Boy, where to begin on this one! I apologize for its length but I don't how else to let you know what has happened.:(

purchased used Alienware Area 51 puter
P4 HT
1 G ram

2 sata hdd both show XP professional (Seagate drives)
AV: Nod 32
AntiSPY: Spybot S&D, spywaredoctor
Firewall: ZA

First, when hubbie first got this machine, the sata drive that is volumn c: shows that it has the boot.ini and the other sata drive that is volumn D: has the system files. I am not sure how it got that way.

Everything has been running just peachy, the beast (what I call it) had a new Nvidia card, I believe a 7800 GS agp adapter installed and hubbie was able to play Crysis in high resolution. Had absolutely no problems with the puter, been running for 2 months now.

Tonight he decided to upgrade the Nvidia drivers and downloaded and installed a forceware firmware update.

When he did that the puter went nuts.

When it was rebooted, it went into a blue screen with chkdsk running and this message: One of your disks needs to be checked for consistency
and I believe it was showing c:, and although it would complete and show no errors it continued this message on every reboot and I also started seeing this after the chkdsk message and hitting the space bar to stop the chkdsk and getting to the desktop:
Sdtrayapp:SDtrayApp.exe application error

I found out that the Sdtray error was related to spywaredoctor. I uninstalled spywaredoctor which prompted a bunch of error messages but eventually was able to get rid of it. That solved the Sdtray errors but I still had issues with the chkdsk on bootup.

I then went to safe mode and 'run' 'cmd' and typed in: chkdsk c: /r/x for it to try to repair but it would not run so then I ran chkdsk on the d: and had to let it run on a reboot. It went through 5 phases and rebooted and then it listed files that it was deleting and repairing. After that, it went onto loading personal preferences and I was at the desktop. I thought that it was fixed, so I restarted to see what would happen. When it rebooted, got a black screen with "disc read error, use ctrl, alt, del"

I tried booting into safe mode and it hangs, I waited 20 mins. and nothing, stuck. Then I hit F8 and elected the OS choice and picked the 2nd XP as I knew this was the volumn c:, but it just got stuck on the Windows loading screen, then I hit F8 again and then was able to get into safe mode. I went to control panel, right clicked on C: and properties, tools and told it to run chkdsk on reboot.

When I rebooted, chkdsk started and it basically said this:
file record segment 4 unreadable on hdd but it has done this with the whole drive and it is up to 97000.

So, what has happened? All this because of the firmware update and spywaredoctor?

I am thinking I am going to have to reformat both drives as the boot.ini was on the C: . We are not using raid so what do you think has happened, hdd failure? Please advise on what I should do and if I reformat do I want to have the bootini on one drive and the OS on the other?:confused: :( :confused:

Ok, update:

It just finished running the chkdsk and now I am seeing the desktop?????

In control panel, there is only 1 hdd showing and it is the volumn D: :eek:

I restarted the puter and went into the bios, it shows 2 hdds, checked the event log and it showed Cmos checksum error.

Got out of the bios and it booted and had the chkdsk bluescreen again, I stopped it by hitting the space bar and it went right to the desktop. Everything seems to be ok on this drive all the doc files are there..and I was able to connect to the internet and check the email.

How strange is this!

Firstly. A partition containing boot.ini, ntldr, etc is where booting takes place from and is known (in MS parlance) as the system partition. The BIOS boot order and the active partition should have directed the initial bootstrap code to this system partition as the first part of the (on HDD) boot process.

Secondly. A partition containing the Windows (or WinNT), Program Files, etc folders is where booting takes place to and is known as the boot partition and is where boot.ini and its companions ntldr and ntdetect.com have directed the bootstrap code to load the OS from.

Thirdly. The system and boot partitions may be one and the same or be different partitions and may be on the same or different hard drives. In multiboot systems there may well be more than one potential system and/or boot partitions.

Fourthly. Using drive letters to describe which partition is which (especially with all versions of Windows) is bad practice as there are all sorts of inconsistencies particularly when there are mulitple partitions and drives on a system. Suggest they are described as 0,1 or 1,3 (as two examples) for the first primary partition on the first HDD and the third primary partition on the second HDD respectively. This is the same as with GRUB under Linux; logical partitions should begin at number 5 regardless of where the extended partition itself is placed.

