Hard Drive Makes Boot Hang

[SeanHellen]

Hi guys

I have been having trouble with a hard drive. It is from an old computer of mine and it has some stuff on it that I want. It is an IDE drive, but my mobo is a sata board so I went to maplins to get an adaptor to switch between the 2.

I know this adaptor works as I use it for my laptop hdd (which is now also in my desktop) and it works perfectly.

The bios recognises this dodgy hdd and is fine with it, but when I try to load windows, it just hangs once all the little squares have joined together to make the windows sign at the boot screen...it sits there "glowing" for ages

I have tried disabling the hdd in the bios, tried switching the switch on the adaptor the other way and nothing happens...windows will only boot if i unplug the power to it.

There is no bootable info on this hdd, just a few files

Any help will be gratefully received

 

[Ivan the SoSo]

Will it boot with just the adapter...no hard drive?

 

[SeanHellen]

Yep, if the hdd is not connected, i can leave the adaptor in place and it will load as normal, i can leave the adaptor in place connected to its power and the sata cable and its fine...just when this hdd is connected, it doesnt like it. My laptop hdd connects to it fine and will operate as normal, bit swap drives and it throws a fit lol

 

[mlevy]

Make sure you set the Master/Slave/CS jumper as the adapter suggests. You probably want it set to CS. The laptop drive doesn't have this jumper so it wouldn't cause this issue.

 

[bigmck]

If you haven't done so, run a CHKDSK on your C: drive and after it boots, connect your other HD and run CHKDSK on it If you are not familiar with doing this, here is some help. How to use CHKDSK (Check Disk) - Windows 7

 

[SeanHellen]

Thanks bigmck. I get the check disc thing, but do you mean run it on the bad hdd or run on both? (by c i assume you mean the os hdd, this is e in my case )I ask as i cant see a way to do it as i cant boot to windows with it connected and when in windows and i connect it, it wont show in computer til i restart...then im back to square 1. I dont even know what letter it was assigned

 

[bigmck]

Thanks bigmck. I get the check disc thing, but do you mean run it on the bad hdd or run on both? (by c i assume you mean the os hdd, this is e in my case )I ask as i cant see a way to do it as i cant boot to windows with it connected and when in windows and i connect it, it wont show in computer til i restart...then im back to square 1. I dont even know what letter it was assigned

If your OS in not on your C: drive, that is a problem. When you boot your PC and have the bad drive not connected, what drive letters are in use?

 

[SeanHellen]

The thing is it was c drive but i installed the os onto another drive (E drive - using at the moment) i then took any info off the old (C) drive and use it for storage only.

So now:-

C: is storage
E: is the primary drive with os installed on it
D: is dvd-rw drive

I & J are virtual drives made by poweriso

There is the laptop hdd & dodgy hdd are the 2 drives that i swap between until i get another adaptor so i can leave them both plugged in - cant remember what letters are assigned to them.

I have no floppy drive

The thing thats annoying me is that this bad drive has worked before via the adaptor, swqpped to the laptop hdd, then back again and now it doesnt lol.

My intention is to get all drives working and then change the path letters so that they are not all over the place.

Just a quick thought...last time i had bad hdd running, i was on the old os (C drive back then) but now im on new os (E drive) it has stopped working. Do you think the bad hdd could have had the drive letter E also and now when i plug them in it conflicts with the new os drive since there would be 2 x E drives going or would it sort it out itself?

 

[Dwarf]

Do you have an external enclosure that you can install the drive in and then connect it via USB? If it was originally a drive that contained boot files for an older OS, this can sometimes cause problems if the BIOS boot order is incorrect.

 

[SeanHellen]

Nah, completely wiped the drive clean and its virtually full of stored files again which i want to get at. No os stuff on it though. I have tried disabling it in the bios too but it still hangs

 

[bigmck]

Just a quick thought...last time i had bad hdd running, i was on the old os (C drive back then) but now im on new os (E drive) it has stopped working. Do you think the bad hdd could have had the drive letter E also and now when i plug them in it conflicts with the new os drive since there would be 2 x E drives going or would it sort it out itself?

Your OS has to be on the C: drive. That is your problem. Windows looks for the C: drive to boot from. You need to either reinstall Windows and make it the C: drive when you install or find some way to change E: to C:.

 

[SeanHellen]

windows is fine on the e drive...its working, its just the bad hdd. if i do need windows on c, then am i right in thinking this would be how to do it?

