Saget Posted April 14, 2008 Share Posted April 14, 2008 Just so you don't get lost: -The primary hard drive where the OS is installed (or so I think it is) is "C:" -The secondary hard drive is "D:", it only has personal files -The DVD drive letter is "G:" -There is a partition named "E:" but that shouldn't matter. Here's what happens: I turn on my computer, without the Vista DVD in the drive. I get a message saying it couldn't find the "ntoskernel.exe" or something like that. I put the Vista DVD in the drive and reboot, hoping it could repair that. Then it loads the DVD, bla bla bla, I go to "repair your OS" or something like that and it asks me to choose where my OS is. It automatically found that Vista is in the "D:" drive, and I go like "WTH?!". I try to find the OS manually and to my surprise, the "C:" drive shows as if it were the "D:" and "D:" shows as if it were "C:". If you didn't understand, the D: drive shows the files that were supposed to be in C:. Then I think "Oh so that's why it can't find the 'ntoskernel' file, it's looking at the wrong place!". Then I try to repair the boot anyway and it tells me there are no problems ¬¬ Quick note: when already inside the OS, the drive letters show correctly. IMPORTANT NOTE: When the Vista DVD is inside the drive, the system boots. Just like that, yeah, I don't even have to press anything. I just wait for the "Press any key to load the DVD-ROM" message to go away and it loads Vista like nothing happened. BUT I WANT TO BE ABLE TO BOOT WITHOUT THE BLOODY VISTA DVD INSIDE THE DRIVE. And I wonder WHY, OH WHY my hard drive letters get mixed up like that. |DeviantArt|Flickr|YouTube|#amf| Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Crokey Posted April 14, 2008 Share Posted April 14, 2008 You could try actually looking at the HDD itself, what you might find has happend is that both drives might be trying to run as a primary drive or master drive. What you'll need to do is look at the back of the actual HDD for a set of pins with a little black piece of plastic coving 2 of them (The Jumper), there should be a little diagram on the back telling you which set of pins is which and you might find that they are in conflict and Vista is a little stoopid and wants to see them both as the primary drive, probably because the DVD drive is the closest to the D drive in the alphabet (Silly Vista, Silly) lolASCIIgfx: : : : | The above should be like it, the '|' part is the jumper, this is the bit that might have to be moved over. It could also be that you might have the cables wired up to the wrong the drives as in Master-Slave, so make sure this is also set the right way round. If however it is one drive with a particition, then it could be Silly Vista, Silly. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rocketkiller Posted April 14, 2008 Share Posted April 14, 2008 (edited) Are you using IDE or SATA drives? If it's IDE, yea check the jumpers like Gareth Croke said. I don't know about the Vista repair system, but what I do in the XP console is type "fixboot" and "fixmbr", that usually helps when I have something weird going on with my partition letter assignment or booting issues. Also, I though Vista didn't use ntoskrnl.exe for booting, but I'm probably confusing it with something else, but maybe you're using the legacy XP system. Did you upgrade from XP without a reformat? I remember there's a program that can edit Vista's bootloader, but I forgot what it was called. I used to to fix some booting issues that I had with Vista back when I tried it. When I went back to XP, Vista screwed up my partition table, so now my 2 partitions are D and E, and C gets taken up by the first removable drive I would suggest reformatting and going back to XP, but you probably wouldn't want to do that. Edited April 14, 2008 by Rocketkiller Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Saget Posted April 14, 2008 Author Share Posted April 14, 2008 (edited) Are you using IDE or SATA drives? If it's IDE, yea check the jumpers like Gareth Croke said. I don't know about the Vista repair system, but what I do in the XP console is type "fixboot" and "fixmbr", that usually helps when I have something weird going on with my partition letter assignment or booting issues. Also, I though Vista didn't use ntoskrnl.exe for booting, but I'm probably confusing it with something else, but maybe you're using the legacy XP system. Did you upgrade from XP without a reformat? I remember there's a program that can edit Vista's bootloader, but I forgot what it was called. I used to to fix some booting issues that I had with Vista back when I tried it. When I went back to XP, Vista screwed up my partition table, so now my 2 partitions are D and E, and C gets taken up