Installed new HDD > OS won't boot up - please help

Q

qwerty2

New Member
Hi all, I really hope someone can help as I'm going crazy trying to figure this out. Let me explain the situation:

Computer: Dell Precision desktop, Windows XP.

- I have two hard drives, C (system) and D (files)
- I run out of room on D so buy a new 1.5TB drive, and install it
- I boot up XP, format the drive using Disk Management, and set the partition as Primary
- I restart my computer
- Suddenly, before Windows manages to load up, I get the error message:

"Windows XP could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt: \WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\CONFIG\SYSTEM"

I've tried:
- Removing the new empty HDD and switching on again. I get the message: "Drive 1 not found: SErial ATA, SATA-1. Alert! Failed to detect one or more drives during POST. Strike F1 key to continue"
- Removing the empty HDD and swapping the system drive to the other HDD bay, same error message as above but with "Drive 0 not found"
- I've tried booting Partition Magic from a CD, and it didn't reveal any problems.

Can anyone help me?

I get the impression that when setting up my new hard drive in Disk Management, me selecting to have the partition as PRIMARY, may have screwed things up. I'm not sure if two drives can both be set to primary partitions? Then again, I've run Partition Magic from a bootable CD and it seems to show both C and D as primary.

I just don't understand why removing an empty HDD would cause the error message that it is missing. After all, there's nothing on it! Why would the computer care that it isn't in the bay?

Thanks all, any help or insight would be fantastic.
 
Sounds like a registry error. And, no, it shouldn't matter if you have five drives set w/ a primary partition, as a primary partition is simply the partition of a disk that is used to start an operating system. You can use primary partitions that don't contain the operating system.

I'm willing to bet that during the course of installing this drive, something was installed or some changes were made to the registry some how. No matter - you ought to try and repair the installation using your Windows CD (if you have one). Read how here:http://support.microsoft.com/kb/307545

- I have two hard drives, C (system) and D (files)
- I run out of room on D so buy a new 1.5TB drive, and install it
Click to expand...

So the new drive is the *third* drive? Have you tried removing both the new drive and the D drive and checking your boot options in BIOS?
 
Thanks for your reply, it's really appreciated.

The only reason I mention about partitions is that I saw this document online:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/228004

I just don't understand how plugging in a HDD, formatting it with Disk Management and then restarting my machine could cause this problem.

I only have a Windows Pro CD to hand, even though I run Home edition, I tried to run and repair Windows using it but it crashes to a blue STOP screen. something about pci.sys being missing. I will try and get a home CD.

The new hard drive is the third drive, but I've only ever had two in my machine, I replaced one drive with the new one, keeping the system drive in place the whole time.
 
The problem is because you set it as primary. You need to go back in and delete the partition and then just partition it and assign it a drive letter and thats it. Go into the bios and make sure that the correct drive is set to boot, this is another possibility.
 
johnb35 said:
The problem is because you set it as primary. You need to go back in and delete the partition and then just partition it and assign it a drive letter and thats it. Go into the bios and make sure that the correct drive is set to boot, this is another possibility.
Click to expand...

I'm using Partition Magic, from a bootable CD, and the system drive is showing as Primary as well.

I set the new HDD to unallocated space, and made sure it's not primary etc, and I still get the same error message. Anyway I've even tried taking the new HDD out and it still has the same message.
 
johnb35 said:
The problem is because you set it as primary. You need to go back in and delete the partition and then just partition it and assign it a drive letter and thats it. Go into the bios and make sure that the correct drive is set to boot, this is another possibility.
Click to expand...

I wouldn't think it would matter that it has a primary partition so long as the BIOS isn't trying to boot from the new drive. Many times I've taken a HDD from someone else's computer and stuck it in mine to scan for viruses, back up data, etc. Naturally their HDD has a primary partition, but it doesn't affect my system so long as I set theirs to slave, mine as master and have my boot order set up correctly...

However, in the OPs case, it doesnt sound like it's trying to boot from the new HDD as it is returning a corrupt registry file error message rather than "Operating System Not Found" error

Please correct me if I'm wrong... Am I missing something? :confused:
 
Well, I can't believe that adding a hard drive would cause a registry error, but I guess weird things are known to happen. The user will just have to try doing a repair install of windows.
 
My computer seems to be running fine now, I ran the recovery console and repaired the the boot.ini file. It must have gotten corrupt when I partitioned the new hard drive.

I think I'm going to replace my system hard drive anyway and start from scratch with two brand new HDD's. I got a couple of warnings and beeps when I ran diagnostics on my system drive so it's very possible it's failing.

Could I ask for your help one last time, what's the best way of starting from scratch and installing XP? Obviously both HDD's will be empty and new, and I should be able to install XP on one with no problems, but is there anything else I need to do to my computer? Reset the BIOS or anything like that? Any help would be fantastic, many thanks again.
 
A best way??? The only thing to do is boot to the install cd while only 1 drive is attached and install windows to that drive. Then attach the other one, partition it and format it.
 
I know this got resolved, but I still wanted to add something here. I had a similar issue running Vista. I had a secondary drive installed that I had some backed up files stored on. I was getting ready to re-install Windows due to some issues with a game, and wanted to re-backup My Documents. I basically did the same thing, formatting the secondary drive from within Windows and upon a reboot got the same error. I ended up getting everything backed-up and got the reinstall done in the long run, but I think I figured out what happened. Apparently XP and up OS's create the boot.ini file mentioned on all drives installed during the initial Windows install, or when a drive is installed and the system is booted the first time with the new hardware. If you format any of the drives while running Windows, it deletes the boot.ini from said drive. When you reboot, Windows thinks that the boot.ini file is screwed up and throws you an error. For some reason, it won't automatically pick up the freshly formatted drive as a new one (I guess since it was previously installed) and hence, will not recopy the boot.ini file. The only way I could figure out to fix was what the OP did and conduct a fresh install. Luckily Vista moves any existing "Program Files" and "My Document's" files to a folder called Windows.old as long as you don't do a clean install (meaning you don't format the drive during the install) or else I would have been hosed.

Anyways, there's my two cents.
 
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johnb35 said:
The problem is because you set it as primary. You need to go back in and delete the partition and then just partition it and assign it a drive letter and thats it. Go into the bios and make sure that the correct drive is set to boot, this is another possibility.
Click to expand...

very very false info. All 5 of my hard drives are set to primary. Be sure the one you installed isnt listed before the one that has the OS in bios.

If new one is booted off first before the OS one well youll get error saying so.


Windows xp if you boot off the disc to the point of reinstalling, they have a repair section that it will go through and repair anything, if the hard drive truly is corrupt.

http://www.webtree.ca/windowsxp/repair_xp.htm
 
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