives as running UDMA33, by which I presume
you mean ATA/33. That is a fairly old standard for relatively slow spped
transfers to/from disk. It is usually associated with older PCs, such as
the Pentium II class, made around 1996+-. If this describes your PC be
aware that there are BIOS-related size limitations, typically at about 32
Gig and 128Gig that may be coming into play. First verify that the BIOS is
seeing the hard drives at their full size. Next, try booting from a DOS
floppy and see what it sees. Use the 98SE or ME version of DOS. If the
drives are formated as NTFS, get a free NTFS driver for DOS from
http://www.systeminternals.com/ntw2k/freeware/NTFSDOS.shtml

Also, contact the PC maker (or motherboard maker) and try to determine
whether it has a BIOS limit that is relavent, and if so, whether there is a
BIOS upgrade to fix it. If there is a limitation, and if not BIOS upgrade,
do not give up. Get an ATA/100 PCI adapter card and connect the new disk to
it. Such a card has its own BIOS and should handle the new disk directly.
The card should also dumb-down to ATA/33, if necessary. Whether that is
necessary depens on the speed of the PCI bus. I have ATA/33 disks on a 100
Mhz bus and when I switched to an adapter card with newer (ATA/100) disks,
the time to copy files halved. Finally, what size power supply do you have?
If too small, adding one more of anything that uses power could drag dwon
the voltage enoguh to do bad things. You can test that by leaving the power
attached to the new disk and disonnecing the signal cable. If this also
fails, then upgrade the power supply. As a last rsort, you might want to
try downloading one of the many free mini-LINUX CD images, write to CD, then
boot from that CD. If LINUX can boot and see the disks, the problem is with
windows, not the hardware. If it also fails, then look to more fundamental
things like hardware, BIOS, etc:

http://www.bootdisk.com/linux.htm