*FIXED*HELP!!!Primary disk caved - how to change secondary disk to primary disk???

OK I'm getting fed-up with all of the components going. But what can one doe?

This is the set-up: I had 2 hard drives, both with XP installed on them seperately. The main drive(C was the IDE, and the non-main(d was a SATA.

Now the main IDE hard drive is GONE, wallop bang busted(knew this was coming as it had increasing bad sectors the last week). So now the SATA - which is a bit faulty but I couldn't detect bad sectors on it as of yet - must become the main - and only, currently - drive. But when I try to start Windows XP, it doesn't do anything, just hangs on a black screen!

Now I'm not sure about this so that's partially why I'm asking - but I think the reason it doesn't want to boot up is because it doesn't have a boot.ini file in the drive's main directory - am I right?

a. If so, how can I create a boot.ini file for the drive?
b. If not, what may be the resolution for this problem?

The boot.ini on the C: drive that's now gone looked something like:

[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /noexecute=optin /fastdetect
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /noexecute=optin /fastdetect

Now the disk containing the boot.ini - which is the disk declared by multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /noexecute=optin /fastdetect, which was also the default, is broken.

So if you ask me, I only need to create a boot.ini on the drive. Unfortunately, the only 2 external HDD boxes I have are IDE and not SATA...

And the only reason I don't want to format is the fact that on this secondary disk, there is very important data that I can NOT lose.

Please guys! This will save my life if I can get this disk to work!

Thanks alot again!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/05/2010 12:37PM by Ho3n3r.

Can you change the boot order in the BIOS? I'd look at trying that.

---

[www.mediafire.com] Some say you should click it, you know you want to. [www.gp4central.com] <----GP4 Central

before tinkering, i would use a linux live CD (one of the ones that doesn't install anything) and use it to access your data, and get it backed up to something.

once that's done, have you tried XP's recovery console thing?

_______________________________________________________

Team Japan Owner - GPGNC

Thanks! Yes I can change it in the BIOS... But I have a feeling I might still need a boot.ini file to get it working? Or will it automatically create one when it boots the first time?

I will try that when I get home! Thanks!!!

Thanks harjinator, I wanna try the recovery console but I don't want to muck around in places I don't belong if I don't know EXACTLY what I'm doing there...

Also, I do not have a Linux Live CD...

Oh, and mortal I just remembered, when you remove the one disk it automatically sets the remaining one as the first bootable device, so I don't think it worked? Could be wrong but that's what it had done before.

Boot with the XP disc, it has recovery stuff on it, here's a video on how to create a boot.ini using the XP recovery.

---

[www.mediafire.com] Some say you should click it, you know you want to. [www.gp4central.com] <----GP4 Central



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/26/2010 01:48PM by mortal.

AFAIK, the boot order is set in the BIOS, usually dvd, then primary, then secondary. If you remove the primary ide, it may not boot as the secondary may not have a boot.ini on it. Therefore you may have to create the boot.ini on the secondary, which will then become the primary. I would set it as the primary first in the BIOS, then insert the XP disc and boot into the recovery console. From there create the boot.ini. (see the vid) That should fix it.

---

[www.mediafire.com] Some say you should click it, you know you want to. [www.gp4central.com] <----GP4 Central

mortal, thanks a lot! I am sure that was exactly what I was looking for! Will let you know tomorrow how it went. Appreciated.

You're welcome. Good luck with it.

---

[www.mediafire.com] Some say you should click it, you know you want to. [www.gp4central.com] <----GP4 Central

Thanks, it's not difficult but I REALLY didn't have the power for another struggle if I maybe typed in something wrong.

So, while you(and Google, of course) know everything, how can I make millions a month?

Seriously though, I really hope this works. But I believe it will.

Sorry to say, but a black screen is normally another issue. Without a properly configured boot sector or boot.ini, you'll normally get actual errors (most commonly NTLDR is Missing).

A black screen is often a corrupt system file or the wrong hard drive controller.

1) In the BIOS, there'll often be an option to change the way the SATA controller works. This usually offers up options such as allowing you to work in "IDE", "IDE emulation" or "AHCI" mode (and on high-end motherboards, "RAID". If you've changed this option, you'll need to change it back. Try another setting (for instance change "IDE" to "AHCI" or visa-versa. If it still doesn't work, you'll want to change it back to the way it was earlier.

2) Boot from the XP CD and use the recovery manager. 1st off, do a "chkdsk /p". Reboot and see if it works. It probably won't, so go back to the recovery console and run "fixmbr" and then "fixboot". Do another restart and see if it works.

Yeah sorry gav that's what I meant by black screen, guess I just couldn't remember the ntldr message. Which was on an otherwise black screen...

In that case, option 2 is what you want. You'll won't need to do the chkdsk, but you might as well do it before you run the fix commands anyway - it'll sort out any file system errors.

Adding on too what harjinator said, a Linux Live CD is very useful. They've fixed my PC countless times. Little things, like my keyboard going bonkers (go on LLCD, Options - Keyboard - English - Apply System Wide). Srsly, if I was Prime Minister of the UK, I'd make it law that every citizen has too have one. It saves a fortune on PC repairs and telephone calls.

---

Order a giffgaff SIM from my link and get £5 credit, free!
Season 1 and Season 3 GPGSL World Champion!
Member of CTDP - Cars Tracks Development Program - 3D Carshaper

Oh yes, sorry, forgot to mark this as fixed... I got the information I needed on the disk thanks to you guys. Unfortunately, there were still many files missing that was required to keep XP stable, so I formatted.

At least we got the files

All I had to do was copy the ntldr and ntdetect files from the cd's i386 folder to the drive's root folder via Recovery console.

Thanks again!!!