Clear DayHey,

I'm trying to help get my brother's WinME 1Ghz Athlon machine to boot to normal mode, which it will do with the
help of a (powermax?) boot disk program he downloaded from Maxtor. However, even then, few things work properly, if
at all.

Suspecting his registry was severely corrupted, I had him swap his data and power cables from his current 80GB hdd
to his original 40GB hdd (which is in the bay, but not used or connected). We ensured the jumper on the 40GB was
set to master.

I had thought the 40GB would boot right up, as it was working fine before the 80GB install, but that wasn't the
case. Instead, we got a 'boot disk failure: insert system disk' error. Hoping to preserve the 40GB without
confounding the problem, I had him reconnect the 80GB, and upon boot up we got the same error.

During POST we get a single beep, followed by a "No array defined...press esc to continue" error message.
There appears to be a problem with a RAID controller as well ( Not present or not working, according to device
manager).
Just when it looks like he's at his desktop, it locks up.

I don't know what he's done, but I know he messes around with it a lot trying to learn. However, he's not PC savvy
and I don't know what questions to ask him. This is all being done over the phone, long distance.

I hope to fdisk, partition and format the 40GB, set it as master, then save what I can from his 80GB before
formatting it. However, the "Boot disk failure" message has me doubting the 40GB will not freeze up. Any
suggestions on how to proceed?
I can get him to safe mode on either hdd.

I know this is vague, as I know very little about his machine, but I could really use some experienced help. I will
provide as much detail as I can. Thanks in advance & feel free to contact me off-list if you're interested in
helping.

Al Thompson

                         PCBUILD's List Owners:
                      Bob Wright<[log in to unmask]>
                       Drew Dunn<[log in to unmask]>