by the first removable drive I would suggest reformatting and going back to XP, but you probably wouldn't want to do that. Two hard drives: one is SATA and the other is PATA. Sh*t with PATA is that the DVD drive also is PATA and there is only one IDE port on the motherboard, so I had to connect the hard drive and DVD drive with the same flat cable, which makes the hard drive run super slow. I don't quite remember what I did. I bought the Vista update for XP - it was 32bits and I wanted it 64bits, then I got a new DVD - but then the DVD always comes with the full OS, and I don't remember if I updated XP (it was in the PATA drive, the one that has D: and E: ) or installed Vista on the SATA drive (which was brand new) and eventually deleted WinXP. @Gareth Croke: Usually when the master/slave thing is wrong, the computer won't even boot correctly =P I'll check the jumpers, but I think they are ok. I'll go see what the BIOS says about the drives. Edit: Primary IDE Master: the DVD drive Primary IDE Slave: the PATA hard drive And then the SATA is the SATA. The DVD drive is set as master because I HAD TO plug it to the tip of the flat cable, otherwise it wouldn't reach the hard drive. This sh*t's a mess... Edited April 14, 2008 by Saget |DeviantArt|Flickr|YouTube|#amf| Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rocketkiller Posted April 14, 2008 Share Posted April 14, 2008 Yea, you should never have a hard drive and optical drive on the same channel. What kind of mobo do you have that only has 1 PATA channel? That's really weird. I didn't really understand what you mean by the whole install thing. Which drive is it installed on? Which drive had XP? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Saget Posted April 14, 2008 Author Share Posted April 14, 2008 Yea, you should never have a hard drive and optical drive on the same channel. What kind of mobo do you have that only has 1 PATA channel? That's really weird. I didn't really understand what you mean by the whole install thing. Which drive is it installed on? Which drive had XP? A modern motherboard. 6 (or more) SATA connectors and only one IDE =| Linkie here AND CHECK THE AWESOME POSITION OF THE IDE CONNECTOR ¬¬ Drive which HAD XP: the PATA one, 120GB. Drive which has Vista: The SATA drive (it's faster, so it makes sense), 160GB. I took that PATA hard drive from my old computer, so that's why it had WinXP there. It was working good and had all my personal files, so why not. |DeviantArt|Flickr|YouTube|#amf| Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rocketkiller Posted April 14, 2008 Share Posted April 14, 2008 What happens when you disconnect the PATA drive? EDIT: What's that black connector above the ATX connector, floppy drive? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fozzy Fozborne Posted April 14, 2008 Share Posted April 14, 2008 I have the same motherboard. Please note that PATA and IDE are the same thing, just two different names. As stated before, don't put an optical drive and hard drive on the same IDE channel. It usually doesn't work out. Get an enclosure for the drive itself. Also, you'll find that most high-end boards (which this is), don't have more than one IDE channel, heck, for a while you didn't even get one IDE channel standard on high-end boards. The reasons for this are simple: A) It's cheaper to have fewer ports B) almost no one uses old drives with an expensive board and C) They block airflow much more than SATA drives do. Put your DVD drive on the IDE as master, get an enclosure for your IDE drive, and run your computer off the SATA drive. Or get a IDE->SATA converter for your IDE drive and plug it into your computer that way. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jevon Posted April 14, 2008 Share Posted April 14, 2008 You can actually make the HDD run as Master if you set both sets of jumpers correctly on each. I.E. Master on the HDD, Slave on the ODD. That might sort your issue out. Another thing to try is boot into Vista and work out how to use BCDEdit, check the partition information is set up correctly. "Face Your Fears, Live Your Dreams" - No Fear"God was a dream of good government." - Deus Ex Machina "I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours." - Stephen Roberts Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rocketkiller Posted April 14, 2008 Share Posted April 14, 2008 (edited) BCEdit, that's the program I was talking about! Also, that's not a high-end board, more of a mid-range board. My board, a DFI CFX3200 is high-end, it was the best of the best for socket 939, and it has 2 IDE channels. ASUS could've easily put 2 IDE channels, they just didn't want to. Kinda annoying how boards are moving away from legacy standards that I still