[BIOS]

Long time no see

Ok, I was troubleshooting a friends computer as it wasn't booting up and the problem was that one of the chips on the hard drive had burnt out, so i've replaced it with a new hard drive. The BIOS will not auto detect it (screenshot 1). So I set it to "USER: Set Parameters by User", it wont alow me to change the Cylinders, Heads, Sectors. etc. I enabled LBA, then tried to install Windows XP pro. Formatting went fine and also copying files went fine (I suppose), but when the computer reboots after that, it's meant to go to the Windows installation... but it will go to a screen saying "NTLDR: Couldn't open drive multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)".. (see screenshot 2). The ARC path looks fine to me.

ScreenShot 1: http://www.freewebs.com/mutimediastorage/bioss.JPG
ScreenShot 2: http://www.freewebs.com/mutimediastorage/ntldr.JPG

 

[chrisdzie]

reply

Well it sounds like the hard drive connter is wrong and the when you install the xp it sounds like the disk is bad or broke. Try buy a new or or get it from a friend.

 

[dai]

are you using an 80 wire ide cable
recheck the jumper settings
check the cable is in the right way

 

[Dry Crick]

Basically, this is a Windows error notice. It was most common in W2K, but will occur in Windows XP if Windows XP is not properly installed; if you gave too slow a response to an install question such as "depress any key". But can also occur if you have cables or BIOS setup incorrectly... among those are jumper errors so that Windows determines you have more than one device on the secondard channel, a boot order error between cables and BIOS, and weirdly, sometimes if the BIOS is not set to boot to the CD or floppy first... in those cases simply being set to boot to the hard drive first will do it.
It can also be a defective format or install of Windows with no apparent reason.
Whenever any of these occur, we simply reformat and reinstall, because all of us have all the time in the world. Right?

 

[BIOS]

I'm using 40 wire IDE cable.

The jumper setting is on Master. (although there is a choice to have two jumpers on it (32 GB Pin Setting)) and 32 bit transfer mode in the bios. Should I try them settings?

Cables are in the right way and are in the primary master controller.

I have tried the format/install twice (with same result).

My current boot order:
CD ROM
IDE 0
IDE 1

 

[Dry Crick]

Sorry, I don't have further guesses, except to try another drive of any time to see if you get a different result.
You will also find a great deal of information on "NTLDR Missing" doing a Google search. It is a fairly common error message we have dealt with many times, but it will take several attempts.
Can you just borrow a drive.
Is it likely that your original problem was NOT a burned chip, but other problem in the computer... a motherboard error, for instance.
One final recommendation, since you have performed a significant amount of work on this system, is that you may have inadvertently damaged a cable or socket (It happens). The cable can look good and be bad, so I would also switch cables, particularly the EIDE cables.

 

[kodi]

I'm using 40 wire IDE cable.

Modern hardrives need a 80 wire cable, or is this a typo?

 

[BIOS]

:embarased

oops.. I will swap cables then try again. i'll be back shortly.

Thanks.

 

[Dry Crick]

Sorry. I missed that too. And an 80 conductor, 40 connector should make all the difference... Be sure it is ATA-133 cable if you can get it.

 

[BIOS]

The ribbon cable wasn't the problem after all. Remember I said it wouldn't allow me to change the properties of the cylinders, heads and sectors? Well it's because I was using the numpad, (and the numpad wasn't working in the bios). :4-dontkno

A simple problem turned into a real head scratcher :tongue:

Thanks for your help people.

 

[Dry Crick]

It's always something like that, that steps outside the guess range. I don't understand why you would be using the numpad though.

 

[BIOS]

It's a habbit because I always use the numpad. I didn't even think to use the other set of numbers for some reason.

(I wasn't using the numpad for the arrows) I think thats what you getting at. :wink:

 

[dai]

i always use the numpad and have been caught that way before with some software keys that will not accept the entry from the numpad