Just about ready to give up computing!!!

Computer Forum Storage Devices
1

Hey’a everyone,

I’m new here, and not that experiences with hardware issues either. Poverty is a great motivator to learn how to fix a lot of pc issues…lol, but everytime I learn to fix something, something else happens and it’s an even bigger learning curve for me to learn to fix it. But here is my most recent problem…

I recently had a damaged hard drive, which was getting a bit old. I could no longer boot into XP so I decided to get a second hard drive, load my OS onto that and boot from that and then hopefully drag the files from my first drive to my new one. I managed that, and then managed to repair the old hard drive. I loaded XP onto both drives (just incase I couldn’t boot into one drive…I’d be able to boot using the other and drag the files over from the non bootable drive). They are both SATA drives.

Yesterday I had a problem with my new drive, which was running fine for several weeks. First, after I used Nero to burn a DVD, upon completion of the burn, and after clicking on ‘done’ on the nero window, I got the BSoD. I restarted it, and did another DVD to see if it would happen again, and it did, under the exact same circumstances. Anyway, the next day (today), I went to boot up and got the windows logo screen, and then the BSoD again, with this stop error 'Unmountable Boot_Volume. Stop: 0x000000ED. So, I shut the pc down, and opened the case, and swapped the drives over by swapping the DATA Cables over on the motherboard. The fact that I have to do that, to get the other drive to boot, and am not offered a boot sequence choice at startup makes me think there’s something up on that end anyway. Ok, are you guys keeping up, cos I’m confusing myself anyway…lol.

So my old drive wouldn’t boot up while the other drive was connected to my mobo. So I disconnected the new drive completely, and the old drive started up no problem. So here I am, running out of drives, and patience. What the heck should I do? I feel I’m reaching the end of my capabilities to sort things out…lol. Please don’t get too techo, as I’m not that experienced with this side of things, but any help would be fantastically, and hugely appreciated!!!

I really am so sick of my pc. Why can’t I just use the flippen thing without having to sort problems out every week! If you actually have a viable answer to that question, I will seriously make you some shortbread!

I’m running Windows XP Home with SP2 installed. AMD Athlon XP 3200+ 2.2GHz, 512 MB DDR Ram.

Right then, now I’m off to eat (emotional eating of course) and then go fishing (take out my frustrations by killing something smaller and weaker than myself!..lol).

Thanks everyone,

Michaela

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HeHe, i hope you enjoyed fishing :stuck_out_tongue:

Anyway, to fix the Unmountable boot volume bootscreen, you can load your windows CD up before booting to windows, and go to the recovery console, i think its listed as something like Repair an existing Windows Installation using the Recovery Console, once you get into that, you may have to logg into the selected installation, so you must knwo your administrator pasword.
try Fixboot, that usually fixes unountable boot volume.

So, you put the new hard drive in, and then you inserted your Windows XP cd, right?, and then installed a fresh copy of windows onto that drive right? if you did not do that, i reccommend you do. Most of the Bsod’s are proberbly caused by bad installations, if you are not prepaird to install a fresh copy of windows, try reinstalling Nero, but it deffenitly would be the best to try to do a fresh install of windows.

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Use the XP CD, choose the recovery console and then run the command “fixmbr”.

I’d point the finger at some faulty RAM. Download [google]memtest86[/google], burn it to a CD and run it for a few hours, (or until you get a lot of errors).

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Hey’a Willz and Addis,

Thanks for responding. No, I didn’t catch any fish! Didn’t that just finish my day off nicely. I had to take it out on the husband instead (he didn’t realise exactly what was included in his evening meal!..lol).

Ok, This is such a drawn out story, I hope you guys stick with me. Anyway, as I had said, I bought my new drive because my old one wouldn’t boot, and had a crucial error that couldn’t be fixed using the recovery console in the XP disc, or any other way. My brother came down with some third party software that found a critical sector on my disc damaged, and was able to repair it (he also checked the RAM which was healthy, and no fault was found).

Willz, yes I did install a fresh copy of XP on my new drive.

So my new disc which I am currently having the problem with, has given me the exact same symptoms. I tried chkdsk AND fixboot via the XP disc, and the message I got was that no disc could be found! It couldn’t even read that there was a disc there, which is weird, cos when I attempt to boot from my new disc, it at least brings me to the windows logo window before it gives me the BSoD. So I would have thought in my limited experience, that it had to read the disc to a certain extent to be able to bring up the Windows logo screen. I also tried re-installing XP and when it gets to the ‘windows is inspecting your drive’ screen, it just stalls forever, and goes no further (exactly what happened with my old drive!). It seems weird to me that both drives have produced the exact same symptoms, when one of the drives is brand new??

Now I can’t even install XP on my new drive cos of this whatever error it is!

I am unsure of what to do next. I don’t like using this old drive cos I’m paranoid it’s gong to fail on me…lol.

Addis, I did try fixboot from the xp disc, but it couldn’t pick up the disc. How am I meant to fix this flippen thing if the disc is unrecognisable. Oh, I don’t know if this has anything to do with it, but if I have both discs connected to the mobo, but try to boot of the old (currently healthy) disc, it wont boot. If I remove the new disc altogether, the old disc boots fine (that’s what I’m using now obviously). Flippen nora…

Keep the suggestions coming please.

Thanks guys,

Me

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Ok, i am abit slow on understanding this at the moment :stuck_out_tongue:

Right, so now it is saying no drives can be found?, by discs you mean Hard Drive do you?.