Right Click MyComputer and choose Manage to get to Computer Management where both Disk Management and the Event Viewer have information pertinent to your problems.

Use DiskManagement to view and describe which partition and drive is which. The system partition (and boot partition if it is different) will be shown and which partition has which drive letter.

Chkdsk would appear to have fixed things for the time being at least but if it starts to run automatically again or there are other signs of file system corruption appear then I would check all HDD cables and connections carefully, consider whether the PSU is effective and run the maker's HDD diagnostics on the drives.

Use System Tools > Event Viewer > Application > WinLogon entries to see the results of the chkdsk scans.

CMOS checksum errors might suggest that you reset the CMOS by jumper or by removing the battery - etc etc - and consider making sure it is a good and not a run down battery.

How to create a Windows NT 4.0, 2000, XP or Server 2003 boot floppy disk (http://www.nu2.nu/bootdisk/ntboot/).

[I always] Keep one of these handy [assuming the PC has a FDD].
If Windows won't boot...
And if [you assume/guess] it is due to some problem with the system files on the system partition...
You boot using the floppy to substitute for the HDD boot partition and boot files...
You are then presented with a list of possible choices: 2 physical HDD's, each with 4 partitions [as listed in the floppy's boot.ini file]...
You choose to attempt to boot the appropriate HDD and partition [the one holding the Windows files]...
If that succeeds, you know there is a problem with the HDD's system partition system files.
To attempt to fix that problem, you might replace the HDD's system partition boot files with the copies on the floppy.
Except you might then edit the boot.ini file to avoid having to make choices from among the long list of drives/partitions.

One time I tried that and it didn't work, so I knew right away that the problem was more fundamental.
I think I then restored the MBR.
One time that didn't work [the drive needed to be partitioned & formatted whilst on its working controller] and I had to go even more fundamental.
Repartitioned the HDD whilst it was connected to my PCI to IDE controller card. [This was the key in my case]
Then restored recent images of the partitions. [These are invaluable!]
All was back up and running in less than an hour. :)

The key items were...
The boot floppy.
Image backups.
A means to restore the MBR. [The "Emergency Boot CD" in my case]
The means to repartition and reformat.

These boot-up floppies certainly have there uses but possibly not relevant to this thread where booting, as such, has always occurred - even with an automatic (usually cancellable) chkdsk. They also would not obviate the chkdsk running from its blue screen prompt.

"where booting, as such, has always occurred"
If things had got past the boot files stage and Windows was beginning to load [chkdsk running etc] and then failing...
Restoring a good working recent image of the Windows partition should restore a working system I'd expect.

Would it be possible for Gracious to make an image of her boot partition and restore it to the 1st [active] partition on her 1st physical HDD?
Then add the [suitable] boot files to that partition?
So as to make the system and boot partitions one and the same?

Would it be possible for Gracious to make an image of her boot partition and restore it to the 1st [active] partition on her 1st physical HDD?
There are a number of possibilities but we have no idea of the geometry, partition layout and so forth of these two hard drives. Until that is clear I wouldn't suggest changing the partitioning at all. The info could be copied and pasted within an NT based OS from the unzipped Symantec's PartInNT.zip (ftp://ftp.symantec.com/public/english_us_canada/tools/pq/utilities/PartInNT.zip)

I booted the beast up this am and the black screen with the "Disc Read Error, use ctrl,alt,del" showed up. After ctrl,alt,del, it rebooted and went right away to the chkdsk which I stopped. It then went to the desktop. I went to control panel and the C: drive was back again. I dbl clicked on it and I was able to see files. So you don't think this has anything to do with the firmware update?

Earlier this morning say around 1am :eek: I did do "run" "diskmgmt.msc" and it just showed D: and said it was healthy and also showed the zip drive.

I just checked it again and it shows the following:

Disk 1
Basic
111.78 GB
online
C:
111.78 GB NTFS
Healthy (System)

Disk 2
Basic
111.78 GB
online
D:
111.78 GB NTFS
Healthy (Boot)

Hubbie just told me that right before everthing went nuts, he said spywaredoctor picked something up and then it went haywire.

I ran the system event log and it was very long.

Do you want me to post it?

Not saying there is no malware on the system but it is unusual to have two identical hard drives used in this way with just the boot files on HDD 0,1(=C) and Windows on 1,1(=D).

