New 160GB WD 8mb hard drive won't boot xp? Please help. :)

[ManDeJapan]

Hey Techies,

Thanks for all your help in the past, but I need your help once again. I recently installed a new 160gb special edition western digital hard drive. I followed the instructions that came with it and I hooked it up to the ultra controller card. I used the WD floppy (data lifeguard tools) that came with it to do a "drive to drive" copy so that I could copy everything from my old 40gb WD 2mb western digital hard drive. Was able to do that. I can still boot with the old hard drive and when I'm in win xp, I can view everything on the new hard drive so I know it copied everything over fine. But then when I try to boot from the new hard drive (i just changed the settings in the bios so that it would boot from the new drive first) this is what happens:

1) Detects all devices during the first few screens including the new drive on the new controller card.
2) Windows XP Pro splash screen plays...
3) Black screen with nothing on it shows up right after as if my monitor went dead (but the monitor is fine). It doesn't boot past this black screen.

I have an Epox 8k7a+ motherboard and I recently flashed the bios, but that didn't solve the problem. I tried many other things, but nothing seems to work. Has anyone ever had a similar problem? I'm open to all ideas/suggestions/advice. Please help if you get the chance. I greatly appreciate it.

Thanks,
Mike

 

[bozo1]

.Is your old drive connected to your motherboard and your new drive connected to the new controller card? If so, in order to boot off the new drive, that installation of XP probably needs the driver for the controller card installed.

 

[Green Man]

I would make sure the drive is formatted NTFS. FAT32 has problems on partitions that large.
Also, make sure that 48bit LBA is enabled in windows as discussed in this KB Article
It sounds like it is if you can see the data from in windows when it is set as the storage drive. Is windows seeing the full drive, or only 137GB?

 

[ManDeJapan]

In response to bozo1:

Yup...my drives are connected that way, but I think the new drive does have those drivers installed because what I did originally was this:

1) Installed the controller card.
2) Turned on the computer and installed the controller drivers on my old hard driver.
3) Turned off the computer and hooked up both drives to the controller card (New drive as primary master and old drive as slave on the same ribbon).
4) Used the WD floppy disk to do a drive to drive copy.

So, I'm assuming that when I did this, since the old hard drive had the drivers installed on it already, shouldn't the new drive have received that driver for the controller as well when it copied it?

Right now though I do have my old hard drive hooked up directly the motherboard IDE2 port as a single drive (jumper cable settings) and the 160gb drive hooked up to the controller card as a single drive as well.

In response to SpookyFish:

I believe it is formatted in NTFS because I copied the old hard drive and I think I saw it say it was in NTFS when it was copying and everything.
Windows does recognize the entire 160gb.
I will look into that whole 48bit LBA being enabled. Not sure about that.

Thanks. If anyone else has any suggestions please let me know. I will write an update after I check the 48bit LBA thing.

 

[Angrymarshmello]

I am probably going to be absolutely no help whatsoever, but have you tried hooking the new hd up directly to the mobo (as well as setting the jumpers to master)? My only experience with controller cards was absolute hell, so I'd try bypassing that and see if that works.

 

[ManDeJapan]

Originally posted by: Angrymarshmello
I am probably going to be absolutely no help whatsoever, but have you tried hooking the new hd up directly to the mobo (as well as setting the jumpers to master)? My only experience with controller cards was absolute hell, so I'd try bypassing that and see if that works.

But then if I did that, wouldn't I not be able to use the entire 160gb? Or are you suggesting that I hook up the new hard drive to the UIDE plugs on my mobo? The one that are made if I wanted to setup raid on my computer?

By the way...where are the registry keys located again in win xp?

 

[ManDeJapan]

Nevermind about the registry...found it.

 

[Angrymarshmello]

Err I meant hooking it directly to your IDE ports on your mobo.....not as a permanent solution but just to see if it'll boot....that way you can figure out if it's the controller card messing it up or the HD.

Also:
WD Help

You did use Lifeguard Tools 10 right?

 

[ManDeJapan]

Originally posted by: SpookyFish
I would make sure the drive is formatted NTFS. FAT32 has problems on partitions that large.
Also, make sure that 48bit LBA is enabled in windows as discussed in this KB Article
It sounds like it is if you can see the data from in windows when it is set as the storage drive. Is windows seeing the full drive, or only 137GB?

I can't seem to run the registry editor in the new hard drive because I'm not really on the new hard drive. I'm on the old one. I tried to just but an f:\ in front of regedit32.exe but that didn't seem to work. Have any ideas on how to check out the registry files on the new hard drive so that I can mess with teh 48bit stuff?

Thanks,
mike

 

[ManDeJapan]

Originally posted by: Angrymarshmello
Err I meant hooking it directly to your IDE ports on your mobo.....not as a permanent solution but just to see if it'll boot....that way you can figure out if it's the controller card messing it up or the HD.

