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Old 09-19-2002, 07:53 AM   #1
Memnoch
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Join Date: February 28, 2001
Location: Boston/Sydney
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[img]graemlins/rant.gif[/img]

In case some of you were wondering why I haven't been online lately, it's because of 2 reasons:

1. I've been sunning myself in Guam
2. I was getting a new hard drive put in for my PC and it looks like it's all bolloxed up. [img]graemlins/madhell.gif[/img]

Here's the sad story. This guy at work (senior guy who I work with) apparently can get cheap peripherals etc for PCs due to contacts that he made while travelling in Asia as our export division manager. I decided to buy a 80GB IBM hard drive since he could get one for A$140 (US$70) which is about 30% of the retail price here.

Anyway I brought my PC to work since he said he knew how to install it (and after my nightmarish experience with installing a CD-RW drive I wasn't too keen on all that Slave/Master IDE crap). Apparently the task of installing this drive became bigger than Ben-Hur - I thought all he was going to do was install the drive as the D: drive but he (being a nice guy and all) thought he'd do me a favour and make it the boot drive.

Now I don't quite understand what's happened (since I don't have my PC yet - after TWO weeks though I have been away) but apparently the C: drive got buggered up and he had to install Windows XP Professional on the E:drive (I don't quite what happened to the CD-ROM drive that was my E: drive - maybe it became the D: drive or something).

Anyway I now have the situation where I have TWO operating systems - a legit copy of Windows XP Home on my C: drive (which doesn't boot up) and a copied version of Windows XP Professional on my E: drive which boots up. I want to get rid of the Windows XP Professional that he put on (I don't want it there since I didn't pay for it and I don't think I can get SP Updates from Microsoft's site without a legit copy). BUT apparently if I get rid of it I won't even be able to boot up my computer.

I'm quite annoyed with it but this guy is someone who I need to have a professional working relationship at work with so I can't hammer him too much (unfortunately). At this stage I just decided to get the bloody PC back so I can sort it all out myself - so I'm getting it back tomorrow.

So my question is: how do I fix my problem? How difficult is it REALLY to install a second harddrive and can I reinstall my Windows XP Home on either the first or the second harddrive (I have the upgrade disk) without losing any data, what do I need to do to get the second hard drive working and how much frigging around do I have to do with IDE cables etc.

I guess the moral of the story is: if you want something done right, you gotta @#$% do it yourself!!!! [img]graemlins/madhell.gif[/img]
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Old 09-19-2002, 08:14 AM   #2
WOLFGIR
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Join Date: March 1, 2001
Location: Sweden
Age: 50
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Well first of all, you usually have to IDE ports on your puter.
Make whichever of the harddrives the primary one in the first port.

If you use an internal CD-RW, make that one the slave of one harddrive, and the cd/DVD slave of the other, keep the two harddrives as the primary ones on both ports so to say.

CDRW and CD on to different ports makes it more reliable in copying or direct burn cd to cd..

When you have decided which harddrive to use as primary, do a new install on that one, reformat it, make it legal and everything. Then start it up, clean the one that is the secondary drive and start installing and do the backup progress and offer a prayer to the god of caffeine and you SHOULD be safe and sound.

Installing a second harddrive is easy, if you do it correct from the beginning and donīt start messing with the boot up and everything that is usually the case when you want to switch from on to the other...
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Old 09-19-2002, 08:22 AM   #3
Memnoch
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Thanks Wolfie...it sounds like he's pretty much FUBARed it up. So is this what I do (keeping in mind that I can't boot from the c: drive apparently where all my data is):

1. boot up the drive I want to use as primary (the 80GB one since it's the only one which will boot up apparently) and reformat it - sounds easy in PRINCIPLE...

2. do a clean install of Windows XP on it (how will I do this if I can't boot up??)

3. copy my data across from the 20GB to the 80GB one (do I need to do anything with registry changes, etc - also all my shortcuts will be wrong - will my Start menu work at all???)

4. when all the data is copied, do the same format for the 20GB one and blank it out

I really, REALLY wish that I'd done this myself... [img]graemlins/crying.gif[/img]
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Old 09-19-2002, 08:26 AM   #4
The Hunter of Jahanna
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Join Date: September 25, 2001
Location: NY , NY
Age: 63
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I have good news and bad news. THe good news is that it isnt hard at all to install 2 hard drives. The bad news is that it is going to be a pain in the arse to fix your friends flubbed work. Take out both drives look how the jumpers and ribon cable are set up on the drives. The jumper on your old drive should be set in the "master position" and it should be on the end of the ribbon cable.On my western digital drive ,master position looks like this ::[:]:: THis wil tell the bios to boot it up first. Your second drive should be in the middle of the ribon cable and the jumper on the back should be set so the "slave position."Slave position looks like this :::[:]: on my hard drive.If you set it up like this and you comp still boots the wrong OS you are going to have to format that drive. TO insure that no mistakes happen take out the Hard drive you dont want formatted, set the jumpers to master on the drive you are formatting and erase away!! When you are done formatting, reset the jumpers to "Slave" put in the other drive and fire up your machine. Windows should boot from the "Master"drive and should read the formatted drive as just empty space. I hope this helps you out.
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Old 09-19-2002, 08:31 AM   #5
WOLFGIR
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Join Date: March 1, 2001
Location: Sweden
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Posts: 3,450
Quote:
Originally posted by Memnoch:
Thanks Wolfie...it sounds like he's pretty much FUBARed it up. So is this what I do (keeping in mind that I can't boot from the c: drive apparently where all my data is):

1. boot up the drive I want to use as primary (the 80GB one since it's the only one which will boot up apparently) and reformat it - sounds easy in PRINCIPLE...

