Boot Emergency!

[Techtu]

Going back to what EastCoast was saying - when you unplugged the second drive and booted up the primary drive did you still have to use F8 to select the drive to boot from?

 

[TheMailMan78]

Going back to what EastCoast was saying - when you unplugged the second drive and booted up the primary drive did you still have to use F8 to select the drive to boot from?

Yup.

 

[EastCoasthandle]

Did you unplug both the power and sata connectors on the 2nd drive?

 

[TheMailMan78]

Did you unplug both the power and sata connectors on the 2nd drive?

Everything.

 

[EastCoasthandle]

Hmm, that's odd. I take it that you setup the bios already to boot from the primary drive.

Update.

Just disconnected my main drive and tried to install the OS on the small drive and it will not allow me into the install. All it does it boot normal then get to the blue screen were you see the birds and such and stops loading. I can move the mouse and stuff but no menu is there. Just blue birds. lol

I must have really pissed the PC gods off this week.

Did you give it a few minutes? I know that sounds odd but give it at least 5 minutes and see if the setup screen shows up.

 

[TheMailMan78]

Hmm, that's odd. I take it that you setup the bios already to boot from the primary drive.

Yeah.

Update:

I just let it sit and now I can install on the secondary drive. Its installing now. Who knows how long it will take. Ill keep you guys posted.

 

[Techtu]

So I take it you are unable to install your HDD's into another rig to try install? it would point the finger at the motherboard if you was able to install and load windows from another rig with one or both of your current HDD's.

 

[TheMailMan78]

So I take it you are unable to install your HDD's into another rig to try install? it would point the finger at the motherboard if you was able to install and load windows from another rig with one or both of your current HDD's.

Sorry I didn't respond before. Thank you for the help so far. Sadly I do not have another PC to test it on. Just a lappy and a Mac.

 

[Techtu]

Surely you could pop round your grans for half hour and use her beast of a machine?

Maybe not your gran but you know... anyone with a PC in general who you know.

 

[EastCoasthandle]

Yeah.

Update:

I just let it sit and now I can install on the secondary drive. Its installing now. Who knows how long it will take. Ill keep you guys posted.

Is your disc OEM by any chance?

 

[TheMailMan78]

Is your disc OEM by any chance?

Um not sure. I got it from the window 7 "party pack".

Anyway I think I solved the problem......Or should I say Erocker did. The primary drive I think is bad. I took it out and installed the OS on the secondary drive and after a long install it SEEMS to be ok. Im going to run some updates now and let her reboot a few times and Ill post back.

My question is why would one bad drive stop the second drive from showing up in the OS?

 

[Millennium]

It might if the BIOS drive detection thing gets confused. But I've never seen it happen with SATA.

Are you using AHCI and have you tried toggling that on the dodgy drive?

 

[Tatty_Two]

Glad to see it looks like it's getting sorted at least

 

[TheMailMan78]

Well it seems to be running fine off of the secondary drive. When I hook the the primary (bad drive) it says the BOOTMGR cannot be found and wont start.

 

[Tatty_Two]

OK so the secondary becomes primary (OS) and primary becomes secondary (data)...... job done!

 

[TheMailMan78]

OK so the secondary becomes primary (OS) and primary becomes secondary (data)...... job done!

Not exactly. The new data drive is bunk. SO Ill be heading down to the store today to buy a new one. Secondary drive needs to stay that way. Anyway whats wrong with the drive for it to say the "BOOTMGR" is missing?

 

[Millennium]

It means the bootloader is not installed correctly AFAIK. You've tried the diagnostics from the manufacturer on it?

 

[EastCoasthandle]

You can use a recent build of Everest (registered) if you have it. You can use their Storage >> Smart option to see what's going on. FYI Everest split off and there is another name called AIDA64 if you are looking for a most current build.

 

[HTC]

If there's anything wrong physically with the disk, hdd sentinel will detect it (unless the disk is in a RAID array). You can get this prog from http://www.hdsentinel.com.

Seriously, dude: try this prog.

Here's a screenie of it on my PC:

Dunno how much capped is the trial version compared to the full version (i have the full version) but trust me: this will detect any and all problems with your disk.

I had a faulty drive, a while back and this prog detected it (check attachment: it's a HTML file, zipped, in Portuguese language). As you can also see from this file, this prog has problems with RAID arrays but, other then that, it's great.

 

[Techtu]

Seriously, dude: try this prog.

Here's a screenie of it on my PC:

http://img.techpowerup.org/101109/2010-11-09_234339.png

Dunno how much capped is the trial version compared to the full version (i have the full version) but trust me: this will detect any and all problems with your disk.

I had a faulty drive, a while back and this prog detected it (check attachment: it's a HTML file, zipped, in Portuguese language). As you can also see from this file, this prog has problems with RAID arrays but, other then that, it's great.

How good are those kind of programs at judging the estimated lifespan left in the drives?

There are 3 bad sectors on the disk surface. The contents of these sectors were moved to the spare area.
The drive found 1 bad sectors during its self test.
Problems occurred during the spin up of the disk 35 times. This can be caused by the disk itself or huge power load (weak power supply).
There are 1 weak sectors found on the disk surface. They may be remapped any time in the later use of the disk.
At this point, warranty replacement of the disk is not yet possible, only if the health drops further.
It is recommended to examine the log of the disk regularly. All new problems found will be logged there.

182 day's remaining for me :/

 

[HTC]

How good are those kind of programs at judging the estimated lifespan left in the drives?

No idea, dude.

Tbh, i'm much more interested in the monitoring of this prog. Unfortunately, i only noticed it had problems with RAID arrays after i purchased it, but that's my fault for not properly research it.

Still, with single HDDs, this program is, IMHO, very good and i gladly recommend it: just make sure that your HDDs are supported before you buy it (limited support for RAID arrays).

EDIT

182 day's remaining for me :/

Question: did you know you had bad sectors in your HDD?

 

[Techtu]

Nope I didn't, "check disk" doesn't detect any either.

 

[HTC]

Nope I didn't, "check disk" doesn't detect any either.

See? You're already benefiting from checking this prog.

Since "check disk" didn't pick it up, and to be absolutely sure you really have bad sectors, try with other tools (google for more since i don't know of any others) but i wouldn't be surprised if you really do have bad sectors.

One of my disks also has 1 bad sector (the one in the zipped html file from post #69) and i only found out about it because of this prog.

Too bad i can't use it to check my RAID 10

 

[Techtu]

Come to think about it, my drive does make one heck of a noise when booting

But I'm going to take your advice and use a couple of other programs although I got a feeling I'll get similar results.



Sorry for hijacking your thread for a moment there MailMan.

 

[HTC]

Sorry for hijacking your thread for a moment there MailMan.

Yeah: got a little carried away myself, hehe.