Blue screen unrecognizable boot device

[chrisp909]

I have a 10 GB Matrox master and a 60GB IBM Deskstar slave. I began getting a blue screen periodically telling me the computer couldn't boot becuase of and unregnizable boot device, possible issues could be a virus or a third party partitioning software.

If I restarted often I would be able to boot with no additional problems.

If I disconnected the DeskStar I never had a problem. I ran Norton AV on both, and reformated the IBM. Still the issue cropped up. I changed the ribbon cable and the issue went away. It made no sence to me, but there it was.

I put windows 2000 server on the IBM to study for the 70-215. When I wanted 2000 server I would manually switch the ribbon cable between disks.

Guess what? The prob came back. Boots to the Matrox, unrecognizable for the IBM. New cable, no problem.

Are there any injuneerz out there who understand this? If not Maybe this post will help someone with the same prob.

 

[bcastner]

You forgot to tell us what OS version is reporting the errors.

If this is XP both of these articles should apply. As a rough guess you have a cable problem, either the wrong cable or one that has become marginalized with all the plugging/unplugging.

But see if these apply:

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=297185

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;315403&FR=1&PA=1&SD=HSCH

The latter issue applies to any Windows OS version using write caching under NTFS.

A final issue may be a SMART failure on the IBM drive. Your BIOS would then remove the drive entry from its tables.

 

[chrisp909]

Yeah, I don't think there is any question the issue stems from a bad cable(s).

I was just curious if anyone else experienced something similar, or if anyone could explain why the cable would be fine for one drive and not the other.

Whatever tho, this posting is more for someone doing a search. Just 'cause one drive works, doesn't mean it's not the cable.