Hard Drive change Problem - desperate

[Ngolem]

Hi

I have an older P90 compatible that had a originally a
.8 gig Quantum Trailblazer 3.5 series harddrive in it. I run the computer under Win 95 and it does 99% of everything I wanted it to do .... even today.

I got ahold of a 1.2 gig Western Digital Caviar 31200 drive a couple of years later and a neighbour (now moved) installed it for me and it worked perfectly for 4 years

The original Quantum drive started having problems about 3 months ago and it was steadily dying one cluster at a time.
I got a used Western Digital Caviar 21600 drive and was told that it was simple to install.

the original setup is:

Quantum : C drive IDE 1 Set to master
Western Digital: D drive IDE 2 set to master (CD ROM is Slave)

I disconnected the Western Digital and hooked up the "new" drive in its place.

everything was fine when I booted...I could see the drive no problem and I copied the contents of the Quantum Drive over to the "New" Western Digital from the MS DOS Prompt using the command

Xcopy32 c:\*.* d:\*.* /s/e/c/h/r/k/y

As instructed...and everything went smooth all files copied over with no problem.

Shut down in the normal manner and reconnected the WD 31200 drive to the IDE 2 as before and removed the Quantum and replaced it with the recently copied "new" WD 21600

BUT I CANNOT GET IT TO BOOT

When it runs...on the screen...I see the following

*****************************************************
American Megatrends AMIBIOS (c) 1994 (Energy Logo)
American Megatrends Inc
TAC951023B

{middle of the screen empty}

(c)American Megatrends Inc
51-0000-001223-0011111/-101094-triton-F
*****************************************************

- There is "ticking" as though it is checking the ram but nothing is counted on the screen (I have 32 meg)
- Then there is a single "Beep"

then Nothing happens

I have checked all connections and they are tight and in proper place....both drives are set to master as before

I replaced the old drive and sort of the same thing happens except I got "wild colors" at the end of it all.

If I put a boot disk into the A drive...the drive lites up as it goes through the above but the drive isn't recognized....I put a non-system disk in and same light but no error as to it not being a system disk.

I have done something wrong obviously.....but what is it?...Is it a compatiblity issue between drives??? If so Why won't the old one work again??

Please help....

regards Jim Broadbent Jim Broadbent

 

[knporter]

This will not work. You will need to use a product like Disk Copy in order to have the new drive boot properly. I could explain why if you like but the simple version is that the boot sector of the new drive does not have the neccesary info.

 

[Ngolem]

Hmmm....why then when I put the original HD back in do I still have the same problem?? I could understand there might be a problem with the way I did the copy perhaps but reinserting the original HD should have made everything the same as before I started this trade. Jim Broadbent

 

[wolluf]

Don't know why original not working (unless a cluster has died which included boot sector files) - but knporter is right. You can still do it using standard windows commands. Before copying all the files you should copy system files to new drive (either format d: /s or sys d: after format from dos prompt) - ie, make it bootable. Then when you do the copy, your current system files will overwrite these - but they'll be in the correct place on the disk. I've done this many times - it works.

 

[Ngolem]

But I was told that the /s in the below command string took care of the system files>>>>

Xcopy32 c:\*.* d:\*.* /s

But that aside....I SHOULD GET AN ERROR ABOUT HAVING A NON_SYSTEM DISK...shouldn't I....when I put a Boot or non-boot disk in the "A" drive...it is totally ignored.

I don't think I am getting to the stage of loading the operating system.

There is no information displayed on the screen with respect to the hard drives installed....there is no adding up the RAM and displaying it to the screen as it does so.

All this and more should take place before loading WIn95. Jim Broadbent

 

[wpfaff]

Remove the power to your hard drives and try rebooting with your boot disk. Also go into bios and see if it recognizes your drives. You could have blown a chip on your mobo. If you can boot up then shutdown and plug power into your harddrives one at a time and reboot. Also unplug your cable and check for bent pins that could be shorting out.

 

[wolluf]

What happens if you boot with hard and floppy drives disconnected from mobo?

 

[Ngolem]

"Also go into bios"

Exactly how do I do this....sorry but a vb/Crystal programmer

I have been out of town for a day....I thank you for your response and will try this tonight.

Is it possible That I broke something in the ribbon cables when I took them apart and the Bios stalls at that point since there is no display of the HD info to the screen.

Again Thanks for your guidance. Jim Broadbent

 

[Guest_imported]

you have both drives jumpered as master? that usually won't fly. i salvaged an old seagate from a dump pentium...some bad clusters. with my new quantum 30g being my os,from it i ran Disc Doctor in fix error mode,then deleted the partition from System Commander which is not quite a re-format. as its just mp3 stash, i didn't install an OS,but probably could have, using my bootable Win98 CD. nowadays,a used 500mhz computer can be had at $200. with another $150 add a new 40g HD, and a CD burner and you have a real decent unit.even on my grim budget, i would find a vintage 96,97 machine too limiting

 

[garebo]

ngolem
I am not a real tech, but rerem caught one thing, you have 2 ide hard drives set as master, a no-no as far as I know!
Also, unless there is no recognition of the master drive in the bios, then it surely seems like there is a hardware issue. Having been thru this myself, I am pretty sure that the hardware problem is preventing the system from even starting to boot. Course if you have 2 hard drives set as master as you mentioned above, that should cause the prob you are having. The bios, if it recognizes both drives, may not know which drive to boot from? Or simply wont do anything as there are 2 drives set at master.
Suggest the obvious as to the hard drive settings and a complete check of all hardware connectors and connections. I have had a situation where the ide hard drive cable connection was loose and therefore the hard drive wasnt working. You couldnt tell because the mobo was in the case. When I took it out and looked at a side angle, I noticed the bad connector on the ide cable right away.
Also, another thing, if I read what you said correctly, if your floppy is not readable, you may have the power connector on wrong and that will cause the prob you mention.