Help!!! Removed spare Harddrive but PC now wont boot?

[Remeartificer]

HI folks

Gave the mother my spare PC which has 2 HDD's. C & F. Win XP installed on C.

Now want the F Drive back to fit in my PC. Looked in Windows Explorer and the F drive is empty. Formatted the F drive and all went OK.

Removed F Drive and then rebooted. Machine failed to reboot, saying insert system disc? Why has my removing an empty drive stopped the PC from booting up on the C Drive?

Advice welcomed. Thanks.

 

[Remeartificer]

Just found a old HDD in the cupboard and attached it as the 2nd HDD and it seems to boot up OK. Why does this PC insist on a 2nd HDD before it will boot up?

 

[kestrel1]

Check the BIOS.
You may need to autodetect the Hard Drives. Once this is done ensure you only have listed what you want.

 

[firewolfrl]

sounds like a jumper on the drive is set as master /with slave... some drives have a master setting and a master setting with slave. you have to make sure the drive is set as master only

good luck