use. I have to use my mom's laptop if I want to use a serial port, and there's no chance of me using a parallel port without an adaptor. Edited April 14, 2008 by Rocketkiller Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Saget Posted April 15, 2008 Author Share Posted April 15, 2008 @Rocketkiller: Yeah that's a floppy connector. And I don't know what happens, never disconnected it. @Fozzy Fozborne: I know. And what is an enclosure? @Jevon: Usually the drive that's on the tip of the flat cable is the master and the one on the middle is the slave. That's how the whole cable select thing works. But if I set the drive that's on the tip of the cable to be the slave, will it work? Saget is not sure... Where can I get that nice little program? |DeviantArt|Flickr|YouTube|#amf| Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rocketkiller Posted April 15, 2008 Share Posted April 15, 2008 I'm fairly sure the position of the drives doesn't matter, it's worked both ways for me. But first try disconnecting the IDE drive, then google BCEdit and see if there's anything to fix, then try connecting it again. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jevon Posted April 15, 2008 Share Posted April 15, 2008 @Jevon:Usually the drive that's on the tip of the flat cable is the master and the one on the middle is the slave. That's how the whole cable select thing works. But if I set the drive that's on the tip of the cable to be the slave, will it work? Saget is not sure... Where can I get that nice little program? If you have both drives set to CS/Cable Select then it takes note of their location on the cable. However, having the jumpers set to Master/Slave will override that. If by nice little program you mean BCDEdit, it's built into Windows. You need to run it from an elevated/Admin command prompt though. Might want to google instructions for it "Face Your Fears, Live Your Dreams" - No Fear"God was a dream of good government." - Deus Ex Machina "I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours." - Stephen Roberts Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rocketkiller Posted April 15, 2008 Share Posted April 15, 2008 @Jevon:Usually the drive that's on the tip of the flat cable is the master and the one on the middle is the slave. That's how the whole cable select thing works. But if I set the drive that's on the tip of the cable to be the slave, will it work? Saget is not sure... Where can I get that nice little program? If you have both drives set to CS/Cable Select then it takes note of their location on the cable. However, having the jumpers set to Master/Slave will override that. If by nice little program you mean BCDEdit, it's built into Windows. You need to run it from an elevated/Admin command prompt though. Might want to google instructions for it Well then I was thinking of something else, I remember I used a nice GUI program, maybe it was just a GUI shell for it, I'm not sure. Do you know what I'm talking about Jevon? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Saget Posted April 15, 2008 Author Share Posted April 15, 2008 @Jevon:Usually the drive that's on the tip of the flat cable is the master and the one on the middle is the slave. That's how the whole cable select thing works. But if I set the drive that's on the tip of the cable to be the slave, will it work? Saget is not sure... Where can I get that nice little program? If you have both drives set to CS/Cable Select then it takes note of their location on the cable. However, having the jumpers set to Master/Slave will override that. If by nice little program you mean BCDEdit, it's built into Windows. You need to run it from an elevated/Admin command prompt though. Might want to google instructions for it Ooohh, good to know that. I feel like opening my case right now to check that. I'll even see if I can change the position of the flat cable... |DeviantArt|Flickr|YouTube|#amf| Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jevon Posted April 15, 2008 Share Posted April 15, 2008 @Jevon:Usually the drive that's on the tip of the flat cable is the master and the one on the middle is the slave. That's how the whole cable select thing works. But if I set the drive that's on the tip of the cable to be the slave, will it work? Saget is not sure... Where can I get that nice little program? If you have both drives set to CS/Cable Select then it takes note of their location on the cable. However, having the jumpers set to Master/Slave will override that. If by nice little program you mean BCDEdit, it's built into Windows. You need to run it from an elevated/Admin command prompt though. Might want to google instructions for it Well then I was thinking of something else, I remember I used