after slave HD has bad sectors, windows won't boot

[IS300]

After Windows XP froze while trying to access the slave (non-boot) HD, I forced a reboot, upon which it did chkdsk and found 52 (i think?) bad sectors. Afterwards, in windows, it was having issues accessing the same drive again (something about cyclical redundancy check), I forced a reboot again.

However, it will do the bios check, then hang at the Windows splash screen, showing the progess bar moving for way too long (at least 10 minutes).

I've tried unplugging the slave HDD, but bios shows both primary drives 0 and 1 not found if I do that.

the slave HDD dying shouldn't affect the master, right?

I'd appreciate any help, as this is my main PC...I'm really stuck.

 

[pcgeek11]

How did you force a reboot?

Just powering off the PC with the switch when it is writing can cause file corruption.

pcgeek11

 

[AmdInside]

Have you tried replacing your IDE cable?

 

[IS300]

Thanks for the reply...I've done it that way when ctrl-alt-del doesn't allow me to power down. Is there another way to do it?

The slave HDD is basically dead, so I've given up on that. On my primary HDD, I definitely have some stuff (on separate partition from OS) I want that hadn't been backed up yet onto an exteral HDD. So I tried reinstalling windows onto C: partition, and the drive is soo slow/unresponsive. So I guess it's also on it's way out.

I guess at this point, I need to get a brand new drive and reimage my backup, then hookup my old primary HDD and try to get the remaining files off it.

I'd still appreciate any advice/comments/etc.

 

[IS300]

Originally posted by: AmdInside
Have you tried replacing your IDE cable?

Thanks, I just tried that, but pretty much the same thing.

Why can't I connect just the primary HDD and not the slave HDD also? If I disconnect the slave, it doesn't see the primary either?

 

[docmilo]

Are the drives ide or sata? If the drives are ide make sure the jumper settings are correct. Make sure the master drive is not set for master w/slave or cable select. If that doesn't work try a program called BartPE. Make a bootable cd with BartPE and see if you can access Windows with that.

 

[Nathelion]

If you only connect one IDE drive to a dual-drive ribbon, make sure that the lone drive is attached to the end of the cable, not the middle.