Moving working XP disk to different motherboard

Hi, I've read through many other posts on this same subject, but I don't see anything that addresses my exact situation.

I have 2 computers of roughly same vintage (~1998) and I am consolidating hardware to put 2 disks in one machine. Machine A has faster bus but smaller HD running Win98. Machine B has slower bus but bigger drive running WinXP.

I moved the working XP boot drive from A to B, set it as the master and the other (original Win98 drive) as slave. Downloaded installation manuals for both drives, set jumpers, manually entered cylinders, etc. per instructions.

On bootup now I get disk read error.
Booting from WinXP Pro CD, I have already done the following:

- Ran through repair installation of XP, but it didn't get to the full Windows screens as shown in the Langa Letter. It rebooted itself, but arrived back at same disk read error.

- In recovery console, I can see both the C: and D: drives fine.
Boot.ini looks fine, but I ran bootcfg anyway. Also ran fixmbr and chkdsk /r.

This seems silly since the disk was perfectly fine in the other machine. It must be something simple I'm missing. Can anyone give me a clue?

Thank you for your time!

 

This might be part of where the problem is. Even pre-Pentium (486) computers could automatically set a HDD. Setting cylinders, heads, etc, should only be necessary if the computer cannot see the drive at all.

There should just be an Auto setting for the drive. If there happens to be no Auto setting, you may need to set it as LBA. Manually inputting settings should only be necessary for a troubleshooting situation.
[Something else that may be in the BIOS is the menu "Autodetect Hard Disk Drives"]

You have both HDDs installed now (C: and D: ), disconnect the second HDD (the one with Win 98) until you have Win XP running on it's own HDD, when it is up and running you can add the second HDD back in again. (Many of us have had problems (re)installing Windows XP while a second HDD is attached).

You don't say, but if you wanted a dual-boot setup, that will make things a little more complicated.

Be a little careful with your configuration...that is...what is master/slave on the primary channel and master/slave on the secondary channel. You will not be able to mix jumper settings of master/slave with Cable Select on the same cable.

Matt
PS. Do you have the motherboard manual for the computer you are working on? It will have a section about setting the drives.

 

Thank you, Matt. No dual boot needed.

I did try disconnecting the slave first, and got the same disk read error on the master. I am sure I am not mixing jumpers (cable select and regular.)

The reason I set the cylinders and heads manually is that when I chose Auto, it had very weird values (cylinders 1024, heads 255). But now trying it again I see that it does seem to pick up the overall size and model number of the disks properly... so I'm giving it another go.

After re-setting to Auto I still get disk read error, but I will try all the other steps over again and see if that helps.

I do not have the manual for this motherboard, but it is a Dell. I can probably get the manual online if I squint hard enough to see the markings on the board.

Thank you for the help. Will advise!

 

The hdd with XP- what size is it and what brand/make of comp was it in.
My be it had a DDO installed, on old comp when it booted, was there a display after post but before windows , asking if you wanted to boot to hdd or floppy ?

 

Try finding the manual for your model at Dell Support:
http://support.dell.com/
How detailed it will be, I can't say. If it is an Intel based motherboard, Intel will refer you back to Dell anyway.

Check for the DDO TopFarmer mentioned. You will need to tread carefully if one is present. Have you backed up your data?

Matt

 

XP HD is 8.5gb, no DDO I think

I don't think it's too big. The original HD (which I'm now planning to use as slave) is 6.5gb, so not much difference.

Brand of original computer was mixed breed Compaq and other parts. I will check motherboard. But there was no special boot up message or special configuration for managing extra large disk. It was a very plain vanilla XP installation.

Luckily not much data on it to be backed up. Working files have already been moved to another system. So really, I could just reformat the disk and reinstall the OS if need be. I was just trying to save time and keep some of the installed programs.

Do you think if I wipe it and reinstall the OS that the disk error will go away? Or are they unrelated issues? I kinda don't want to go to the trouble if the disk error will persist afterwards.

I have not yet had a chance to check the Dell website about the motherboard, but I will do so.

 

There could be at least 2 other reasons and likely many more.
1) bad wire in the IDE cable- try a different one
2) Up to a certain year there was just a loose standard at writing the BIOS routine's translation table for determing the hdd's sector/cylinders/track from the OS's requested sector, where two different BIOS's could read different hdd sectors for the same OS request. Do not know at what year all bios's translation table's became standard. The only option if this is the case is to delete all partitions and start over.

One thing would do is use the test program for hdd from the hdd manufacture.If it find no errors than would delete all partitions and start over and it should be good to go. see what "mattman" has to say due to not using XP much.

 

Agree with those things. The new versions of the manufacturer's testing utilities have been upgraded for the new SATA systems and you need to burn them onto disk in most cases. All you need is one of the older floppy versions.

The manufacturer's utilities can often point you directly to the cause of the problem. Needing to change the cable was one identified for me.

If the old Windows XP system was running really well, I would try the repair install again. If you have any doubts about it's integrity, I would format (remove the partitions as mentioned) and start again, you will probably be glad you did. It's always good to sweep the cobwebs out.

The old versions of Norton Antivirus would "inoculate" the boot sector of the drive and it caused me some problems. The partitions may have been set slightly differently when in the old computer, so hopefully, remaking them would work. You should be able to completely "wipe" the boot sector or even whole drive if necessary using the manufacturer's utilities, but save that as a last resort. The drive seems to be functioning well enough.

As I mentioned, if you are installing Win XP, disconnect the 6.5Gb drive until you have it up and running.

Matt

 

Reader, I reformatted.

Installed motherboard bios upgrade -- no effect.
Re-ran repair installation twice more -- no effect.
Finally reinstalled XP using "quick" format, and now XP boots fine.

Now my only problem is, Windows Activation screen won't accept either of the two COA numbers I have! I can't install windows updates without it, and it says I have 30 days to activate windows.

What happens after 30 days???
I am going to try to get the certificate of authenticity number from the guy who originally installed the OS on this disk. But my hopes are not high.

Thank you, guys, for all your help.

- IK

 

Epilogue: All's well that ends well

Seems I used the wrong disk to install XP. I had used the one that came with my newer Dell computer, because I figured it was a newer version of the OS and I wouldn't have to download as many updates. But apparently that disk knows it is OEM, and wouldn't take the authorization code from the older computer.

Once I re-installed XP from scratch using the older XP retail disk, the authorization code worked fine. I have just spent the weekend downloading and installing every XP update since 2001, but all is well with the world.

Thank you guys for your assistance!

 

Your welcome.

Suggestion...
When you get your system set up with all the basics, take a snapshot of it as your base system. I use Ghost, you can use Windows Backup if you like. If you need to reinstall later, you will have a fully working system in an hour or two. You will need to update Windows, programs and drivers, but you can do them at your own pace with your fully functional system.

Hope it goes well
Matt