My 4 Gig hard drive is full and won`t load the O/S (XP). I bought a 40 Gig and installed it as the primary drive ( with XP) and the 4Gig as the secondary drive. When I attempt to access the 4 Gig, which shows in my computer, it returns that the drive is not formatted and offers to fomat the drive for me. I formatted the 4Gig with NTFS from 32 bit before it filled up. I am wondering if the computer sees the drive differently because I have made it the secondary hard drive where it used to be the primary. Any sugestions on how I can get the information out of the 4 Gig???
Tek-Tips is the largest IT community on the Internet today!
Members share and learn making Tek-Tips Forums the best source of peer-reviewed technical information on the Internet!
-
Congratulations gkittelson on being selected by the Tek-Tips community for having the most helpful posts in the forums last week. Way to Go!
Hard drive full and won`t load O/S 2
- Thread starter Bob2c
- Start date
-
1
- #2
did you have goback installed on the old drive?
When you say 'My 4 Gig hard drive is full and won`t load the O/S (XP)', do you mean it wouldn't boot? Did you actually check the status of the drive? (eg, with diagnostic from drive manufacturer's site and/or runing chkdsk from recovery console) - it may be dead/dying - which also might explain the not booting (if that's what was happening).
When you say 'My 4 Gig hard drive is full and won`t load the O/S (XP)', do you mean it wouldn't boot? Did you actually check the status of the drive? (eg, with diagnostic from drive manufacturer's site and/or runing chkdsk from recovery console) - it may be dead/dying - which also might explain the not booting (if that's what was happening).
- Thread starter
- #3
- Thread starter
- #5
1. Will the machine boot with just the new drive connected?
2. Will the machine boot with just the old drive connected (I don't mean into windows - just trying to - so past detecting drives). If it will, you can run diagnostics on the old drive from the boot floppy you can create from downloading drive manufacturer's utility. If it won't (but will with drive disconnected), suggests drive is dying/dead. You might get it to be recognised in another machine - but probably you've lost what's on it (apart from expensive data recovery).
2. Will the machine boot with just the old drive connected (I don't mean into windows - just trying to - so past detecting drives). If it will, you can run diagnostics on the old drive from the boot floppy you can create from downloading drive manufacturer's utility. If it won't (but will with drive disconnected), suggests drive is dying/dead. You might get it to be recognised in another machine - but probably you've lost what's on it (apart from expensive data recovery).
- Thread starter
- #7
I have gone for the easy option, have a chat with my local computer shop who think I should reboot the computer with the 40GIG hard drive as the primary and the 4Gig not connected. XP(home)booted from the disk and I was able to do a format and reinstall but lost all the data. I was trying not to do this. It has successfully reinstalled and I am using on it now. I am going to try connecting the 4Gig with the computer running and see if the computer gives me access to it or if it blows up!!!
Another thing that threw me when I was trying to sort this out was, how does one repair a drive from the restore point?
Another thing that threw me when I was trying to sort this out was, how does one repair a drive from the restore point?
'I am going to try connecting the 4Gig with the computer running'. I hope you don't mean this. Always turn off machine and disconnect the power before connecting/removing hard drives. Try the old drive on its own in machine with diagnostic.
'how does one repair a drive from the restore point?'
You don't. XP's system restore will 'regress' the state of the system to a known point (restore point), which was taken earlier. If you have system restore running, you can choose from any available restore points (number kept will depend on how much space is allocated to system restore and how big a change was involved with the restore points). This affects only system settings, not data files (eg, if you install an app which causes problems, and won't uninstall, you can restore machine to point before app was installed).
'how does one repair a drive from the restore point?'
You don't. XP's system restore will 'regress' the state of the system to a known point (restore point), which was taken earlier. If you have system restore running, you can choose from any available restore points (number kept will depend on how much space is allocated to system restore and how big a change was involved with the restore points). This affects only system settings, not data files (eg, if you install an app which causes problems, and won't uninstall, you can restore machine to point before app was installed).
-
1
- #9
And even if you get it hooked up with the system running without blowing the controller , the IDE channel, or the other drive, you won't see it since the base system did not recognize that it was there.
Ed Fair
Give the wrong symptoms, get the wrong solutions.
Ed Fair
Give the wrong symptoms, get the wrong solutions.
- Thread starter
- #10
Do you mean the whole installation - or just your data?
You could use something like Ghost to write an image of the complete installation to Cd/DVD/external hard drive (obviously the size of installation would impact the backup media required).
If just your data, lots of options (including the one built in to XP) - eg,
There are also utilities to back up registry... (just Google to find what you're looking for).
You could use something like Ghost to write an image of the complete installation to Cd/DVD/external hard drive (obviously the size of installation would impact the backup media required).
If just your data, lots of options (including the one built in to XP) - eg,
There are also utilities to back up registry... (just Google to find what you're looking for).
- Thread starter
- #12
- Thread starter
- #13
- Thread starter
- #15
Well I am just grappling with a backup program called "My backup" which is third party software, see , which is designed to allow you to backup onto a cd or dvd because the XP Home backup utility will not allow you to back up to anything other than a Floppy disk, according to someone in the acces.com forum.
- Thread starter
- #16
Sorry, submitted early, another useful reference for people in my situation is:
- Thread starter
- #17
Back to my Hard drive, I have my 40Gig up and running perfectly, I tried switching off and disconnecting my power supply and reconnecting my 4 Gig hard drive. The computer powered up and reported a boot failure. It also asked for a boot disk, which I provided, unfortunatel I could not remember what to type at the "A:" prompt so I had to stop there! Any sugestions?
- Thread starter
- #19
You need to boot from the drive manufacturer's diagnostic on boot floppy with just the old drive connected, and run the diagnostic. The drive sounds like its dead - but the diagnostic should confirm that or otherwise (if it can't see the drive at all - presume dead - unless as I think I suggested many posts ago, you have other machines you could try it in - but as it was obviously installed and working on this machine, that would be a very slim hope).
A hard drive behaves the same whether full or empty (in terms of being recognised by the machine) - but windows isn't happy if its installed on a drive with no free space. However, windows isn't your problem - the viability of the drive is what you need to ascertain.
A hard drive behaves the same whether full or empty (in terms of being recognised by the machine) - but windows isn't happy if its installed on a drive with no free space. However, windows isn't your problem - the viability of the drive is what you need to ascertain.
- Status
Similar threads