a nice GUI program, maybe it was just a GUI shell for it, I'm not sure. Do you know what I'm talking about Jevon? Not a clue You sure youre not thinking of disk management in My Computer -> Manage ? Though the functionality is totally different, so probably not "Face Your Fears, Live Your Dreams" - No Fear"God was a dream of good government." - Deus Ex Machina "I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours." - Stephen Roberts Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Saget Posted April 15, 2008 Author Share Posted April 15, 2008 Oh crap. I repaired the boot thing. But the catch is that I managed to f*ck the PATA drive. Will see if I can get that fixed... |DeviantArt|Flickr|YouTube|#amf| Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rocketkiller Posted April 15, 2008 Share Posted April 15, 2008 @Jevon:Usually the drive that's on the tip of the flat cable is the master and the one on the middle is the slave. That's how the whole cable select thing works. But if I set the drive that's on the tip of the cable to be the slave, will it work? Saget is not sure... Where can I get that nice little program? If you have both drives set to CS/Cable Select then it takes note of their location on the cable. However, having the jumpers set to Master/Slave will override that. If by nice little program you mean BCDEdit, it's built into Windows. You need to run it from an elevated/Admin command prompt though. Might want to google instructions for it Well then I was thinking of something else, I remember I used a nice GUI program, maybe it was just a GUI shell for it, I'm not sure. Do you know what I'm talking about Jevon? Not a clue You sure youre not thinking of disk management in My Computer -> Manage ? Though the functionality is totally different, so probably not No it's not. I don't remember it too well, but I do remember that it had a bunch of tabs and the ability to configure the bootloader to boot into Unix-based OS's. How did you screw up the PATA drive? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Saget Posted April 16, 2008 Author Share Posted April 16, 2008 @Jevon:Usually the drive that's on the tip of the flat cable is the master and the one on the middle is the slave. That's how the whole cable select thing works. But if I set the drive that's on the tip of the cable to be the slave, will it work? Saget is not sure... Where can I get that nice little program? If you have both drives set to CS/Cable Select then it takes note of their location on the cable. However, having the jumpers set to Master/Slave will override that. If by nice little program you mean BCDEdit, it's built into Windows. You need to run it from an elevated/Admin command prompt though. Might want to google instructions for it Well then I was thinking of something else, I remember I used a nice GUI program, maybe it was just a GUI shell for it, I'm not sure. Do you know what I'm talking about Jevon? Not a clue You sure youre not thinking of disk management in My Computer -> Manage ? Though the functionality is totally different, so probably not No it's not. I don't remember it too well, but I do remember that it had a bunch of tabs and the ability to configure the bootloader to boot into Unix-based OS's. How did you screw up the PATA drive? It sounds so dumb I don't even wanna explain. Is there a way to repair a hard drive that makes clicking sounds? Or at least retrieve the data from it... |DeviantArt|Flickr|YouTube|#amf| Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rocketkiller Posted April 16, 2008 Share Posted April 16, 2008 @Jevon:Usually the drive that's on the tip of the flat cable is the master and the one on the middle is the slave. That's how the whole cable select thing works. But if I set the drive that's on the tip of the cable to be the slave, will it work? Saget is not sure... Where can I get that nice little program? If you have both drives set to CS/Cable Select then it takes note of their location on the cable. However, having the jumpers set to Master/Slave will override that. If by nice little program you mean BCDEdit, it's built into Windows. You need to run it from an elevated/Admin command prompt though. Might want to google instructions for it Well then I was thinking of something else, I remember I used a nice GUI program, maybe it was just a GUI shell for it, I'm not sure. Do you know what I'm talking about Jevon? Not a clue You sure youre not thinking of disk management in My Computer -> Manage ? Though the functionality is totally different, so probably not No it's not. I don't remember it too well, but I do remember that it had a bunch of tabs and the ability to configure the bootloader to boot into Unix-based OS's. How did you screw up the PATA drive? It sounds so dumb I don't even wanna explain. Is there a way to repair a hard drive that makes clicking sounds? Or at least retrieve the data from it... Ouch, clicking? Does it get recognized in BIOS properly? (Right size, etc) A clicking hard drive means that it can't read a certain sector and it keeps trying and trying. