BleepingComputer.com: Windows wont boot with HD in

Hey guys i shut my computer off and went to the store and came back and it wouldn't boot up! for some odd reason i had a feeling it was my secondary HD that was causing it. I took it out and it booted up fine! I have tried several times hooking it back up and it will not boot with the HD hooked up. It gets to the windows loading screen and i get a black screen after that and nothing. I let it sit for like an hour on that black screen and nothing happened. I Really need this HD. It has pictures, music, and movies all the way back from 2004. The only thing i care about is my HD. Do you guys think it might be done for? When i enter bios i see a bunch of numbers on SATA 2 and when its not connected i don't see those. My 300gb is always set as the master and for some reason right below that, the slave is empty but a little further down it shows SATA 1,2,3,4 and i plugged my HD into both 1 and 2 and it shows the numbers down their, i am guessing those are a serial number to the HD or something. When i enter it, it shows that it's an 80GB which is right.

his is like the most important thing in the world to me right now. I have a movie/slideshow that i have like 6 hours into that i have not rendered out yet. Funny thing is, i just got home with dvd-r's to render it and burn!! well i guess it's not funny really. I am so worried. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
I have a custom built computer with the following if it helps:
Windows XP SP3
Asus P5nsli Motherboard
2.80 Pentium D. CPU
2GB of RAM
Dual 256MB NVIDIA Geforce 7600 GS (Total of 512MB Combined)
DVD-ROM Drive
DVD Burner with Lightscribe
300GB Hard Drive
Linksys Wireless G Adapter

I will really appreciate any help guys!
Jeff

when you plug the drive in and you see all the numbers, would you mind writing them down and posting them, because if they are meaningful numbers it means that it is detecting properly, and if they arent it can be a sure sign that the hdd is dead. Also what is the secondary drive (i.e 320gb sata 2 western digital etc)

You could run a manufacturer's diagnostic on the drive, Hard Drive Installation and Diagnostic Tools - http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/forums/topic28744.html

You could also check Event Viewer for any errors citing Disk0, Disk1, etc., which might provide some clues.

How To Use Event Viewer - http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/forums/topic40108.html

My experience is that XP may not boot if a problem drive is attached/connected to the motherboard.

Louis

I might have to have someone fix it. I am not good at fixing problems. The weird thing is, it boots and runs fine without the HD connected but wont boot with it connected. This happened out of nowhere when i got home from the store.
Jeff

One common possibility is a bad data cable. Sometimes the SATA data cables will just decide that they don't want to work anymore. This could be causing the problem. But, unfortunately, if the computer will not boot when the other HD is connected then you are more than likely looking at a bad HD.

Thanks for the replies. Sorry it took so long to reply.
The code that shows up in BIOS on Sata 4 is ST380013AS
When i go into that it shows that it's an 80gb HD.
I cannot do any diagnostic testing as my computer wont boot with it connected.
It's a:
Barracuda 7200.2 80GB HD

This post has been edited by jgeck90: 16 March 2009 - 03:21 AM

A wild thought here when the cables were mentioned.
Do you have an extra cables inside the case that aren't hooked to anything?
I had the something similar happen to my other custom made system.
Spent hours trying to figure out why it wouldn't boot up.
Turned out the problem wasn't related to the slave drive, but the primary drive.
Ended up taking it to my tech, all he did was take out the 4 pin that was connected to the drive, connect one that was in the case not hooked up to anything else, and bingo the computer started working again.
Might not be the solution that works for you, but at this point you may be willing to hang upside down from a ceiling fan as it spins around on high if that would work. Hook one up, if you have it, to the drive and see if it works.

This post has been edited by Queen-Evie: 16 March 2009 - 03:46 AM

The diagnostic tool is burned as a bootable CD, you boot from the CD rather that the operating system. I would either disable the hdd that you have the operating system on or disconnect so that the other hdd is the only one seen.

queen- I will try that thanks.

dc3- Where can i get one of these discs? So i just un-hook my primary HD and have the slave plugged in? and have the disc in and boot?

Contact the manufacturer of the computer, they will usually sell you one for a small fee, or give it to you. If this hdd is connected with a IDE cable then you will want to set the jumper on the rear to master and place the hdd at the end of the cable in the master location. To boot from the CD you may have to enter the BIOS and change the boot order so that the CD-ROM is the first device seen in the boot order. To boot from the CD you place it in the CD and reboot.

This post has been edited by dc3: 16 March 2009 - 04:17 AM

http://www.seagate.com/www/en-us/support/downloads/seatools/

Diagnositic tools for Seagate which you can download, burn to a cd, and use to check the drive.

I had too many open pages at the time, what I should have said is that you download the diagnostic tool from the web sight and burn it to a CD. They usually have instructions at these sites to help make this disk.