xp won't recognize my raptor HD

[frAActal]

Here's the setup: Asus P4P800-SE, P4C-2.8, 1gb RAM, Raptor 740GD, Promise TX2 SATA/PATA card - all latest bioses.

I was never able to get my Raptor to quite work on my board's onboard SATA, so I just kept it and my 2500PB on the card. All has been well until the system got chuggy, forcing me to force reboot. Then it did what it did a month ago forever - refuse to recognize my Raptor.

When the HD is connected to the Promise card, it either (a) boots to a blank screen after the XP splash screen or (b) sends me to the safe mode menu - none of the safe mode options work; it stalls while loading agp440.sys every time.

Now, when I've got the Raptor hooked up to either the card or the on-board (with and without the card installed), it can't see my XP Pro install -

1. If I try the recovery console, when I type in "1" for my "C:\windows" install, it stalls there after I hit enter.
2. If I try to repair install, it hangs when "looking for previous windows installations".

At this point, even if wanted to do a clean reinstall, it seems I can't. Argh!

 

[mrzeeedler]

Interesting problem you have and welcome to the forums. Seems like it might be something wrong with either the cable, connection, or hard drive itself. Especially if you say another hard drive worked in it?

 

[frAActal]

The other HD is a PATA Caviar 250GB - I'm pretty sure the Raptor is fine as well (physically, that is), because it is detected etc. fine, but Windows - whether it's the installer or the actual XP Pro install - seems to not quite "get there"...but who knows. It's not like WD is making great quality drives these days

The last time this happened, running a couple of chkdsk's did the trick (I have a sneaking suspicion Norton Systemworks is to blame), but I can't get to a point where I can even access the HD now to run chkdsk - or install, repair or anything at this point.

 

[sithspawn]

so..where is ur windows installed? on ur Caviar or on your Raptor?

 

[frAActal]

the raptor - the caviar isn't even connected now.

 

[frAActal]

anybody?

 

[sithspawn]

So the windows is installed on your Raptor and you cant boot up into windows, and when oyu boot up from the windows XP disk you cant see the xp installation?? Do you install the drivers for the hard drive (if it needs them) at the start of the windows XP install.
Maybe its a bad sector on the hard drive. You could try downloading a WD utility that sets all the bits on the HD to 0. However this will make you loose all your data.

 

[frAActal]

Yes, I press F6 when loading XP if the drive is hooked up to the Promise card - I'm doing all the obvious things here...