Solved What do Active, Primary and Logical mean when applied to Hard drives?

[Caramelo]

Right, I have 2 identical sata hd. I'm not sure which on contains the win 7 installation, or how to tell them apart.

I need to find that out in order to make it the first sata connection.

 

[Sbrideau]

One way of doing it is by unplugging one of these HDDs and see if the Win 7 files are there or not.

 

[Caramelo]

I'll give it a shot tomorrow.

 

[Caramelo]

Here is an update to my problem.

I have disconnected all hds.

I identified and connected the Win 7 hd to the #1 SATA port.

When I put the win 7 install disk or the rescue disk (I tried both) I burned when I first install win 7 in the cd/dvd drive and start the pc, I get a bar at the bottom of the screen with the words "windows is loading files", then "starting windows". Then the screen goes blank and nothing happens.

Both the hd and the dvd drive are recognized in the bios and the hd is confirmed in #1 sata slot.

I can't find an entry in the bios to make the hd 0 and make it master.

 

[theog]

1) Clean the DVD Drive
2) Clean the CD/DVD disks.
3) Can you change the DVD Drive for another?

 

[Caramelo]

1) Clean the DVD Drive
2) Clean the CD/DVD disks.
3) Can you change the DVD Drive for another?

1)With compressed air?
2)Done
3)I have some old ones I could try.

 

[theog]

1) Clean the DVD Drive
2) Clean the CD/DVD disks.
3) Can you change the DVD Drive for another?

1)With compressed air?
2)Done
3)I have some old ones I could try.

1) NO, with a DVD Laser Cleaning Disc, should be done after each 10 hours of use.
Hama DVD Laser Cleaning Disc: Amazon.co.uk: Electronics

3) A newer one would be better, but use what you have.

 

[Caramelo]

1)Doh!. Thanks

3)I tried an older Sony Plextor IDE drive. It was the same result. The process gets to saying "Windows Starting" but does not continue to the Install/repair menu. The disk does properly load to the menu on a separate lap top pc, so the windows disk is ok.

During set up I specify which device is the boot device, always selecting the appropriate dvd drive.

 

[Caramelo]

Happy to report that I got the repair disk to load after disconnecting all peripherals, including usb devices, except the dvd drive and system hd. I repaird the mbr after finding and loading hd drivers. I'm able to boot back into win 7.
However when I hook everything back up the windows boot hangs and the start up trouble shooting program shows 7 problems which I'll make a separate post about.

 

[theog]

Run Check disk on all drive.
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/433-disk-check.html?ltr=D