Win XP won't run even with new hard-drive and XP install

[Faustino]

One of my PCs with XP Pro SP3 and all updates failed to boot. It brought up
the start options screen - Safe Mode, Last Known Good Confiug, etc. Usine
LKGC or Start Normally, nothing happened. With Safe Modes, it stalled with
driver lines on screen.

I installed XP Pro SP2 on a good SATA drive (otheres were IDE), reinstalled;
fine; added SP3 and updates, antivirus etc; worked perefectly. Next day, same
problem. Reinstalling on second partitiion, no show.

No obvious hardware problems, ASUS mobo, AMD 2800, 1 Gb DDR2, recent
graphics card; but it's strange that the problem would recure with a new
hard-drive and XP install. Ideas welcome.

 

[Andrew E.]

"Good SATA drive",as in brand new,or used but healthy..Either way,did you
boot to xp cd,delete the existing partition,create one,then let xp format &
install
auto.Were all other hds disconnected during xp installation.Also,is BIOS set
for SATA &/or with IDE hds also.Last,was F6 key pressed & SATA controller
drivers installed before you got to xp cd boot screen,are SATA controller
drivers/
software now running or are you useing microsoft drivers.

 

[Faustino]

Drive not brand new but not used, only partitioned and NTFS formatted.
Instatlled XP on existing partitions. Yes, other HDs disconnected, but
reconnected before SATA drive failed to boot. BIOS is OK I think, and SATA
drive selected as first when tried with other drives. As I said, it worked
norrmally on day of install. Can't recall hitting F6, using MS drivers as
usual with Samsung HD - fine in my other PC, though mobo and BIOS are more
recent.

Pardon any typos, I've tiny scrip on this box.

 

[Anna]

Drive not brand new but not used, only partitioned and NTFS formatted.
Instatlled XP on existing partitions. Yes, other HDs disconnected, but
reconnected before SATA drive failed to boot. BIOS is OK I think, and SATA
drive selected as first when tried with other drives. As I said, it worked
norrmally on day of install. Can't recall hitting F6, using MS drivers as
usual with Samsung HD - fine in my other PC, though mobo and BIOS are more
recent.

Pardon any typos, I've tiny scrip on this box.

Faustino:
Although this is not a certainty by any means, the problem you're
experiencing may be due to a defective secondary HDD that's connected at the
time you boot to your newly-installed SATA boot drive.

You've indicated that you replaced your original PATA HDD because of
problems you were experiencing booting to that drive. It's possible that HDD
was defective and thus the cause of your problem. Obviously this is not a
certainty based on the info you provided but merely a possibility.

You say you then installed the XP OS onto your new SATA HDD (while the PATA
HDD and apparently other hard drives in your system were disconnected). And
that the system then booted just fine and functioned without any problems,
right?

So it was *only* after you reconnected the former boot (PATA) drive, as well
as possibly one or more secondary hard drives that the system failed to
boot, right?

If that be the case there's a strong possibility that it's the former PATA
boot HDD now serving as a secondary HDD that's causing your problem. (Or
even one of your other secondary HDDs). Again, not a certainty, but a
possibility because a defective secondary HDD can cause boot problems with
an otherwise bootable HDD.

So again, try booting to the SATA HDD with *all* secondary HDDs disconnected
from the system. You may also want to check out those PATA HDDs with the
diagnostic utility ordinarily available from the disks' manufacturers.

There should be no SATA controller driver problem involved here. The fact
that you were able to fresh-install the XP OS onto the SATA HDD indicates no
problem re that area.
Anna

 

[Anna]

Faustino:
Although this is not a certainty by any means, the problem you're
experiencing may be due to a defective secondary HDD that's connected at
the time you boot to your newly-installed SATA boot drive.

You've indicated that you replaced your original PATA HDD because of
problems you were experiencing booting to that drive. It's possible that
HDD was defective and thus the cause of your problem. Obviously this is
not a certainty based on the info you provided but merely a possibility.

You say you then installed the XP OS onto your new SATA HDD (while the
PATA HDD and apparently other hard drives in your system were
disconnected). And that the system then booted just fine and functioned
without any problems, right?

So it was *only* after you reconnected the former boot (PATA) drive, as
well as possibly one or more secondary hard drives that the system failed
to boot, right?

If that be the case there's a strong possibility that it's the former PATA
boot HDD now serving as a secondary HDD that's causing your problem. (Or
even one of your other secondary HDDs). Again, not a certainty, but a
possibility because a defective secondary HDD can cause boot problems with
an otherwise bootable HDD.

So again, try booting to the SATA HDD with *all* secondary HDDs
disconnected from the system. You may also want to check out those PATA
HDDs with the diagnostic utility ordinarily available from the disks'
manufacturers.

There should be no SATA controller driver problem involved here. The fact
that you were able to fresh-install the XP OS onto the SATA HDD indicates
no problem re that area.
Anna

Faustino:
I should also have mentioned that you should check the boot priority order
in your motherboard's BIOS to ensure that the first boot to a HDD is your
newly-installed SATA HDD containing the XP OS, should any other HDDs be
connected at boot time.

Also, ensure that the HDD is connected to the *first* SATA connector on the
motherboard.
Anna

 

[Faustino]

Thanks, Anna. I did disconnect the old drives but no show. I had selected the
SATA drive as first to boot. I'll check which SATA slot was used.

In the meantime, I removed the SATA drive and popped in a SAT HD docking
station on another PC (where I could test it, add other software etc).
Unfortunately, it's not showing up under My Computer. It could be that some
fault in the other PC is damaging the drives, rendering them unusable.
Beyond my competence to address that, but nI might plug the IDE drives into
the "good" PC and see if they function.