ALso:

http://wdc.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/wdc.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=667&p_created=1035909644&p_sid=wpx9NAGg&p_lva=946&p_sp=cF9zcmNoPSZwX2dyaWRzb3J0PSZwX3Jvd19jbnQ9NDkwJnBfcGFnZT0x&p_li=

You did use Lifeguard Tools 10 right?

Yup..used lifeguard tools 10 because that's what came with the new hard drive. I did exactly as those instructions said on that link you sent me and had no problems doing the drive to drive copy.

I could try your suggestion about hooking up the drive directly to the mobo though still.

 

[ManDeJapan]

Hooking up the new hard drive directly to the mobo ide slot didn't work either. Tried different booting options in the bios too but that didnt' work. Stll stuck...grrrr...

thanks for the suggestions though. have any more ideas?

 

[Angrymarshmello]

Doh. Well have you tried booting into safe mode/step by step mode? Sorry but other than that I'm all out of ideas

 

[ManDeJapan]

Safe mode didn't work. Safe mode seems to never do it for me... I've had enough for tonight. Maybe while sleeping, I'll dream up a solution. Or maybe I should just reformat and reinstall everything from scratch on the new hard drive and then start transferring stuff from the old hard drive after the new one is working fine. But what's to guarantee that this new hard drive will actually run from the controller card even if it's the only drive hooked up and it has a fresh new copy of win xp pro on it? hmmmm....

 

[Green Man]

I was thinking you could edit the registry and then do another drive to drive copy. If you didn't want to do the copy process over, you could do an ASR to CD and then switch Hard drives and do an ASR recovery. Id try to edit the registry in safe mode first, though.

 

[ManDeJapan]

Originally posted by: SpookyFish
I was thinking you could edit the registry and then do another drive to drive copy. If you didn't want to do the copy process over, you could do an ASR to CD and then switch Hard drives and do an ASR recovery. Id try to edit the registry in safe mode first, though.

Sorry...what's an ASR?

 

[Green Man]

Go to start>all programs>applications>system tools>backup and a backup wizard will start that will let you create an Automatic System Recovery set of system state and other important boot information. Then you can boot from the CD and press R to start the recovery process. You insert the CD with your ASR info and it will restore it.

 

[WildMonkeyLover]

Stop messing around!

Do this:

1. Get Norton Ghost 2003 (Kazaa it, buy it, I don't give a hoot)
2. Do an image backup of your original C:\
3. Format your new HD in NTFS (don't need to but just to make sure)
4. Use ghost to install that image to your new HD
5. Switch the jumper pins in your machine around and make sure you have the Master/Slave settings correct
6. Reboot
7. Voila

NOTE: Step 3 is recommended because you used that piece of crap software that WD distributes, burn it and don't ever do that shiat again!

 

[ManDeJapan]

Originally posted by: SpookyFish
Go to start>all programs>applications>system tools>backup and a backup wizard will start that will let you create an Automatic System Recovery set of system state and other important boot information. Then you can boot from the CD and press R to start the recovery process. You insert the CD with your ASR info and it will restore it.

You mean run the cd on the new hard drive? So first make the recovery cd while in windows xp on my old drive, and then uninstall my old drive, and run the recovery cd so that it will fix up the new drive bascially?

Thanks for all your help.

 

[Green Man]

Yea, make the recovry CD while in windows on your old HD, then switch HDs and boot with your winXP CD. When it asks you what you want to do, press r to go to the ASR screen, and it will ask you for the recovery CD...Actually, it might let you make a boot floppy from the ASR utility when you do the backup, so that would be even easier.

 

[Dedpuhl]

Originally posted by: SpookyFish
I would make sure the drive is formatted NTFS. FAT32 has problems on partitions that large.
Also, make sure that 48bit LBA is enabled in windows as discussed in this KB Article
It sounds like it is if you can see the data from in windows when it is set as the storage drive. Is windows seeing the full drive, or only 137GB?

how can you tell if this function is enabled?

 

[Ranulf]

Originally posted by: Dedpuhl

Originally posted by: SpookyFish
I would make sure the drive is formatted NTFS. FAT32 has problems on partitions that large.
Also, make sure that 48bit LBA is enabled in windows as discussed in this KB Article
It sounds like it is if you can see the data from in windows when it is set as the storage drive. Is windows seeing the full drive, or only 137GB?

how can you tell if this function is enabled?

Ditto.. I tried following the instructions on that page, but didnt notice how to tell if it was working correctly

 

[Green Man]

If the you added the value, it is enabled. If you don't have a drive greater than 137GB, it won't do anything. Make sure you have service pack 1 installed.
The article says it could cause data loss if you turn it on and you already have created the drive. So be careful.
Other than looking for the key in the registry, I don't know of any way to check on the hard drive addressing method. Unless someone else knows, we just have to trust Bill on this one.