Hard disk not accepting Windows XP

[Joe750]

Ok, so my computer crashed and I took out the hard drive to test it. I put it my other computer, no problem. It recognized it, reads and writes fine, even passes an error test. I formatted it and put it back in it's orignal PC. When I boot with the Windows XP disc (what was previously installed), it gets to about 20% of the "copying files" bar, then restarts and repeats. I'm stumped because it seems like this drive works fine as a slave.

PS, just to test the rest of the original system I put in another HDD and it took windows just fine, started up and worked like a top. I know it's got to be the HDD, but why does it pass an error test (built-in error check from Windows XP)? Thanks!

 

[Zepper]

Hey, that HD really knows what's good for it... 😉

.bh.

:moon:

 

[joanneL2]

We had the same problem with not one, but TWO Gigabyte mobo's. If that's your motherboard, then maybe it's not the hd. We sent both mobo's back and got a barebones Shuttle and everything works great!

 

[D1gger]

I've also seen these symptoms when the RAM was going bad. Run memtest386 for a few hours and confirm your RAM is good.

 

[bendixG15]

Second the motion for testing the RAM.

 

[Joe750]

I have been getting RAM related errors, but not with the smaller, older HDD. I installed with no problem using that older HDD, can bad RAM work sometimes or does it just go altogether?

 

[Joe750]

Ok, I downloaded and ran Memtest86 (not 386) from a bootable disc, and it had "unexpected halts" for two different tests. Does that mean my RAM is no good? I know it sounds like a dumb question, but there were 0 errors at the time of halt, why wouldn't it just say "error"? Thanks all.

 

[een]

Might not be related, but I had the same problem with a thinkpad laptop that keeps halting on memtest even though there is no error. Turns out one of the ram chip is faulty.