PC wont boot with 2 hard drives connected?

[papalazarou]

Hi hoping somebody can help me. Bit of a novice so please bare with me.

 

Had a WD2500KS with Windows XP Media Centre, Motherboard Asus A8N32-SLI.

 

Recently seemed to contract a fairly nasty virus with AVG got rid of, but then it failed to boot - it would crash when it got to the Windows XP loading screen.

 

I picked up another hard drive, a Samsung HD502HJ which a friend had going spare, formatted and did a clean install and its working fine.

 

However, If I connect the old WD drive to try and recover some of the data off the drive (Photos, music etc), Windows fails to load. Disconnect it and it works fine again.

 

Is there something I'm doing wrong, or is their a conflict between the drives? Any help would be greatfully recieved. :)

[madman32]

it sounds like the pc is trying to boot off the original infected hard drive rather than the new one...

if you go into the motherboard bios you should be able to see the boot order and change it so the good hard drive is the one that the pc will try and boot of first

 

hope this helps

 

madman32

[Jelly Bean]

Have you set the jumpers on the hard drives to new drive master and old drive to slave?

[DSTM]

Have you set the jumpers on the hard drives to new drive master and old drive to slave?

Wouldn't setting the Boot order in the Bios be easier?

Not disputing,just asking.:)

[Jelly Bean]

Yes possibly DSTM,however it depends on what the drives are set as now,C or D.The computer would boot from C normaly.Also depends on the computer itself.Always best to check the jumpers.

 

We have all read and helped on peoples issues when they reformat a second drive as the main drive but it refuses to boot from it as the BIOS sees C drive as the main bootable device or first boot device.

[papalazarou]

Thanks for the replies guys.

 

I haven't set any jumpers when have both sata drives connected, but I have been into bios and set it so it only boots from the newer drive with the clean install on and disable the second and third boot device. The same thing occurs - just before the windows screen appears, the system restarts.

 

Seems very strange as surely the second hard drive should not affect the first one booting into windows?

[Armageddon]

Have you checked your connections for everything else like your ram graphics etc just incase you have nudged anything while you was removing drives just a thought I hope it helps

 

Dave

[PseFrank]

Although I'm certainly not an expert on the subject matter in this thread, I think that for the benefit of those users who are not used to delving inside their computer towers/cases I'll just clarify a couple of things pertaining to Hard Drives.

 

1) Only IDE hard drives have jumpers that relate to Master/Slave configuration. The jumper its self will normally be found between the Data ribbon and the Power cable.

 

Note: You can tell if your Hard Drive is an IDE drive because the Data Ribbon will be about 2 inches wide (50mm).

 

2) Where as a SATA hard drive does not have jumpers relating to the Master/Slave configuration. Its Data cable will be only about half an inch in width and is often yellow or red in colour.

 

Note: On some SATA hard drives a set of jumpers will be found. But these jumpers control the speed of the SATA drive and not the master/slave configuration.

 

Note: Mother boards that support SATA drives will often have two or even four small sockets for plugging in the data cables. (Seperate cable for each hard drive).

 

However...this does not answer the OP's questions, but may help forum members who read this thread.

[Dalo Harkin]

You need to go into the BIOS and set the HDD device priority as DSTM mentioned.

 

Depending on your MOBO (Motherboard) the SATA ports are labelled 1,2,3 etc. If you are putting your 'old' drive in to say 1, when your other is in 3 it will boot 1 first, if that makes sense. Also when you have more than one HDD installed (regardless whether SATA, IDE or SCSI)

there is a list, you need to check that the 'new' drive is at the top of that list.

 

Hope this helps, when you make amendments in the BIOS always remember to SAVE and EXIT

Edited August 23, 2010 by Dalo Harkin

[papalazarou]

Hi Chaps, again thanks for the replies.

 

Confirm they are both Sata drives, and the main (new) drive is on SATA1, old non-working drive on SATA2.

 

Thanks to Psefrank - I didn't think I needed to do anything with jumpers and your post confirmed it.

 

I've tried setting it as second boot device in BIOS and also disabling the 2nd/3rd boot devices but the same thing occurs. I've also checked all connections for everything else - with the new drive connected - boot no problem, with both drives connected, just keeps restarting.

 

Looks like I'm buggered! :( I'll try and find another machine and see if I get the same fault.

[Plastic Nev]

Hi, just a thought, but to get around this and to get the computer to boot on the new drive first.

I suggest obtaining a converter, or caddy, to then be able to connect the old drive as an external USB device.

Doing it that way means you can start the computer and let it boot up normally on the new drive only, then once booted, plug the old drive via the converter to a USB port. Windows should then see it as external storage hardware.

 

My next advice, considering you had a malware problem on the old drive, would be to install some extra security software before doing any of the above, and the suggested being Malwarebytes, and Superantispyware.

 

With those pre installed, once you connect the old drive as a USB device, and before trying to recover any data, providing the drive shows up in "My computer" right click on the drive, and you should then see the options to scan the drive using the security softwares.

Do so and let them remove anything they find. If they report a problem and cannot remove something. Do not try to get at your data yet, take the whole problem to our security and malware removal section for one of our experts to look at.

Nev.