I have a Quantum Fireball cx HDD with xp on it, that will not boot up properly, it will get to the xp boot screen then i get a bsod saying that windows has shutdown to avoid damaging the pc, i tried to use recovery console to fix it, no luck there, i can't do a repair install either cause my xp cd cannot detect the os on the drive properly. So i tried slaving the drive to a samsung drive to get the data off it and it will not let me. The drives are detected properly in the bios yet when i boot up it says error loading operating system. The os on the samsung drive is good, so obviosly the crap drive is causing a problem. I just want to get my data off the old drive, what can i do?? Thank you. btw, the only jumper options i have on my quantum drive are master, cable select and park....what the heck is park?

I think park is just a couple of blank pins on which to park a jumper but doesnt make any connections. It saves putting a spare jumper in an envelope or on the mantelpiece and thus losing it.

So i tried slaving the drive to a samsung drive to get the data off it and it will not let me. The drives are detected properly in the bios yet when i boot up it says error loading operating system.
That sounds like it is trying to boot from the problem drive and not the samsung - especially since detection in the bios has been achieved. Can you tell from the BIOS which is master and which is detected as slave maybe??

Yes, in the BIOS the samsung is master and the quantum is slave, i even treid an array of jumper configurations to see if something else would work....nothing has. And if it were trying to boot from the quantum drive would it not still boot up to the boot screen like it does anyways? Tahnks for the explanation on park.

This thread (http://www.experts-exchange.com/Hardware/Q_21074124.html) from EE is not directly related but does how how installing new hardware can screw with the mbr and would indicate that running fixmbr or fdisk /mbr (depending on the samsung's operating system) might be worth a shot.

That was the first thread I got from a Google Search (http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&q=error+loading+operating+system+slave&btnG=Search)

I had already tried running those commands through the recovery console to no avail. I have also tried slaving this drive to another HDD and it is detecting properly as the slave, but the system tries booting from ther slave instead of the detected master. It will boot to the splash screen then i get the usual bsod i was getting before.

So you have a problem drive that when slaved to two different drives seems to want to behave as the master!! ??

Just to exclude some basics - are you connecting the slave drive to the middle or the end of the cable? Is HDD-0 chosen as the boot hard drive in the BIOS? Are you absolutely sure that the cables, their connections and the hdd jumpers are correct. If all of that is hunky dory then I would try the HDD maker's diagnostic utility on the drive from a floppy created by that utility. If you have 80-wire cables you could also try setting all jumpers to cable select.

All you basics have been covered. Everything is set up correctly, i know how to properly set drives up for master and slave so the right drives are on the right part of the cables, as well the jumper settings are correct. BIOS settings are correct too. I have also ran the manufacturer diag utility. Any more suggestions?

What I do when slaving a drive is not to slave it. I make it the master on the secondary IDE channel. Unless your cables are real tight and won' reach:

Get an anti-static bag and place it on top of your cd drive

Remove the power and ribbon cable from the cd-rom and attach them to the hard drive.

Boot the system. There is no way it should boot from the secondary master if the primary master is bootable.

See if you can copy off of the data to the new drive. If you can't you will have two choices:

Get Data Back (http://www.runtime.org/)

or

Professional Data Recovery Service (http://www.drivesavers.com/)

If you choose to use Drive Savers, it is very expensive, I am a dealer. If I refer you, you will get a 10% discount and I will donate my 10% commission to the PC Guide Forums.

or

Give up getting the data back

You know, i didn't even think to put it on the other ide channel. I will give that a try and let you know how it worked. Thanks fo the help!

Longshot - boot sector virus infecting the other drive?