windows xp pro won't boot without cd

[rstumbaugh]

I recently added a 120 gb h/d to a system with a 40 gb h/d. This was a gateway machine(766) that had a dvd reader and a cdrw on the secondary channel as slave/master. I added the 120 gig to the primary channel as a slave. The 40 gig was the master on the primary. I installed(deleted windows me partition, created new part, ntfs format, install) windows xp pro on the 40 gig h/d. Is there a problem keeping 2 h/d's on one channel? When the system boots it asks for a floppy to be inserted with bootable media. If I leave the xp cd in and do not touch anything, it boots fine. I have changed the boot order around a great deal to see what might be wrong there, but it's not the order that's causing the problem. Any ideas what is causing this? When the systems comes up, the post runs fine and it finds both h/d's with correct specifics.

 

[AP81]

Usually with 2 HDD's you have them both on the same channel (Master and primary), so I don't think this could be a problem. Are you sure you have set the HDD jumpers correctly? The 40gig master should have it's jumper to 'Master with slave' and the slave should be set to 'slave'. Do they appear in the BIOS correctly for primary slave/master? If they don't, then it will never read from the HDD as a boot option.

What I would do is remove the slave HDD, set the primary HDD jumper to master only and see what happens.

When it boots without the CD does it say: Invalid system disk? If it does, then it is a hardware configuration problem.

 

[rstumbaugh]

I left the jumpers on the master as they were. It's possible that it is set to master only. The slave drive was jumped correctly. I am not sure if they showed up as slave/master in bios, but they were showing up with the correct size. I will try it with just the master also and relook at the jumpers. If I change the settings in bios to not look to the floppy or cd rom drive to boot, it does say invalid system disk.

thanks!

 

[linney]

You might find some clues in the logs from Setup in your Windows folder. They are Setuperr.log and Setuplog.txt. The Event Viewer might be worth checking too.

Look in the System or Application folder. You can get to the Event Viewer via right click My Computer icon and select Manage.

Any errors logged in the Event Viewer can be expanded by double clicking on the error line.

 

[GarBot]

rstumbaugh,
When you repartitioned the hard drive, did you set the partition as active?
If you didn't, you won't boot from it.

GarBot

 

[franklin97355]

Pull out the 120 and see if it boots. You may not have gotten a good install on th 40.

 

[rstumbaugh]

linney - I will check the event log, thanks!

garbot - I deleted and created the partitions through windows setup. It should automatically set it as active when I choose where I want to install, shouldn't it?

I am also planning on trying to boot with just the smaller drive, thanks!

 

[Freestone]

Disk Management can be used to confirm that your XP partition is active. In the graphical view (bottom-right pane by default) right-click the primary partition, and the Mark Partition as Active menu item should be dimmed to indicate the partition is active.