Here's the senerio: I just purchased a new 500GB SATA HDD and installed it. Now, evertime I startup, it reboots on the windows loading screen. I'll go through my complete install senerio incase any of it is relevant.
My primary HDD is installed in the SATA 1 slot. I have a secondary 250GB HDD installed as a single on my primary IDE chain (nothing on slave) and 2 DVD drives on my secondary IDE chain. All of this as been functioning correctly for quite some time.
I install the new 500GB hard drive, boot-up and get a boot disk error. Open the case and find out my primary SATA drive cable came loose from the MOBO. Re-seateded it and restarted. I get another boot disk error. Open the case again and find the primary SATA cable also came loose from the HDD, so i re-seated that too.
Before booting to windows I open my bios config and it recgonizes all my drive, including my new 500 GB. Saved and re-booted and came to the option screen to start in normal or save mode. I chose normal and it booted to windows just fine.
I go to disk management and see my new unallocated drive, but I'm missing my 250GB IDE drive. I check "my computer" and don't see it either. So before formatting my new HDD I decided to do a fresh reboot and see if everthing detects properly.
When it restarted, it came to the option screen to start in safe mode, but no matter what I select now, when it gets to the windows loading screen it reboots. I disconnected both my extra HDD's and still the same problem.
I put in my XP cd, went to recovery console and fixmbr thinking that might be the issue. It confired it wrote a new master boot record, rebooted and still the same problem.
Then I decided to do a system re-install from the XP CD (new xp installation over the existing). I get to the section where it shows the exiting partitions to install windows, it shows "C: Partition1 [Unknown] 70896 MB (70896 MB free)". The "Unknown" throws up some flags, as well as showing the full drive being free, but I hit enter anyway to setup windows on the selected partition. The next screen just goes to format and doesn't recgonize my previous windows install to do a system re-install.
My guess is that my windows install went corrupt and I'll have to re-format and install windows. There's nothing on the drive I can't afford to lose (everythings backed up), but wanted to see if there's something else I missed. Any help is greatly appreciated!
My primary HDD is installed in the SATA 1 slot. I have a secondary 250GB HDD installed as a single on my primary IDE chain (nothing on slave) and 2 DVD drives on my secondary IDE chain. All of this as been functioning correctly for quite some time.
I install the new 500GB hard drive, boot-up and get a boot disk error. Open the case and find out my primary SATA drive cable came loose from the MOBO. Re-seateded it and restarted. I get another boot disk error. Open the case again and find the primary SATA cable also came loose from the HDD, so i re-seated that too.
Before booting to windows I open my bios config and it recgonizes all my drive, including my new 500 GB. Saved and re-booted and came to the option screen to start in normal or save mode. I chose normal and it booted to windows just fine.
I go to disk management and see my new unallocated drive, but I'm missing my 250GB IDE drive. I check "my computer" and don't see it either. So before formatting my new HDD I decided to do a fresh reboot and see if everthing detects properly.
When it restarted, it came to the option screen to start in safe mode, but no matter what I select now, when it gets to the windows loading screen it reboots. I disconnected both my extra HDD's and still the same problem.
I put in my XP cd, went to recovery console and fixmbr thinking that might be the issue. It confired it wrote a new master boot record, rebooted and still the same problem.
Then I decided to do a system re-install from the XP CD (new xp installation over the existing). I get to the section where it shows the exiting partitions to install windows, it shows "C: Partition1 [Unknown] 70896 MB (70896 MB free)". The "Unknown" throws up some flags, as well as showing the full drive being free, but I hit enter anyway to setup windows on the selected partition. The next screen just goes to format and doesn't recgonize my previous windows install to do a system re-install.
My guess is that my windows install went corrupt and I'll have to re-format and install windows. There's nothing on the drive I can't afford to lose (everythings backed up), but wanted to see if there's something else I missed. Any help is greatly appreciated!