-backup work on C drive (somehow...got nowhere to put it lol)
-change C drive letter to X (for example) to free up the C drive letter
-install windows on X drive
-format E Drive and change letter to C
-re-install windows to new C drive
-change X to E
-move work back onto new E drive

So in all reality I have just swapped the drive letters round, but since you cant change a letter if theres windows on that drive, I have to do it the long way

reassigning letters is easy, I can do that through disk management, just trying to find somewhere to store the work whilst i do it...I say work, just a whole load of pics, setups and music, lol

 

[bigmck]

windows is fine on the e drive...its working, its just the bad hdd. if i do need windows on c, then am i right in thinking this would be how to do it?

-backup work on C drive (somehow...got nowhere to put it lol)
-change C drive letter to X (for example) to free up the C drive letter
-install windows on X drive
-format E Drive and change letter to C
-re-install windows to new C drive
-change X to E
-move work back onto new E drive

So in all reality I have just swapped the drive letters round, but since you cant change a letter if theres windows on that drive, I have to do it the long way

reassigning letters is easy, I can do that through disk management, just trying to find somewhere to store the work whilst i do it...I say work, just a whole load of pics, setups and music, lol

My mistake on Windows having to be on C: It is possible to be on others, just does not happen very often. I do think that the fact Windows is on E: is a cause for your other drive not to work.

 

[SeanHellen]

I got to admit, having windows back on C drive would be good...computer isnt the only thing thats getting confused lol

Think I might reinstall windows like I said in last post and see what happens..unless any other ideas come to light before then

 

[bigmck]

I got to admit, having windows back on C drive would be good...computer isnt the only thing thats getting confused lol

Think I might reinstall windows like I said in last post and see what happens..unless any other ideas come to light before then

There is one thing you can do. Download free Macrium Reflect to backup your info. Macrium Reflect FREE Edition - Information and download You can make an image of your OS drive and store it on your storage drive. Do the same with your documents you have. You can switch the drives letters around and then restore to your new C: drive. It does not take that long. I have my OS and programs on one partition and it only uses about 45 GB when Macrium compresses the backup. If you only have your OS, it will take less space. You won't have to go through reinstalling Windows then. Macrium only takes about 20 minutes to restore.

 

[SeanHellen]

Great, cheers bigmck. I discovered i have about 20gigs left on storage drive so if i uninstall a few games and things, i would imagine it would fit. Os is only about a week old so cant be that much stuff on it lol

 

[SeanHellen]

OK, i got me a 25gb image of my E drive (OS Drive) on my C Drive (storage drive), so now i plan to:-

-Change dirve letter of storage drive to X
-format E Drive
-Change to C (as it should be)
-restore from image

Problem lies in the last bit - how do I restore from the image since windows will be gone - do I make the restore disc that its on about and do it from that???

 

[Ivan the SoSo]

Set the ide drive to cable select....see if it will boot...if no joy, try the setup on a different computer...if it works power supply may be failing/...if it doesn't the hard drive may be bad......

 

[bigmck]

OK, i got me a 25gb image of my E drive (OS Drive) on my C Drive (storage drive), so now i plan to:-

-Change dirve letter of storage drive to X
-format E Drive
-Change to C (as it should be)
-restore from image

Problem lies in the last bit - how do I restore from the image since windows will be gone - do I make the restore disc that its on about and do it from that???

Make the image of Windows with Macrium. When you get through it will ask you to make a Macruim Rescue disk. If it doesn't ask, there is a place on your top menu to do it. It will mention Linux, check that option. To restore your image, insert the Rescue Disk and boot your computer. The Rescue Disk will then boot and give you options to restore your Windows. One thing to beware of, Macrium mixes up the drive letters from what they really are. Make sure you have named the drives. You will have to use the names and ignore the letters. == One final thing that you might check before you do this. Go into BIOS and make sure that your first boot option is your CD and your second is the drive where Windows is. I think you told me you did this earlier, but just thought I would bring it up. You might have to go into BIOS again after the restore and set your boot sequence again. Let us know how it goes.

 

[SeanHellen]

ok, gave it a whirl and nothings changed...just as I thought it wouldnt do about half way through the restore process

Problem is, I have made an image (stored on the storage hdd) of the hard disk with windows on it...but it has also taken the drive letter with it, so I am the same as I was before the restore.

So, can I boot into dos, format E Drive, change E to C and then restore to C drive? If so, how (more the 1st 2 as I am not too familiar with dos, but I know how the restore thing works now)?

I even tried installing windows on what little bit of room I had on the storage drive left, going to disk management and formatting E drive from there (since I thought the windows files on E drive wouldnt be in use), but it wouldnt let me