boot problem

Hi, Having problem booting. Computer does not recognize primary drive 0,which is hard drive c.After 1 min message says can't find pri.drive 1.Which on setup it is listed as unknown.How can I change my hard drive to show up on pri.1,instead of 0. I hope this makes sense,I'm a novice. .Or is there another solution?OS XP home.

 

Does this help

 

this is what i get.

 

you could try a live cd knoppix or ubce4win and try editting/checking the BOOT.INI which holds that infomation.

 

Thanks ice,but I have know idea what you said.

 

***EDIT*** read the last paragraph first
hi, sorry i was in a hurry to catch a train. unless someone else comes along with a better idea i think you should try to get to the file on your hard drive which holds the information about your hard drive/s. if that file holds the wrong information it's possible you'll be in exactly the situation you are in now - not being able to boot.

1, you'll need a working PC
2, a fast internet connection
3, and a cd/dvd rewriter

although if you don't have the above you can get the cd through the post instead of downloading it and burning to cd.

and i suppose it would be best if the pc you are trying to repair isn't really old or something really new, because the Live cd will have to be compatible with it. it's not able to be compatible with everything so the more average your broken pc the better.

so the live cd is an Operating System which lives on a cd instead of a HDD. you'll boot from the cd and mount your OS on your HDD, that just means it will read some files and gain entery to your operation system. from there you can access what you need until it's fixed.

i mentioned ubcd4win eariler, that's windows XP on a cd, but i don't think you should use that because you have to compile it all manually which is abit difficult and takes time. so, i think the best options are either Knoppix or Mepis. i've never used Mepis but it's supposed to be good at being compatible with hardware, but i', not sure about how easy it will be to mount your HDD with. Knoppix, i know, once it has booted will have your HDD on the desktop so unless someone says differently you could try Knoppix.

***HERE***
OK, don't do any of the above yet, unless you want a live cd anyway i've just re-read your posts. if you have your windows cd you should be able to repair your master boot record. that could be the problem. did you make any changes the last time you used your PC?
and what errors, if any, do you remember? did you run any registry cleaners like reg seeker?

do you have your hard drive partitioned (drive c, drive e), did you install any new software or hardware? did you knock over the tower?

 

Thanks ice,that was a very thorough explanation,but I'm afraid a little to advanced for me.Right now I'm able to boot with F1,takes a little time but what the heck. This all started a couple of days after I installed ZA. Got some info that said 95% sure it was hard drive.Bought hard drive,and cloned it with the software provided.Same problem.Unless there is simple way to troubleshoot,i'll stay like this.Just leave computer running.Thanks again Frank47 Ps Tried to reformat with Windows cd But message said could'nt recognize xp on drive,put in melenium disc which I don't have anymore.

 

hi, i think you should try and fix it. can you do a system restore to before you installed zone alarm?

i've found some programs which could help, but it says they are for power users

http://www.download.com/MBRtool/3000-2248_4-10252935.html
screenshots
http://www.diydatarecovery.nl/images/mbrt1.jpg
http://www.diydatarecovery.nl/images/mbrt2.jpg

and this.
MBRWork 1.07b
http://terabyteunlimited.com/utilities.html

you could post the contents of your BOOT.INI it's in the system32 directory. it's easy to do if you follow these instrctions.

goto
C:\WINNT\SYSTEM32\BOOT.INI
or depending which OS you have, which do you have?
C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\BOOT.INI

when you find the BOOT.INI file right-click it and select copy and paste it to your desktop. then, from your desktop, double click your copied BOOT.INI file and post the contents here.

so you have one hard drive with one partition?

 

ice,I tried a restore it didn't help. I can't find boot.ini it was not there.
I have 1 drive 1 partition,windows XP home. Going to see if i can find it on a search.

 

Ice,this all I found . It was boot backup file.Could'nt upload it Invalid file.

 

Is this it?

 

Thanks Ronjor.Nope sorry yes put in new drive.but trouble existed before.

 

Thanks Ronjor,will check dell website.

 

hi, if you post the exact error message you have we can look it up. someone will probably have had the problem before.

 

Thanks ice .thread 3 is the message.

 

I have used the Dell forums often for general and specific info on my old Dell Plll. Found alot of people had the same questions I did & alot of expertise &links -
http://forums.us.dell.com/supportforums

Rob

 

Thank you one and all,if it gets solved ,I'll be back.

 

Reset BIOS to default. Wipe the new HDD. Set to Cable Select. Boot to BIOS and make sure the drive is seen and set to AUTO detect. Clean install WXP. If you can make it this far, then remove the new HDD and replace it with the old HDD. Set to CABLE SELECT and reboot PC.

 

Thanks for your input nod32. If i understand you correctly,I booted into bios,the drive is recognized on pri. drive 0,which is set to auto,but the computer is looking for pri. drive 1 which is unknown.,the rest I don't know how to set bios to default,and I dont want to lose all my files on new drive. I have drive jumper set for cable select.

 

Both drives should be set to CS. That said, remove the slave drive and see if you can boot with the master drive

Did you reset the BIOS? Contact DELL for assistance with this.

 

Just to add for clarity your primary drive will need to be at the end of the cable, the secondary drive will need to be on the connector towards the middle. Personally I prefer to manually set the main drive to Master and the secondary to Slave, I've had a lot less problems this way.

Before we go any further here, what are you trying to do? Are you trying to replace your main drive, or are you trying to add a second drive for storage? Or have you had two drives before the problem started, and it suddenly started saying it can't see the second one?

If you don't even have a second drive in there, just go into the BIOS and set "Primary Drive 1" to "None", otherwise it will be looking for a drive that's not there, and alerting you to the fact that it can't find it.