Problem occurred when plugging in floppy drive.

[WasTech]

Hey eye,

No the 480GB is not the first drive, that is drive F:. Win is on E: 120GB

Here is where my computer stopped working today. It's mainly stopped at black screen but now it's stopping here to. It says CMOS Checksum is bad but main thing I see is where the main drive is shown 3rd Master. What? Primary master is DVD but that is on IDE2 MAster and Zip is unplugged until I get this straightened out. LBA mode is Auto that is default. Plug and play is yes.

The other pic is drives E: and F: in disc manager.

BTW: Tonight cold start and no problem.

 

[eyeCpc]

What that is seemingly showing there is the cd drive as the primary master, the ide drive set as master on what would seem to the middle connector on the first channel, and the dvd drive as master on the secondary channel. The 500gb sata is on the primary master sata port being the #1 port.

Apparently when installing Windows you had the ide hard drive plugged in where you should look for boot information and files like the boot.ini, IO.sys, MSDos.sys, NTDETECT.com, etc. there. That would explain the offset of Windows being seen as other then C.

The Disk Management shows E as first where you have Windows while the installer offset that due to the cd as first and ide hard drive as the second. That almost explains why the cd drive was seen as C and the ide hard drive as D with Windows going onto E.

The checksum error sounds like something happened to the boot information which may work out in your favor. Now you can decide to see the ide drive unplugged until Windows sees a repair or full clean install with a new mbr on the sata drive. That will make that a stand alone. The ide hard drive can later be plugged back in for a spare or simply copying files off of it.

If you no longer want the ide hard drve on the two optical drives can go on the first ide channel setting one as slave there with the zip later tried on the second depending how you want those arranged. For now getting Windows corrected so that becomes C and setting the sata as the first hard drive in the list of hard drives in the bios will see that corrected. What do you think so far?

 

[WasTech]

I don't know why this happened I built a SATA drive computer for my parents a year ago and didn't have this trouble. I don't get it. The DVD is on IDE2 master. I don't have a IDE H disk hooked up so I don't get that but the SATA is 3rd master so is it seeing itself as IDE also? I don't remember what it was before but DVD is D: drive now. Ok so how do we fix this and do I have to reformat?

 

[eyeCpc]

Ok first make sure the sata drive is plugged into the #1 sata port so that will be seen as the first sata master even while this is for the post screen benefit mainly since you can install Windows even if the drive is on the last port when it is the only sata installed.

Recheck all cables especially the ide to verify which cable is on the primary not secondary ide channel. Also look in the bios to see how the setting for the onboard sata controllers is set and make sure that's not set for RAID. You may want to see both optical drives on one ide cable to see how that goes as well.

With many boards seeing the boot device menu option for a one time boot from the floppy, hard drive, or optical drive you choose from one of the catagories you can set the boot order to hard drive for first and second if preferred disabling the rest. Once you use the one time boot session to boot up with the installation disk and all setup files are copied to the intended primary now seen as E the system reboots without a need to change the boot order for the next step of seeing the installation continue. That's a time saver as well as a "lazy man's" type of tip there!

Prior to simply seeing Windows reinstalled you may prefer to simply delete the E primary and see a new one created to replace it. That will see any clutter wiped and give Windows a brand new primary to go onto.

A totally fresh install to avoid anything lingering should see C not another drive letter with the new copy of Windows being a stand alone installation on the sata drive. The second partition should then be seen as D with the optical drives at first being shifted to E and F.

Later you go into the Disk Management tool and right click on first the second 480gb second partition to see that changed to G or H where you can then set the first optical to D and the second E. You can then change the 480gb to F if preferred once the optical drive letters are set the way you want them.

 

[WasTech]

So I do have to Reformat E: drive windows, dam. SATA was plugged into #1 port before. No, it wasn't set to RAID. The order I want is 120GB C:
480GB D: DVD ROM E: and what ever else don't matter. So this is why it's freezing at bootup? What do you think is causing it? Where is the conflict?

What if I don't want to reformat to change order? Am I causing any problems this way. Meaning could it cause it not to boot at all or ruin my hard drive or any other hardware? Because aside from freezing sometimes this thing really works well. I'm real happy with it. I'm just not sure I want to go thru all that again this soon. Thanks

 

[eyeCpc]

For seeing C a full reinstall of Windows would be needed while you don't always have to reformat the primary. The reinstall now would correct the drive letter displacement.

With Windows up and running good now and not having been on too long to see a load of garbage accumilate on the drive you can simply go with a reistall for the time being that will see the Windows and DocumentsandSettings folders replaced new. Anything like photo, music, documents found under the Docs+settings>user name>sub folders can be backed up now on the other partition so you don't lose something there.

Reinstalling Windows won't damage hardware like a drive. You are simply seeing files and folders removed and replaced with new ones. The Windows installer does that for you as if you had deleted a folder you created and then decided to recreate a new folder with the same name on it.

Personal settings and information can be backed up with an option in Windows called the file and settings transfer wizard while that will tend to chew up time. A fresh install of Windows will see new entries in the master boot record(mbr) and also see the system volume as C. You shouldn't have any problem seeing Windows load up and run normally once all of the drivers and software are back on.

 

[WasTech]

You miss-understood me. I meant the way my computer is booting with problems now. Will that cause hardware problems? If I don't fix it.

Are you sure reinstall will fix drive position problem? I stiill don't know why it happened the first time.

Hello?

 

[eyeCpc]

Simply having Windows see itself as on E instead of C won't do any physical damage to anything. Forget seeing most softwares installed however since the installers on each will be looking for C expecting to find the system registry as well as the rest.

I couldn't relocate the MS page on the possible edit of the registry for volume information there to see E changed to C now that the zip drive is gone and no longer using it. That was one possible way to avoid a need to reinstall Windows just to see this corrected.

It's a pain where it counts with the time needed invested. But eventually you will end up needing to see a clean install correct the somehow misdirect system volume information as if you did have an ide hard drive plugged in when going to install Windows on the 120gb primary. Something probably the zip drive if a disk was left in the drive may have been the cause for seeing the drive letter shift that took place.

 

[WasTech]

eye, there you are.

Ok, Then I guess I should do it soon. I'm selling a car online. I'll let you know once it sells. I only want to mess with the E: partittion 120GB not F: that would be too much to back up.

Thanks

 

[eyeCpc]

Your interest now is simply correcting the drive letter problem and wouldn't involve any other partitions. You will need to reinstall all drivers and programs from the start.

In the event a full reinstall goes poorly for some unexpected problem requiring a reformat of the 120 or even deleting that to create a new 120gb primary that's why you would want to have anything there already safe elsewhere. That happens on occasion while not always.