XP thinks secondary HDD is Removable Disk

[CDC Mail Guy]

XP Pro

Boot drive is an SATA 200GB Maxtor. I took the old IDE Maxtor, and made it Master on the secondary IDE controller. (DVD drive is Master on the Primary IDE controller) PC will not boot at all. "Unable to load OS"

I take it off, and PC boots fine. I then put IDE drive into an enclosure and hooked it up via USB. Now it's a "Removable Device", and I can't open it at all

I would REALLY like to have this drive internal...any and all help greatly appreciated in advance.

 

[mechBgon]

After adding the IDE drive, go into the BIOS and reassert your SATA drive as the boot drive. If you need targetted help with that, post what brand & model of motherboard it is.

 

[CDC Mail Guy]

I did that. BIOS shows the secondary HDD, but after that it won't boot with it internally at all.

PS: I also tried the drive as Master on the Primary IDE controller, and PC still can't load OS

 

[mechBgon]

What motherboard is it?

 

[CDC Mail Guy]

MSI P4M900M2-L

Link http://www.tigerdirect.com/app...ails.asp?Sku=M452-2682

 

[mechBgon]

Originally posted by: CDC Mail Guy
MSI P4M900M2-L

Link http://www.tigerdirect.com/app...ails.asp?Sku=M452-2682

Ok, I'm looking at the manual, page 3-7, and they've got two settings I would look at:

Boot Device Priority

Hard Disk Drives

You already looked at these once, and gave the SATA drive priority over the IDE drive in the Hard Disk Drives... is that right? Also look in Boot Device Priority and see if there's a "SATA" or "SCSI" setting to try in particular?

 

[CDC Mail Guy]

Okay, just looked at the Boot Device Priority, and that darn IDE drive is not even hooked up at all, and it still shows... GRRR!

1st boot device IS the Maxtor SATA drive, but the IDE Maxtor is showing up as a USB device.

 

[mechBgon]

*/me mutters something inaudible about VIA chipsets & SATA


You wouldn't happen to have a PCI-based ATA controller you could plug into a vacant PCI slot, by any chance? To host the IDE drive on?

 

[CDC Mail Guy]

No, but if they're cheap enough I guess I could pick one up...but the SATA drive is fine. The problem is with the IDE hard drive.

NEW problem! Now, Windows thinks C drive is USB or something, because there is a "safely remove hardware" icon in the taskbar! Um...about the only thing good about the computer other than the price ($54 for MOBO and $79 for CPU) is the fact that the CPU is running a steady 23C.

Edit: Want to add that both other IDE devices work (Optical and ZIP drive)