Swapping Drives in XP

[Guest]

Is it not possible to swap secondary hard drives with Win-XP???? I pulled the
existing D-drive (secondary drive) in order to test another drive. Both
drives were jumpered properly for use as slave or secondary drives.

As soon as I started the computer with the slave drive I was testing,
Windows threw a candy-coated pissy-fit. I gave me errors about corrupted
files, and basically just kept sutting down, rebooting, and giving me the
same nonsense.

I put the original D drive back in, but Windows continued its tantrum. I did
manage to get it to work for a while last night, but today it was no-go.
Windows wouldn't even start up. Using the "repair" feature on the CD was an
excercise in futility. I finally had to just re-install XP from the get-go.
It's working, now (so far), but I'll have to re-install EVERYTHING again.

Is windows XP really this lame? I could change D drives all day with 2000,
98, 95, hell, I could do it with 3.1. But not the highly acclaimed XP. Is
Vista equally lame?

Rod

 

[Guest]

As with any mechanical item,why screw with it if its working just fine....
Also,xp might use the 2nd hd as a page file,or other misc,removing it,created
a "loop" in the electronics.....

 

[Brian A.]

Is it not possible to swap secondary hard drives with Win-XP???? I pulled the
existing D-drive (secondary drive) in order to test another drive. Both
drives were jumpered properly for use as slave or secondary drives.

As soon as I started the computer with the slave drive I was testing,
Windows threw a candy-coated pissy-fit. I gave me errors about corrupted
files, and basically just kept sutting down, rebooting, and giving me the
same nonsense.

I put the original D drive back in, but Windows continued its tantrum. I did
manage to get it to work for a while last night, but today it was no-go.
Windows wouldn't even start up. Using the "repair" feature on the CD was an
excercise in futility. I finally had to just re-install XP from the get-go.
It's working, now (so far), but I'll have to re-install EVERYTHING again.

Is windows XP really this lame? I could change D drives all day with 2000,
98, 95, hell, I could do it with 3.1. But not the highly acclaimed XP. Is
Vista equally lame?

Rod

You fail to mention what, if anything, was on the drive you were testing, and what,
if anything, was on the drive you swapped it out for. To add, why were you testing
the drive?

--

Brian A. Sesko { MS MVP_Shell/User }
Conflicts start where information lacks.
http://basconotw.mvps.org/

Suggested posting do's/don'ts: http://www.dts-l.org/goodpost.htm
How to ask a question: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/555375

 

[Guest]

This doesn't usually happen. The most likely cause would be that the disks
were IDE, and incorrectly jumpered, i.e. two masters or two slaves on one
channel. If you do this any writes will go to both disks, with predictably
disastrous results.

I often double-up disks when rolling-out machines. If possible I put the
disks on separate IDE channels, as that avoids the possibility of this kind
of mishap. If I have to use the same channel I will jumper the disks (NOT
rely on cable-select) and double-check that the BIOS screen shows the disks
in the correct order before allowing the OS to boot.

 

[Brian A.]

This doesn't usually happen. The most likely cause would be that the disks
were IDE, and incorrectly jumpered, i.e. two masters or two slaves on one
channel. If you do this any writes will go to both disks, with predictably
disastrous results.

I often double-up disks when rolling-out machines. If possible I put the
disks on separate IDE channels, as that avoids the possibility of this kind
of mishap. If I have to use the same channel I will jumper the disks (NOT
rely on cable-select) and double-check that the BIOS screen shows the disks
in the correct order before allowing the OS to boot.

It's all not of any relevance to me, I'm not the one that posted on the issue at
hand. Perhaps your response may be of relevance to the OP even though it was
mentioned that the drives were jumped properly.


--

Brian A. Sesko { MS MVP_Shell/User }
Conflicts start where information lacks.
http://basconotw.mvps.org/

Suggested posting do's/don'ts: http://www.dts-l.org/goodpost.htm
How to ask a question: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/555375

 

[Ron Martell]

Is it not possible to swap secondary hard drives with Win-XP???? I pulled the
existing D-drive (secondary drive) in order to test another drive. Both
drives were jumpered properly for use as slave or secondary drives.

As soon as I started the computer with the slave drive I was testing,
Windows threw a candy-coated pissy-fit. I gave me errors about corrupted
files, and basically just kept sutting down, rebooting, and giving me the
same nonsense.

I put the original D drive back in, but Windows continued its tantrum. I did
manage to get it to work for a while last night, but today it was no-go.
Windows wouldn't even start up. Using the "repair" feature on the CD was an
excercise in futility. I finally had to just re-install XP from the get-go.
It's working, now (so far), but I'll have to re-install EVERYTHING again.

Is windows XP really this lame? I could change D drives all day with 2000,
98, 95, hell, I could do it with 3.1. But not the highly acclaimed XP. Is
Vista equally lame?

Rod

Were the two slave drives you swapped from the same manufacturer? And
if so was the master drive also from the same manufacturer?

Sometimes there are compatibility issues when using two drives from
different manufacturers in a master/slave combination. This
situation is much more likely to occur (but still is relatively rare)
when there is more than a year or two difference in age between the
two drives.

The last time I encountered this was a few years agom and involved a
new Western Digital 40 gb drive and a 6 or 7 year old Maxtor 500 mb
(approx) drive. They just would not work as master and slave.
However when one was connected as primary IDE master and the other as
secondary IDE master all went well. That is why I always prefer to
use the primary master plus secondary master configuration for dual
hard drive systems, connecting CD/DVD drives as slave to either or
both.

Good luck

Ron Martell Duncan B.C. Canada
--
Microsoft MVP (1997 - 2008)
On-Line Help Computer Service
http://onlinehelp.bc.ca

"Anyone who thinks that they are too small to make a difference
has never been in bed with a mosquito."