can i install hd with mbr on secondary master?

[Giacomo1234]

can i install hd with mbr on secondary master?

need to perform a test on my system. I think or need to veryfy that my ide cable conector on the mb may be faulty/damaged.

 

[bcastner]

You can place a MBR on many devices.

But I don't think that is what you are asking/need.

There is only 1 boot device, determined by your BIOS ordering of devices and your enabling the jumpers correctly on the devices.

If you are trying to boot from a secondary Master IDE device, look to see if it is possible in the assignment in BIOS of boot order.

There are other ways to test whether your existing boot device is capable.

 

[Giacomo1234]

thanks
how could i check?

 

[bcastner]

This is a temporary measure only:

http://support.microsoft.com/defaul...rt/kb/articles/Q223/1/88.ASP&NoWebContent=1#2

A temporary test setting only. It will be far better for you to get things straight with a re-install/setup from scratch than to fool around like this for very long. This is decidely not production level stuff, but it will work.

 

[Giacomo1234]

there has never been an os on my system

 

[bcastner]

Giacomo,

That makes it even easier.

No. Only the primary Master from Bios can be recognized.

 

[Giacomo1234]

thanks.
just that i cannot understand why it hangs before it tells me there is no MBR. the last message is veryfing DMI pool data. tried changing boot order if cd first it says
'veryfing DMI pool data
cd boot:_ '
and then hangs.
Checked jumpers, cables and reset CMOS, tried different HD but nothing. Everything seems to be recognised ok in bios.
mobo: Gigabyte SINXP 1394
RAM: Samsung DDR 400
HD: WD 60 GB
CPU: Pentium 2.533GHz

...going mad....help

 

[bcastner]

Giacomo,

Not all CD-roms will support booting, and some, even if they are capable, just do not without some driver help.

Rather than waste any more time, use the boot from floppy approach. It is not very elegant, but figure you will only have to do this once:

http://www.bootdisk.com

Best.

 

[ceh4702]

You can boot from a device on primary or secondary IDE ports. If you have A hard drive and you do not use cable select and you use the Master jumper on the back of the hard drive it will be the master even if it is in the secondary position on the cable. Just dont have 2 drives with both master or both slave jumpers set, on the same IDE Cable, or you will probably not be able to use either.

When you partition a hard drive you have to mark the partition as bootable. If you do not, even if it is formatted with an operating sysem it will not boot. Sometimes FDISK does this automatically on a one hard drive system with no extended partition, or drives not split up into multiple logical drives. With multiple hard drives or logical drives, you have to select which partition/logical drive/hard drive is the bootable partition.

If you have 2 hard drives, I recommend unplugging the cables on the one with the data you do not want to destroy! It is easy to erase the partition on a good hard drive by mistake. If you do delete a partition.

You can not boot from a hard drive if it has never been formatted or does not have a partition. There is no file system on the drive to read, so it can not load an OS. Change the boot order to read the floppy and/or the CDROM and use the software supplied by your OS or hard drive manufacturer to setup, partition and format the hard drive.

The CMOS/BIOS sets up the drive to make it addressable. Most newer motherboards do this automatically. This involves setting up the sectors, heads, cylinders, etc. It also involves what drive to boot up. It is completely separate form a FAT table or the MBR. Most drives today have an initial Master Boot Record set up so the drive can be formatted. Still some software has to be used to partition and format them.

If you look for the appropriate forum for the operating system, such as win95/98 or NT or XP they may have some additional infomation or a hard drive FAQ.

If you tell it to boot from the CD and it cant find it or there is no disk and there is no other optional source to boot from often the boot just hangs. Often this is due to 2 drives both set to MASTER on their jumpers on the same IDE cable. Sometimes you can hit ctrl or some other key to get the sytem to boot from the CDROM.



If you do not like my post feel free to point out your opinion or my errors.

 

[Giacomo1234]

thanks so much guys!!

i've downloaded from bootdisk.com
trivial question: how do i fit a 4MB onto floppys?

 

[bcastner]

It will install as 6 or so disks.

 

[Giacomo1234]

extremly basic question: how do i split an .exe into more than one floppy

 

[Dreamland]

You might also try setting a longer "IDE delay" in BIOS if it has that option, Giacomo1234. Try six or eight seconds to see if it has any effect. Your hard drive might not have spun up and gone through it's internal self-test before the BIOS is trying to get to the MBR. You don't want to leave it at that long of a delay, but you'll know right away if it has any effect.

 

[ceh4702]

You can split up large files using the microsoft backup program by changing the setting, but I do not remember how I did it for an MP3 file once.

If you do not like my post feel free to point out your opinion or my errors.

 

[Dreamland]

Giacomo1234 - If you're still reading this, you don't need to split up the .exe. Run it from Windows and it will prompt you for the floppies one by one and load the setup files.

 

[Giacomo1234]

thanks so much for your help guys. but ive solved my problem it was a keyboard recognition problem.
thanks anyway, lots of helpful tips