Boot drive failure

[Androme]

So I started up the machine today, "boot drive failure" message. "Press any key when ready."

It then restarts. I went into Bios, loaded up the Setup BIOS Defaults - the harddrives (2) weren't found on Primary Master or Primary Slave - said Not Installed. I entered the first one, re-selected "Auto" but it wasn't found. Did it for Primary Slave, and this WAS found but my main primary drive set on master wasn't.

Considering I've touched nothing inside and it hasn't been knocked, I doubt it's a cable issue. It's also only a 2-month only hard-drive, my main one that isn't showing up. It's PATA btw.

After that, it now loads up saying "The drive is corrupt or cannot find the following file: <WindowsRoot>/system32/hal.dll. Please reload a copy of this file" or something to that effect.

I've tried Load Bios Setup defaults, no luck.

I've inserted the Windows Recovery CD but it cannot recognise my main drive and yet it states my C:/ drive as a partition (Partition1) being the ONLY drive available and yet it was set as my G:/ backup drive. The problem with installing on this secondary drive is that it contains backups of files only which are MONTHS old- I know I should have backed up but I ran out of space so I was saving up to buy another brand-new hard-drive to replace this secondary drive.

I've tried fixing MBR and the other 'fix' option but neither has worked. Recovery CD seems to be of no use - there is no repair function as like I said above, no windows installation is found because the drive it was on can't be found. Since I have no space on the secondary drive and I at least need the files on there, even if it means I lose the entire courseworks that I had on the main-drive, I don't want to lose whatever I have on my secondary drive, so that rules out formattimg that.

I've fished on Google but not much has come out.

Anyone any clues? Thanks guys, you're saving me from losing my work if you can help.

[Ramihyn]

The chances of any repairtool or software helping are very very small if your master drive isnt found from the BIOS.

The drive letter change is just how Windows/Dos automatically assigns driveletters as it doesnt find your master drive which contains the OS where you obviously assigned the letter G: to your secondary drives partition. The error message about the "hal.dll" is logical if the master drive cant be seen and you "repaired" a MBR on the secondary drive which tries to boot a data partition not containing any OS - or if it does, has a wrong entry in the boot.ini file.

First of all - check that all cables are properly connected.

Then disconnect your secondary drive and have your primary drive alone in the machine on a single cable. Listen closely to what the drive sounds when you turn power on. If the drive is ok and powers up, you should hear a silent clicking as the heads move and the typical sound of the motor spinning up. If you dont hear something spinning up - exchange the power + pata cable. Try again. If you hear a much louder mechanical CLONK, you may have a mechanical problem with your head(s). If you arent sure about what it should sound like - listen to your secondary drive on its own first.

How you proceed really depends on what the master drive does when it is alone on a PATA cable with proper power and AUTO detecting in BIOS. If the drive "sounds" ok but isnt detected, you may try rejumpering the master to slave and the slave to master, swap their position on the cable and check if the BIOS detects both or at least the slave now (previously nonworking master). Remember that you shouldnt boot in such a configuration as it may damage your system "logically" if you do.

This: http://www.autem.de/download/devinfo.exe is one of the rare tools which can even find your hard disk if the BIOS cant - or at least show you which kind of error/problem happens when the drive is directly adressed. The tool runs under native dos - if nothing helps, run it and paste the report in this thread.

[Androme]

Thanks Ramihyn!

When you said that I should disconnect my secondary drive to hear what my master one sounds like, it WAS detected and Windows booted fine. When I just re-connected my secondary drive, the SAME problem occured again. How can this secondary drive (on the same cable and channel) affect my master one in the way it is doing?

Microsoft support were "dazzled" as are Maxtor support.

[meglamaniac]

This can happen if the drives have their jumpers for master/slave incorrectly set, although how that would have "just happened" i don't know. Have you checked to make sure that one hasn't come off by some freak accident? The drives should either be assigned as one master one slave, or both assigned to cable select if you want it to sort itself out. Not having to bugger about with this is one of SATA's advantages

Failing that, try the second drive on the other channel instead. It's annoying but sometimes these things just happen for no apparent reason. It could be that the second drive is dying slowly. Also, make sure no pins have come loose on the drives.

[Androme]

Thanks meglamaniac. The jumpers are in their correct positions.

Just a query about the channels thing. I have one cable going from my two hard-drives to IDE Connector 1 on my motherboard and my DVD-ROM & CD-RW drives on one cable connected to IDE Connector 2 on my mobo. If I change channel that my drive is on in BIOS, does this mean I have to connect one hard-drive to one optical drive and the same with the other spare magnetic drive and optical drive?

[meglamaniac]

Er, yes. Well sort of.
You don't actually change it in the BIOS, it just happens when you change which cable they're attatched to. So yes, it's perfectly acceptable to have a harddrive and an optical drive on one cable. It used to be standard practise to make sure the harddrive was always the master and the optical drive the slave, but that was down to a limitation in older version of PATA which no longer applies, so rig them up however you like.

[Androme]

Thanks - problem is, the cable from one hard-drive to the optical drive isn't "long enough" - it's one of those hard-drive cables with 2 hard-drive connectors and if one goes into one hard-drive, it's short by like 30cm to the optical drive above.

[meglamaniac]

Hmm. It's still worth trying it even if it means removing the harddrive from the case to make it work temporarily - because if it does work, then you can buy a longer cable.

[Androme]

In the mean time, with the secondary one disconnected, this main one keeps freezing randomly now so I'm having to hold down power button for several secs to turn it off.

I have 3 fans in my case and the side of the case off, with temperatures around 40*C under load. It's Intel Pentium 4 FSB800 w/ HT 2.8GHz. I've checked memory sticks, run kinda warm but nothing hot. I've checked for dust too.

What could be up?

[Ramihyn]

Originally Posted by Green Spit

Try running Fdisk. Fdisk talks directly to the hard drive and bypasses all else, if fdisk fails to work in anyway then it is definately the drive (very small possiblility its the cable so if you have two try it with each).

Which Fdisk do you talk about? The Microsoft FDISK uses standard int13 calls (im not even sure if a version supporting extended int13 is available yet). Int13 doesnt mean that it talks "directly to the hard drive" - it just means it uses the BIOS routines instead of windows drivers. Talking "directly" would mean to do ATA(PI) communication with the controller on the drive.

(no time to read the rest of the thread currently - i just spotted this posting)

[hAl]

Originally Posted by Androme2

After that, it now loads up saying "The drive is corrupt or cannot find the following file: <WindowsRoot>/system32/hal.dll

That is because I was away for a long time