Could you post the contents of C:\boot.ini and also say whether or not there is also a D:\boot.ini. (NB make sure system files are not hidden when you do this).

Could you also indicate whether there is a Windows folder on both C: as well as on D: or only on the D: drive and also what all the space on C: is being used for.

The possibility that these two SATA drives were mirrored in a RAID-1 array at some point is not beyond the realms of possibility.

If one whole drive is sometimes appearing and sometimes not I would do three things. (1) Double-check the SATA cables and replace maybe. (2) Rethink the PSU's capability. (3) Check the drives with the maker's diagnostics.

A firmware update shouldn't produce such inconsistent on and off effects. It looks as if there are times when one or both drives are not being accessed properly for file i/o and that when this is bad that file system corruption ensues.

I ran the system event log and it was very long.How long is long. Maybe paste it into a text file and upload it as a file.

Hey Paul and Syl, thank you so much for posting. I will check those things out and post back. I don't know if the drives were ever in RAID mode as in the bios, RAID is disabled. I was not there to see the first initialization of this puter when Hubbie got it so I cannot tell you what was done...I do know that somehow he is running as Administrator and not as an actual user. It has been strange from the get go but because it had been working ok, I didn't press the issue.

He was playing Crysis for about 3 hours with no glitches or errors or anything until he tried to install the Forceware update. So, do you think if I ran Seagates Hdd diagnostics it would tell me something?

The event log is something like 330595, way more than the allowed 10000.

I could save it as a file and upload it. I will try that.

Why am I able to see the files on both disks but get a read error when I boot?

Do you think I might have some dirty flag issues with regards to the chkdsk?

Now, if I decided to say "screw it" and reformat, do I want to use RAID? Could you explain why people use it? If I decide not to use it, can I just take one hdd and reformat it, load winxp......then reformat the 2nd drive and use it as a storage device and put everything else on it that is not part of the system files?

What would you recommend.

Thank you again!!!

I dont think we need the whole event log. Just the individual winlogons from event viewer that pertain to any chkdsk logs.

When chkdsk keeps wanting to run at startup then it means that the dirty bit was set or reset at the last close-down. Running chkdisk with the /F flag normally clears things up unless some rogue element remains active. The /R flag is like /F plus it does a surface scan of areas with no data.

People use RAID with two hard drives for performance (data less safe than normal) or mirroring (data more safe than normal and can avoid any downtime if one HDD goes down). It's up to you whether to go that route but I was merely musing as to whether it had at some stage been invoked because the way your system and boot drives are separated on two large partitions of the same size and format. Duplication of boot.ini might be a give away.

HDD 0,1 (C) has a boot.ini file, when I tried to access it, it just opened up into view log. It also has the Windows file. When I try to access the System 32 file, puter locks up. In "programs" it looks very similar to the 1,1 (D) drive.
1,1 (D) does not have the boot.ini file but does have the Windows file. This drive is where most of the non system applications have been store, ie: games, office software.....

Upon different boot ups, sometimes I get the Disk Read Error and chkdsk for the 0,1 (C) and other times it boots right up to the boot.ini screen and then to chkdsk 0,1 (C). Sometimes in My Computer the C: is there and other times it is not. It almost looks like the drives have been mirrored somehow doesn't it?

I ran the Seagate hdd diagnostics and both drives passed these tests:
Short Generic
Short DST
Long DST
One drive however failed on the Long Generic test which I am thinking is the 0,1 (C) drive. I don't know why it would pass on the Long DST test and not on the Long Generic Test.

I tried running the Seagate Dos tool, burn their ISO image to disk and rebooted. Started to run the Long DST test and it stalled and crashed, only got to 1%

For the 0,1 (C) boot.ini log it shows this:

[boot loader]
timeout=0
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(1)\WINDOW S
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /fastdetect /NoExecute=OptIn
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /fastdetect

I don't know, maybe I am not acessing it correctly. Please tell me the correct way to get to C:\boot.ini

Here is the beginning of the System Error Log:

