A good place to start with diagnosing hard drive problems is to download and
create the boot disks with utilities available from each of your drives'
manufacturers.  You should be able to run the diagnostics on the drive that
you were trying to install the OS to, since this drive apparently is seen by
your BIOS.

I wasn't sure if the other drive is recognized in the BIOS anymore (what
originally was your OS drive).  If the BIOS does still see it, you can run
that manufacturer's diagnostics on it, too.  (Usually, if the drive isn't
detected correctly in the BIOS, there's not much that the diagnostic
software can do.  It won't see the drive either.)

John Sproule

----- Abbreviated Original Message -----
From: "Justin" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Monday, September 19, 2005 10:18 PM
Subject: [PCBUILD] did both hard drives die?


>I have a Shuttle computer with (2) 250 gig hard drives (1 western dig and 1
>maxtor) and a DVD so it is kind of cramped.  I have had everything for like
>2 years.
>
> One time I shut off my computer when everything was running fine. The next
> day, I go to boot it up, and bios starts off fine, detecting everything.
> Right before the Windows XP screen should pop up, the computer just sits
> there.
>
> I use a boot disk. Drive C:\ is my second hard drive. My first hard drive
> (with the OS) doesnt show up anywhere.
>
> I try to repair windows on the first hard drive. No luck. Format the hard
> drive and reinstall windows. It loads the install files to the hard drive,
> goes to restart to run the install, and says Disk Read Error.
>
> I think maybe the hard drive is bad, so I take out the "bad" hard drive
> and put the second one in its place, correctly switching the jumpers and
> cables. Now I have the same problem, except after I formated and tried to
> install windows, I got the problem "Error Loading Operating System", or
> something along those lines.
>
> I tried formating each hard drive and reinstalling again, with no results.
> I also tried another hard drive cable, one that I know works. I even tried
> another power cable from the power supply that I know worked (taken from
> my working DVD drive). Both hard drives make noise (a normal one too).
>
> Maybe both hard drives overheated? Or is it my mobo or something?

                  Visit our website regularly for FAQs,
               articles, how-to's, tech tips and much more
                          http://freepctech.com