Differences in disk drives

just joined site. not too familiar with site but did a little looking for my answer

basic question.

installed new harddrive
I have two disk drives
Discovered that the top drive is jammed
top drive says "48x MTRP" on the opening cover
the bottom drive is a rewritable drive

Put windows xp pro reinstallation disk in the bottom drive.
Message on monitor says "disk boot failure, insert system disk and press enter "

Do I need to replace the top drive in order to reinstall xp pro??

 

Welcome to WindowsBBS RQUIST

Is your BIOS set to boot from a cd?

 

Since he has 2 drives, is he booting from the correct one too ?

 

@rsinfo

Do not most BIOS boot order settings simply have an option to boot from CD-ROM? I can't recall ever seeing any settings to specify which CD-ROM in the event the system has more than 1

 

I have noticed most BIOS's will process the CD drives in the Master/Slave order when looking for a bootable CD. I would suggest disconnecting all wires connected to the top drive to eliminate it as a problem.

 

Me neither.

That's why it would be better if RQUIST could remove the connectors from the drive that is not working, leaving just one drive in the soup.

 

thanks
my bios is set to boot from cd so i disconnected the top drive and the the xp pro installation cd activated.

The install got to the point where it rebooted, unfortunately it came up with a blank screen after after I pressed a key when it prompted me to "press any key to reboot from cd."
Is this normal? Any suggestions?

Sorry if this really basic but, just haven't done much with computers.

 

I also get a "disk read error" prior to the screen going blank.

Guess I should mention that the version of xp pro is the same disk that dell sent with the last computer I bought. Wondering if that's an incompatible disk for the computer I'm trying to install it on.
On the other hand, we alreadyhad it running on the computer in question prior to the harddrive install. I had taken the non-Dell computer along the the Dell xp pro install cd to a large computer retailer and they had installed it originally.
Is this process going to cause me a lot of grief??

 

I Experienced exactly the same problem with my Dell Desktop Computer a couple of years ago. I would also like to know the solution to this problem. I was only able to complete the Windows install by putting the Windows CD in my USB CD/RW drive.

II never looked for the problem, because I was able to install Windows, so I am curious.

My computer is a Dell Dimension 8400, originally equiped with Windows XP Home. The Windows XP Pro disk was supplied by Dell for my computer. (I don't know if this is important)

 

Hi Ranger SVO
My Dell is a Dimension 8300. The computer in question was purchased at a "Milwaukee PC" retail store location.

You mentioned your USB CD/RW dr. Is this an external disk drive that plugs in to the USB Port? If so did you have to disconnect all the cables to your other disk drives in the computer tower?

I'm currently running the XP Pro reinstall. CD in the Recordable/Rewritable disk drive installed in the tower.

 

That's usually the point where you don't want to reboot from the CD but continue instead with your installation from the hard drive. Your system will then take additional files that it needs/wants from the CD. Since you are part way into your installation, my suggestion would be to try booting again but not pressing any key to boot from CD.

Now, I'm not sure that a Dell XP Installation CD is going to work on anything other than a Dell machine. I believe that most Dell's have either a hidden FAT16 partition or an embedded instruction set containing things like model#, system board & product keys.

As to the two CDROM drives, Mark already gave you the best advice but to clear any confusion, my ASUS boards will let me select which of two opticals I want to use for the first optical boot device. I also believe it will cycle to the second optical if I put an installation CD in the drive that is not picked as the first optical boot device because both show up before I get a message to press any key to boot from CD/DVD.

 

I'm curious ........ is there by chance a cd stuck in the drive that won't open? There might be a small hole in the front panel that will allow you to use a bent open paper clip to force the drive open.

 

Perhaps a wedge of cheese (stuck in the drive?)

 

LOL!
Actually, I was thinking maybe a disc that, although not bootable, might possibly prevent the system from searching the second drive for bootable media. Just seems odd that the first drive had to be disconnected for the disc to be recognized in the remaining drive. You know what they say about inquiring minds .......

 

Hey Rockster2u-That's pretty funny.

Noahdfear: pryed open the top drive-didn't see a disc inside. Installation CD did start to boot from the second drive after disconnecting the original top drive. purchased new rewritable drive and placed in tower-not sure about connecting the two cables since the disc did start to boot from the second drive, I'm not sure if I should actually connect the cables to the new drive at this point.

 

I bought my 8400 in '04. I called Dell and told them that I wanted XP Pro. They sent me an XP Pro CD and I sent back the XP Home CD. The problem started when I went to upgrade. It started normal, copied install files, then it rebooted. Then it said no cd detected. I tried both my CD/DVD drives but neither worked. I must have tried adjusting bios settings 10 different times. I finally plugged in my USB CD/RW drive and the install when normal.

In 06, I installed a new hard drive and decided to do a fresh install of XP Pro. Same problem, I had to do the install using the external drive. I've never looked for the problem but saw this thread and it reminded me of the problem.

I dont know if the problem still exists, Bios version was originally A03, its now A09. Other updates and changes have also been made.

 

May as well wait till after the installation is complete. Thanks for checking for me!

~ Dave goes off to try and figure out the cause ~