Anyway, i am thinking that the No drive cannot be found, or the error when inspecting the drives come up could be due to your Drive Configuration and jumper settings on your hard drive, Master, Slave. Did you make sure that the drivers were configured properly including the CD drive, so its plugged into the Motherboard, and the Connector in the middle of the IDE cable is Slace and the one at the other end is Master, on the top of the Hard drive and CD rom, or somewere on it, it should show you the Device configurations and were the Jumper should be placed, if any for Master, slace, imiting drive to 32 gb and something extra on the Cd Rom etc..

Its hard to find what this problem it, yet it could possible be something really simple :p, someone else may have a better idea, i am still learning :smiley:

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Sorry, I use too many words…I’m a typical female…lol. Ok, Only when I have both drives (my old one, and the new one) connected to the mobo, with the working old one set as the boot drive, do I have a problem using both of them. The new drive doesn’t work period, is not recognisable, etc. The old drive works perfectly fine if the new one isn’t plugged into the mobo beside it. Sorry. Yes, by discs I’m referring to hard drive. But I will use the term Hard Drive from now on so I don’t get confusing…lol.

That’s the weird thing about my new drive. There is no jumper setting for master/slave. It is a SATA drive btw, so I’m not using IDE cables. It seems the way I make one either a master or slave drive is determined by which sata data port I plug the drives into on my mobo.

I bet it is something simple…isn’t it always? But it’s only simple if I actually know the answer eh…lol. THEN it’s simple. You may be still learning, but you know more than me, so keep the suggestions coming. Thanks.

Me

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Hehe lol.
It’s not just Females that use too many words, i have a habit if typing too much too :stuck_out_tongue:

Anyway, i forgot, SATA dont use jumpers anymore :p, i am still with the only tech you see :p.

I am almost out of ideas, Could you possibly try entering the Bios, and resetting the Bios, its usually Del, maybe F1 or F2 to enter the bios aswell.

~~Edit** Also if your going to reset the Bios, make sure you change make the First Boot Device the CDROM again, as i think that when the Bios is Reset it will proberbly revert back to Floppy as the First Boot Device. I think the option for Boot Device Priority is in Intergrated Perephials, depends what the arrangement is in your Bios.

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You can set set master slave in SATA drives through BIOS only…You only need’s to set the priority…Bootable disk on the top of another HD…Nd this is the reason your system doesnt starts after attatching both HDD…
Also can you check your BIOS if your system is even detecting that HDD in the BIOS…?

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So SATA does have Master, Slave Config, well, i learned something new today :slight_smile:

In all Motherboard Bios’s it shows what HDD’s and CD/DVD drives are connected.

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Hey’a Karan :slight_smile: I hear what you are saying, but I was able to boot from my drive when both drives were connected before this problem. I had been using both drives for three weeks with no problem. Both drives were detected perfectly before all this happened.

Cheers,

Me

11

Can u see ur both HDD in the BIOS?

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Hey’a Karan,

Sorry I took so long in getting back to you. Ok, I currently only have my old (working) drive installed as I had to remove my new (stuffed) lol drive to get the old one to boot. I had a look in my BIOS, and although I don’t understand one of the options, the others are straight forward.

I have posted the pic’s here for you to take a look yourself. But according to what I can see, the boot sequence is 1. Floppy, 2. IDE (which I don’t have an IDE drive which is why it’s listed as none). 3. My CD-Rom drive, and 4. Other Boot Device (this is the one I don’t know what it is?? you can see it’s listed as INT18 Device Network but I don’t know what that means. I presume it’s my serial ATA drive. Anyway, for option 4, we are given three options which you can see there starting with ‘disabled’. So what do you think of that? Nothing to worry about there, yes?

What I’m going to try to do is reinstall my new hard drive again. I went to the manufacturers website and downloaded their diskette creating software to install the drive. The first time I installed it, I just did it manually. But I don’t know if that will fix/help the problem as it was working after I manually installed it for three weeks before it flipped out. And if that’s not the problem, then I still have to find out why my drive flipped in the first place, cos I’m scared it’s going to happen again even if I get it up and running.

Ok, I see you’re online…lol, so I look forward to your reply. Thanks.

Mike (short for Michaela, and easier for this lazy lass to type…lol)

http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y299/Acoustics4me/1.jpg
http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y299/Acoustics4me/2.jpg

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Where??

can u please provide me the full detailed specs of your computer?? like which mobo u’ve got…etc etc…

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The pics will take a little while to load, but they are at the bottom of my previous post. I know they loaded ok, cos I saw them there myself.

Ok, here are my specs…

Mobo - ASUSTeK Computer INC. A7V600
BIOS - Award Software, Inc. ASUS A7V600 ACPI BIOS Revision 1008
Processor - 2.20 gigahertz AMD Athlon XP
RAM - 512 DDR
My Hard Drvie - (NTFS) 120.03 GB
SoundMAX Integrated Digital Audio
Bus Adapter - VIA Serial ATA RAID Controller
Graphics Card - ASUS V9520 Video Suite v44.03 [Display adapter]

I know you probably don’t need that much info, but thought I’d mention anything that might have anything at all to do with anything!..lol.

Thanks Karan :slight_smile:

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[link=http://hardware.mcse.ms/archive69-2004-5-7731.html]Just go through this thread, its relating to your computers Mobo…[/link]

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Thanks Karan, will do.

Cheers,

Mike