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Saget Posted April 16, 2008 Author Share Posted April 16, 2008 @Jevon:Usually the drive that's on the tip of the flat cable is the master and the one on the middle is the slave. That's how the whole cable select thing works. But if I set the drive that's on the tip of the cable to be the slave, will it work? Saget is not sure... Where can I get that nice little program? If you have both drives set to CS/Cable Select then it takes note of their location on the cable. However, having the jumpers set to Master/Slave will override that. If by nice little program you mean BCDEdit, it's built into Windows. You need to run it from an elevated/Admin command prompt though. Might want to google instructions for it Well then I was thinking of something else, I remember I used a nice GUI program, maybe it was just a GUI shell for it, I'm not sure. Do you know what I'm talking about Jevon? Not a clue You sure youre not thinking of disk management in My Computer -> Manage ? Though the functionality is totally different, so probably not No it's not. I don't remember it too well, but I do remember that it had a bunch of tabs and the ability to configure the bootloader to boot into Unix-based OS's. How did you screw up the PATA drive? It sounds so dumb I don't even wanna explain. Is there a way to repair a hard drive that makes clicking sounds? Or at least retrieve the data from it... Ouch, clicking? Does it get recognized in BIOS properly? (Right size, etc) A clicking hard drive means that it can't read a certain sector and it keeps trying and trying. No, doesn't even show up in BIOS. Is it dead for good? |DeviantArt|Flickr|YouTube|#amf| Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rocketkiller Posted April 16, 2008 Share Posted April 16, 2008 Likely, are you sure that you have the connectors plugged in securely? Also, try putting it by itself with another IDE cable, just to make sure. Your cable could've gone bad. Although it's probably dead, I have a hard drive that does the same, just clicks. It gets half-recognized in an external enclosure, but doesn't get mounted. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Saget Posted April 17, 2008 Author Share Posted April 17, 2008 Likely, are you sure that you have the connectors plugged in securely? Also, try putting it by itself with another IDE cable, just to make sure. Your cable could've gone bad. Although it's probably dead, I have a hard drive that does the same, just clicks. It gets half-recognized in an external enclosure, but doesn't get mounted. Crap. Test another cable... well, the cable works with the DVD drive, so I guess it's ok. The connectors are secure. And I did test the hard drive by itself. What do you mean it doesn't get mounted? Can't be read by an OS? Well I just want to retrieve the data x( |DeviantArt|Flickr|YouTube|#amf| Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rocketkiller Posted April 17, 2008 Share Posted April 17, 2008 What I mean is that it gets detected as a hard drive, but that's it. There's no volume information or anything. I would test another cable though, just in case, computers can be strange sometimes. You do have another option, you can take out the platters and put them into another hard drive of the same model. I've taken platters out before and it's actually not too hard, but I'm guessing that's not really an option for you. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Saget Posted April 17, 2008 Author Share Posted April 17, 2008 What I mean is that it gets detected as a hard drive, but that's it. There's no volume information or anything. I would test another cable though, just in case, computers can be strange sometimes. You do have another option, you can take out the platters and put them into another hard drive of the same model. I've taken platters out before and it's actually not too hard, but I'm guessing that's not really an option for you. I wouldn't do it myself =P Even if it's not hard, it's something that I'm just not familiar with. I wouldn't know what to do and what not to do. I'd send the hard drive to be fixed somewhere... I'm gonna test it on another computer, because removing the whole flat cable from this one will be a pain in the ass... |DeviantArt|Flickr|YouTube|#amf| Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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