hard drive wont boot.... clueless why....

Jake · 10-11-2002, 09:54 AM

My system specs are in my signature......

My problem is that my computer will not boot off the laptop harddrive if I put the laptop hard drive in my home desktop as a secondary drive I can transfer files to and from it and everything ..... It wont boot up either of my computers my Via epia motherboard or my desktop.....Its set up correctly in cmos as far as i can tell (auto mode) and it detects it and Im justing using ordinary windows 98 system files that I have booted other hard drives with before..... I am really confused...and can use any help I can get .... This is the only thing I can see that is stopping me from being done with my Carputer.... hehehe oh and once i get it all done Ill throw up some pics

MP3DUB · 10-11-2002, 10:22 AM

When I first saw the thread title, i though master/slave problems, but if the bios is able to see and correctly detect the drive, that shouldnt be the problem. Did you set a partition as active when you formated the drive?

Jake · 10-11-2002, 10:31 AM

ok when i formatted i did not set the partition active..... I created a partition on it.... and then i formated it.

I just went into fdisk with the laptop hard drive connected to home desktop and it says that: "Only partitions on Drive 1 can be made active" hmmmm very strange.... can somebody tell me what my next step is?

Thanks guys os soooo very much

GuRuGoD · 10-11-2002, 10:38 AM

Use partition magic 7.0. This will let you set individual partitions active/deactive. If you dont have the resources to get partition magic ($100) you can always wipe it all out, and install on with ONLY your laptop drive in.

CrazyLittle · 10-11-2002, 11:06 AM

Better yet, the free method:

Make an ordinary Win98 boot disk. It will have a copy of format.com and fdisk.com on it. Then just plug in the lappy hard drive as the only hard drive to a computer, boot up with the floppy and use FDISK to partition and activate that lappy HD. viola!

GRUNT · 10-11-2002, 02:31 PM

Create a startup disk from windows98.

Bootup from it.
from your a: drive type fdisk, if you can remove all partitions Reboot, create your partition.
Make sure that the primary partition is active.
If you have only one partition check that it is using 100% of the drive.
Reboot from floppy.

from DOS type format c: /s hit (RETURN).
This will format the drive and copy the system files.

If you still can not boot from it you could try:
from DOS type fdisk /mbr hit (RETURN).
This should refresh the master boot record.

This should work.

NOTE: If you have formated the drive without /s switch.

The system file are not copied, you can copy the system files using the SYS.COM file.(saves reformating the drive)

Boot from floppy from the A: type SYS C: hit (RETURN)
the SYS.COM file is in your windows\command directory.

Hope this helps

tlbuckingham · 10-11-2002, 09:53 PM

Try this (very easy way). Use Maxblast II (I use it all the time at work (no you don't need a maxtor hard drive). Download software here and follow directions. http://www.maxtor.com/en/support/dow...st_plus_ii.htm

Let me know if it works. If not I got some other tricks.. I mean solutions.

freestyler · 10-13-2002, 02:29 AM

don't know if this helps at all but with my shuttle board my drive wouldn't boot off of primary ide, it would boot off of secondary ide no prob, so i thought my ide was fried. bios saw it as master on both lines, but just got the non-bootable media error.

once i removed the jumper it worked perfectly as it was single drive setup.

Jake · 10-13-2002, 05:52 AM

hey guys.... problem solved.... I forgot to set it active at first... I removed the partition with fdisk then recreated it and set it active...... and after restarting formatted and put my mp3s on it all is well now.... sooooo close to done... I expect to be done within this week.... I'm working on a autocad file now on how I am going to place all the components in the case... (its a tight fit)

will throw up some pics and a diagram of how its all thrown together once i get it done... then i will throw up some pics of it in the car.... Its going to be using a 20x4 VFD... my LCD i was going to use i just realized is all scratched up...... oh well only $9 ... I wanted a VFD anyways.....

Thanks to you guys for the help

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