Fried hard drives

It all started because I wanted to test out a program called Windows Leopard XP. It looked great. I have 2 hard drives, 1 with a shakey operating system on it anyway that I want to remove. Drive A: Quantum Fireball 15gb Drive B: Seagate ST340810A 40gb. Drive A runs windows XPSP2 Drive B was nothing, a slave, it held a back up of all my important stuff pluss videos and music and pics. I backed up everything onto dvds and erased and reformatted disk B: Then installed a couple gbs worth of windows leopard and some progs. When I booted up, black screen offered me a choice, XP or XP, I chose the second and found myself booted into the B: drive. But I couldn't move files between A drive and B drive, so I wanted to format A drive and make it empty like B drive used to be before it got its new operating system. So I tried to format it and got some kind of error that it was in use. I thought that was weird. I thought the computer would automatically boot itself into the operating system if it found it. So I hurt my A drive really badly fooling around with it these past few days. I even gave it the wrong cds to eat. I tried to slip it an old Compaq/HP restore/OS combo that I had from a while back, but it asked for a serial number from under my laptop and when I tried to give it that very same serial it refused and caught itself in a loop of not being able to cancel 30 minutes into setup, and not being able to move on either. I got myself Universal Boot CD, a linux prog, I think, and really started to have a feel. I wiped the A drive clean and found a funny prog called fdisk that I felt inclined to run for some reason. However, I wasn't able to format after that. Couldn't find a prog. Neither A nor B will boot up. My original pirated version of XP which I installed on A drive 3 years ago, was no longer being understood as a boot alternative. I made disc images from my recent Leopard XP data and tried to feed it that, but no boot. Old boot disks that I have from before installing SP2 on the original Drive A installation, failed to boot at disk 2. I am up to my eyeballs in I don't know what to do, and have even dug out my old dell from the closet and tried to hook a couple of it's drives to my current configuration. Nothing boots. Although dell got me to a screen that says do you want safe mode or networking bla bla, but then won't go past. So I don't know guys. Where do I start. What do I do? I broke it easily enough, there should be a way to put it back, eh?

Hi, Sorry to hear of the problems with your machine. It is possible (but rare) to cause permanent damage to your hard drives in this way. However it looks as though you have really tried! A pretty sure fire way of proceeding would be to buy a new hard drive (they are very cheap now) and then buy a brand new copy of Windows XP (a legitimate copy from your accredited Microsoft dealer complete with new Product Key etc) and I would suggest that you consider getting a retail,(full licence) not an OEM copy. You might be able to just reinstall the genuine Windows Xp on your old hard drive, if you really want to try this…… Regards paws

Thanks, Paws. Yes, of course I was considering this as well. new hard drives, new computer, new everything. But isn't there a way to fix what I've broken? Everything was working fine just a few days ago. I can't believe I could've done it this bad.

You need to start from square 1. First, get yourself a legal copy of XP. They can now be had for a decent price, either at a Computer Show or Ebay (careful on ebay though). Then, do a new, clean install. At this point, you don't have many other options, if you want to save the system. Good luck. DR

Actually, a clean install is precisely what I want to do. I simply want the seagate to be the main drive, and the quantum the secondary drive. Here in Japan, getting English OS is a bit of a problem. Be careful of ebay, sure. How about amazon? Actually, I usually just visit around the expat community and someone uually has what I need. Why the insistance on a legal copy. I have a guy who wants to send me 'engineering cds' which he says don't require licenses or serials and work forever because they're designed for engineers and schools. Anyway, getting a good OS is my primary concern and I don't mind spending the money for one, I was just trying to get it done with what I have on hand or can get quickly. So is it simply a matter of the jumper settings that will determine which drive the OS gets installed on, or is that a choice I'm given at installation time?

have you considered unplugging one of the drives, then attempting to boot either a windows CD or a Free legal operating system (such as one of the linex distributions) it may just be the partition thats corrupted so recreating the partition during the installation process, and formatting fully could solve the situation. It may as well be advisable to download and run the tools provided by your Hard drive manufactures (if there are any) as these would also help identify any faults with the hard drives. This should be done before buying a new harddrive. Remember to use the SP2 boot disks though or you will be limited to 136Gb of size, well unless you like using multi partitioned hard drives! if you are going to use windows XP i would only advise using a full and legit version. At least due to the patching and general support that will be availble to you. This alone (for about £60) is worth it due to the hassle that goes with a PC running XP with non of the service packs on it!

The advantage of having a legit copy of XP is that you can then get the security updates. As far as using someone else's "Engineering Copy", you just lay yourself open for problems in the future. Now, if you ever want to get into computer building or networking and Microsoft finds out you have illegal copies, you will lose your certifications, for life. Depending on whether you are using "Cable Select" or "Master>Slave" will determine how the jumpers work. I prefer to use "Master>Slave" and jumper the drives for that. I would hook up one hard drive and make certain it is being recognized in BIOS as the Primary drive. Then do the install. Good luck. DR

Bloke and rigacci, thank you. As for the cds I have been using, and the most recent installation of Windows leopard, it is SP2 already and there seems to be a WGA fix that allows me to get the updates. That being said, I understand well enough the need for some legit software. Anyway, I have tried to get it to boot in any number of combinations, A drive set to master/slave/cable select, Hooked up with B drive together or alone. B drive hooked up by itself - nothing. This is with BIOS recognizing them in all the various relationships, primary, slave, secondary. Now, it seems however, that BIOS only wants to recognize the Quantum as a slave, no matter the jumper position. May have something to do with all the fuddling around I did with the UBCD. I was having dvd issues a few days before I began this mess, so went out and bought an external dvd writer. The Leopard installation is on DVD so the machine has to recognize the usb connection when booting - I'm not sure it's doing that. But the dvd should be bootable. Also, dling UBUNTU now and will check to see if the hd manufacturers have anything to say about firmware.

Quick update. Bloke - Ubuntu works! Drive A booted like there has never been a problem! And I'm loving the feel of this OS already. Regarding jumpers, there was a diagram on the front of the drive indicating their positions. i tried them all to no effect. Then I tried a location that was not diagramed and it turned out to be the right one - Drive A is now the primary again. I will have to see how this effects the recognition of Drive B after this installation is complete, and whether or not the operating system is intact over there as well. But since I cannot boot with that drive, I am assuming it shouldn't have been installed there in the first place.

Hi Deva, You have an interesting adventure going on here, but it clearly crosses legal boundaries and the TOU's of this Forum. You have received cautions about and acknowledged the necessity of using legitimate operating system software. Since it is your machine, you are free to do with it what you choose. However, you will please understand that WTT Forum will not join you in solutions to circumvent legitimate commercial contract rules and legal restrictions. While you have been upfront by disclosing your illegal software use, that fact does not excuse that it remains illegal. We won't play in that sandbox with you. Hopefully we may be of some assistance to you in other matters. Read around the forum, learn what you can, and ask questions as they arise. But since this thread is going nowhere, it is now CLOSED. Best Regards Doug