2. do a clean install of Windows XP on it (how will I do this if I can't boot up??)

3. copy my data across from the 20GB to the 80GB one (do I need to do anything with registry changes, etc - also all my shortcuts will be wrong - will my Start menu work at all???)

4. when all the data is copied, do the same format for the 20GB one and blank it out

I really, REALLY wish that I'd done this myself... [img]graemlins/crying.gif[/img]
Personally I would fix the ide chain first, so that you know that however you do it, everything will be in order. Then boot from the CD-rom and start it up then clean everything out and do a fresh reinstall. If you have items still on the 20 GB, donīt plug it in and then plug it in and restart. The other drive will now be available and since you didnīt start from that one, you can after copying the material you want used right click on it and choose format drive.
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Old 09-19-2002, 09:37 AM   #6
Memnoch
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Ok...that seems to make sense. [img]redface.gif[/img] I'll give it a go tomorrow - but I'll buy a bottle of vodka first.
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Old 09-19-2002, 10:23 AM   #7
Morgeruat
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Join Date: October 16, 2001
Location: PA
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before doing any of that I'd back up the info you want to keep (save games, documents, any work files, etc) onto cd's, then format both HD's, following Hunter's advice, then do a clean install, as far as reaching your information goes you'll need to manually reset the links (if you only transfer the data to your other HD, and there may be some registry problems) (I moved bg2 to my second HD when I got it, basically set it up as a game HD, and it went into the config utility every time the game loaded, as it saw it as the first time the game was being loaded every time I played), but as long as you back up any fluid data (save games, etc) you can drop it right back into the folders where they should be when you reinstall the software with no problems at all.

anyway if all esle fails you can check the documentation for your new (or old HD and see what it says about setting it up as a secondary HD, most of the time it's pretty userfriendly, and I've never had any major problems doing my own CDRW DVD player or HD changing/adding
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Old 09-19-2002, 10:34 AM   #8
Thoran
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Join Date: January 10, 2002
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Well I'm not sure I followed everything... but if he set up the new hdd as the C: drive then all you need to do is swap the Master/Slave jumpers for each drive to the other position (new drive becomes slave, old drive becomes master) and assuming he didn't actually screw up your xp home install you'll be ok.

More likely he just installed XP Pro to the new drive which he likely set up as the slave and Windows is showing the boot menu to allow you to select which os you want to run. In this case to fix the problem just edit boot.ini and delete the lines that end with "Microsoft Windows XP Professional". If he has it set to boot XPPRO on startup you'll also need to change the "default=" line just after the "timeout=30" line. Fix this by replacing all the stuff AFTER the "=" on the default line with all the stuff BEFORE the equals on the line under "[operating systems]" that has your os listed "Microsoft Windows XP Home". Once you do this your old os will boot automatically, and you can delete XPPro at your leisure. There's another way to edit boot.ini if manual editing scares you... but since I've always done it this way I can't remember how (I think it's in the Control Panel|System applet somewhere).

Finally, it's possible he somehow screwed up the boot sequence for XP Home... before reinstalling you should try repairing your current install by popping in your XP Home cd and following the instructions for repairing the installation.

But first things first... get your computer back... sounds like he's not experineced enough to do what he's doing and he'll likely continue to make things worse until he's totally buggered it up.
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Old 09-19-2002, 12:14 PM   #9
Mouse
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Join Date: March 1, 2001
Location: Scotland
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I may be looking at this too simplistically, but why not take out both the drives, put back your original as the master, boot from the XP CD and repair the Windows XP installation on your original disc. Then you should be able to add the new second disk as a slave, format it and do what you like with it.

The complication comes when you decide to change around the disks so your new one is the master. Then you will be faced with reinstalling your progs, but the data should still be on the original disk and accessible when you make it the slave.
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Old 09-19-2002, 12:23 PM   #10
FelixJaeger
Symbol of Cyric
 

Join Date: May 26, 2002
Location: The Cloudy Town Of Hellview
Age: 36
Posts: 1,202
I was thinking that... if my old hard drive hadnt been totally cocked up i would have had a master of 35 GB and a slave of 35 Gb but all its files were mashed up and stuff.... bad clusters or summit,
Felix
p.s. ne1 know where to get something to get rid of a stpid msn virus... i .e. locate and remove?
cheers
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