2008-02-02 11:04 Service Control Manager Information None 7036 N/A MARC The Network Location Awareness (NLA) service entered the running state.
2008-02-02 11:04 Service Control Manager Information None 7035 NT AUTHORITY\SYSTEM MARC The SSDP Discovery Service service was successfully sent a start control.
2008-02-02 11:04 Service Control Manager Information None 7035 NT AUTHORITY\SYSTEM MARC The Network Location Awareness (NLA) service was successfully sent a start control.
2008-02-02 11:04 Service Control Manager Information None 7036 N/A MARC The Terminal Services service entered the running state.
2008-02-02 11:04 Service Control Manager Information None 7035 NT AUTHORITY\SYSTEM MARC The Remote Access Connection Manager service was successfully sent a start control.
2008-02-02 11:04 Service Control Manager Information None 7036 N/A MARC The Telephony service entered the running state.
2008-02-02 11:04 Service Control Manager Error None 7026 N/A MARC The following boot-start or system-start driver(s) failed to load:
SYMTDI
2008-02-02 11:04 Service Control Manager Information None 7035 NT AUTHORITY\SYSTEM MARC The Terminal Services service was successfully sent a start control.
2008-02-02 11:04 Service Control Manager Error None 7000 N/A MARC The Intel(R) Active Monitor service failed to start due to the following error:
The system cannot find the file specified.
2008-02-02 11:04 Service Control Manager Error None 7000 N/A MARC The SAVRTPEL service failed to start due to the following error:
The system cannot find the file specified.
2008-02-02 11:04 Disk Error None 11 N/A MARC The driver detected a controller error on \Device\Harddisk1\D.
2008-02-02 11:04 Disk Error None 11 N/A MARC The driver detected a controller error on \Device\Harddisk1\D.
2008-02-02 11:04 DCOM Error None 10005 MARC\Administrator MARC "DCOM got error ""The service database is locked. "" attempting to start the service netman with arguments """" in order to run the server:
{BA126AE5-2166-11D1-B1D0-00805FC1270E}"
2008-02-02 11:04 DCOM Error None 10005 NT AUTHORITY\SYSTEM MARC "DCOM got error ""The service database is locked. "" attempting to start the service winmgmt with arguments """" in order to run the server:
{8BC3F05E-D86B-11D0-A075-00C04FB68820}"
2008-02-02 11:04 Disk Error None 11 N/A MARC The driver detected a controller error on \Device\Harddisk1\D.
2008-02-02 11:04 Disk Error None 11 N/A MARC The driver detected a controller error on \Device\Harddisk1\D.
2008-02-02 11:04 Disk Error None 11 N/A MARC The driver detected a controller error on \Device\Harddisk1\D.
2008-02-02 11:04 atapi Error None 5 N/A MARC A parity error was detected on \Device\Ide\IdePort2.
2008-02-02 11:04 Disk Error None 11 N/A MARC The driver detected a controller error on \Device\Harddisk1\D.
2008-02-02 11:04 Disk Error None 11 N/A MARC The driver detected a controller error on \Device\Harddisk1\D.
2008-02-02 11:04 Disk Error None 11 N/A MARC The driver detected a controller error on \Device\Harddisk1\D.
2008-02-02 11:04 Disk Error None 11 N/A MARC The driver detected a controller error on \Device\Harddisk1\D.
2008-02-02 11:03 Ntfs Error Disk 55 N/A MARC The file system structure on the disk is corrupt and unusable. Please run the chkdsk utility on the volume C:.
2008-02-02 11:03 Disk Error None 11 N/A MARC The driver detected a controller error on \Device\Harddisk1\D.
2008-02-02 11:03 Ntfs Error Disk 55 N/A MARC The file system structure on the disk is corrupt and unusable. Please run the chkdsk utility on the volume C:.
2008-02-02 11:04 EventLog Information None 6005 N/A MARC The Event log service was started.
2008-02-02 11:04 EventLog Information None 6009 N/A MARC Microsoft (R) Windows (R) 5.01. 2600 Service Pack 2 Multiprocessor Free.
2008-02-02 10:25 EventLog Information None 6006 N/A MARC The Event log service was stopped.
2008-02-02 10:17 Service Control Manager Information None 7036 N/A MARC The Application Layer Gateway Service service entered the running state.
2008-02-02 10:17 Service Control Manager Information None 7035 NT AUTHORITY\SYSTEM MARC The Application Layer Gateway Service service was successfully sent a start control.
2008-02-02 10:17 Service Control Manager Information None 7036 N/A MARC The Remote Access Connection Manager service entered the running state.
2008-02-02 10:17 Service Control Manager Information None 7035 NT AUTHORITY\SYSTEM MARC The Network Location Awareness (NLA) service was successfully sent a start control.
2008-02-02 10:17 Service Control Manager Information None 7036 N/A MARC The Network Location Awareness (NLA) service entered the running state.
2008-02-02 10:17 Service Control Manager Information None 7035 NT AUTHORITY\SYSTEM MARC The Remote Access Connection Manager service was successfully sent a start control.
2008-02-02 10:17 Service Control Manager Information None 7036 N/A MARC The Terminal Services service entered the running state.
2008-02-02 10:17 Service Control Manager Information None 7036 N/A MARC The Telephony service entered the running state.
2008-02-02 10:17 DCOM Error None 10005 MARC\Administrator MARC "DCOM got error ""The service database is locked. "" attempting to start the service netman with arguments """" in order to run the server:

