Help installing Harddisk_Windows is not recognizing it

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cool_hot007

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I was trying to remove a hard disk from one computer to the other but things go copmlicated and windows was not recognizing it. I dont know what went wrong;

I have my home computer, on which Windows XP is installed. It contains 2 hard disk, one of 49 GB(System) and another of 12 GB.

I have another copmuter which contains 1 hard disk of 40 GB, and Windows ME is installed on it.

Now what I wanted to do is to replace the 12 GB hard of my home computer with the 40 GB hard disk of the other one.

I removed the 40 GB hardisk out of the copmuter and plugged the 12 GB hardisk. Now when I boot the copmuter, with the windows ME CD in the drive, and I choose to boot from CD and install windows, a message appears that Windows ME cannot be installed on this computer. Either I donot have a hard disk, or it is not working, or it need a special driver. The hard disk IS working properly becuase it was working on the other copmuter.

Now I decided that I'll reassemble everything as it was so I returned the 40 GB hard disk. (It was formatted so everything on it is now deleted)

I tried installing windows on it but the same messege appeared. I rtemoved the hard disk and tried again, a message appeared that I need to format the hard disk before continuing so I started formatting.

After that, I had to go someplace so I told the maid to trun of the copmuter as soon as the formatting is done.

When I came back, I boot the copmuter but could not start the installation... the message of Hard Disk not found/not functioning came back. I removed the 49 GB hard disk and installed the 12 GB one... still the same message... I then returned the 49 GB one and now a message said Error reading from hard disk... I then re-pluuged it and again, the Hard Disk error message came.... Pretty complicated!!!

I dont know what is happeing. Could it be something wrong with the connecting cables? I just need to make it work!


If I could install windows ME on the 12 GB hard disk and leave the 49 GB for my home computer, it would be great.
IF not, I dont mind to return them as they were BUT I REALLY NEED THEM TO WORK!

Any help would be much apreciated...

THANK YOU
 
1. your story is to long, and confusing, next time u should only give use the details that we need.

2. if u move a HD that was 'Slave' in 1 computer, to 'Master' in the other, u need to switch the jumper on the back of the HD to the apropriate setting. and if its still having trouble detecting it, yea i would substitue a nown good cable and see if that solves it.

3. if u can aford a maid, why are u even bothering with that drive, u could just get a 250gig or even higher for $100 to $300 bucks.
 
1. "The details we need" usually varries between people. Some people only need a few information to grasp the idea, and others need a 'long a confusing story". So, to be on the safe side, I wrote a "long a confusing" one.

2. The 12 GB hard disk that I was moving did not have any jumper and the other one has a jumber set on "CS". Both were not recognized by windows and both used to work before I replaced them.

3. I am well aware that I can get a 250 GB hard disk but why should you order 2 burgers if you know you could only eat 1 ??!
12 GB for the other computer is more than enough so that is why I was replacing the.
Anyways, the problem was not in the capacity of each hard disk. It was that Windows was not recognizing them so what difference does it make it it was a 12 GB hard disk or a 1200 GB one??

4. Thank You for your reply
 
ok... on the top of the harddrives it usually show's u witch pin's to use for each jumper setting.

if your putting the HD at the end of the EIDE cable, that is the 'Master' position... instead of having the jumper setting on CS(cable select) put it at MA(master).. not all bourds support CS.

if your putting a HD in the middle terminal on the EIDE cable, thats the 'Slave' position... if there is no jumper on the HD, SL(slave) might be enabled by having no jumper in it(it should tell u on top of the HD) if not though, find a jumper and put it in the proper jumper position.

i dont know anythong about windowsME, but if ME usess FAT32, and u formatted the drive in NTFS, it will not beable to read it.
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i dont remember what u said in the story, but if your reformatting both HD's anyway... just use the Windows CD to do that, it will format the HD to the proper file system.

if your installing 1 of the HD's without windows on it, just format it after u boot up into window's... i dont know abotu winME, but in XP just go to... control panel/admin tools/comp manager/disk manager.
 
I actually wished you provided more details, but the fact you wrote all that means you care enough to get your problem fixed, something most people don't bother to do. Okay so to your problem...

I suggest not installing the operating system to your 12GB disk because it is likely ATA33/66 meaning it is very slow. Instead I would suggest keeping it on one of the bigger drives on it's own partition. You always want your OS on the fastest hard disk you have.

The reason why you are getting this error is because of a couple of reasons: the file system (NTFS/ FAT32) and/or the wrong partition is marked active. Can you tell me what filing system is used for winXP and also what system are the rest of the partitions formatted as (NTFS/ FAT32)?

What I'd like to see from you is a list of your partitions on all disks. you can view this info by using a windows milleniium startup diskette and running the utility FDISK. or better yet, download GDISK from http://www.freewebs.com/computer-guides/test/gdisk.exe and put it on a floppy. Boot with the startup diskette than swap GDISK and run "gdisk /status" to view available partitions. than use "gdisk [disk number in list from previous command] /status" to see each partition on each physical disk drive. type "gdisk /?" for a list of commands
 
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