don't know, maybe I am not acessing it correctly. Please tell me the correct way to get to C:\boot.iniI think you are doing just fine.

What you actually appear to have is a dual boot of Windows and Windows on two hard drives shown by the rdisk values of the two lines in the boot.ini which is only found on 0,1 - I think we can forget about RAID though someone may have backed-up one windows onto the second drive. There are either two totally different installations or they were at one point in time the same installation done twice.

Suggest that you copy ntldr, ntdetect.com and boot.ini from partition 0,1 to 1,1 so that you can independently boot from either drive. Also check in disk management that 1,1 is a primary partition marked as Healthy (active).

NB that if you choose a different boot option to boot to windows on the second as opposed to the first partition that the system partition will change in disk management and that even the Drive letters may be differently allocated - hence the value of 0,1 versus C as a description.

If the three files have been copied across you can maybe try disconnecting one drive and accessing its windows installation; only one of the lines of boot.ini menu will work. Then see if that windows installation is stable or not. Then repeat the process with only the other drive attached and see if that one is stable or not.

That is the best way I can think of for now of helping to hone down on troubleshooting just where the problem lies. It can get very confusing when one is dealing with a dual boot and with two very similar setups.

It can get very confusing when one is dealing with a dual boot and with two very similar setups.

Ain't that the truth! Well, the system has really gone down hill, now when I get to the desktop, it crashes. I am wondering if the 0,1 drive is dying.

I was just going to ask you about copying the boot.ini over to the other drive.

Also, I don't understand, under disk management as shown in previous post, it shows the 0,1 (C) as the system and the 1,1 (D) as the boot, but I was only able to find the boot.ini on 0,1 (C), what does that mean?

Ok, will try to swap out the boot.ini......
Thank you Paul so much!!:)

Paul, I went into C:\WINDOWS\pss and saw that there were boot.ini.bak, is that the one that I want to copy over?

Out of curiosity, I went to D:\WINDOWS\pss and there was a boot.ini.bak file in there as well and also in D:\WINDOWS\servicepack I saw the NTDL and the NTDECT.COM files, I am so confused!!

In the bios, for boot options, it only lists 1 HDD, I have no idea which one it is.

The only relevant trio of boot files are:
boot.ini
ntldr
ntdetect.com

Only the ones in the root of the C or D drive (not inside any other folders) should be used - at least for starters.

If you prefer you can copy them using the command prompt:
copy C:\boot.ini D:\boot.ini
copy C:\ntldr D:\ntldr
copy C:\ntdetect.com D:\ntdetect.com

I should also have added that it may be necessary to reinstate the partition boot sector on the current D: drive. This is done from the recovery console of the windows installation CD by running fixboot once you only have one drive in the computer or by specifying the correct drive letter ( eg fixboot C: ) if there is more than one possible partition.

Only just saw:
in the bios, for boot options, it only lists 1 HDD, I have no idea which one it is.Does it list both drives as being detected. Usually there is a way of choosing to boot one or the other if both are detected but perhaps part of your problem is an inconsistent recognition of one of your drives.

This is a recurring problem with two identically sized partitions and can be helped either by resizing one of them or by giving them both different labels.

but I was only able to find the boot.ini on 0,1 (C), what does that mean?It means you must be booting from that drive but depending on which of the two lines you choose you would be booting to the windows on 0,1 or the one on 1,1. Either one would be kicked into action by the same boot.ini file.

Paul, sorry it has taken me so long to post. I have been working on a friends puter that had been attacked by keyloggers. Anyway, I goofed up on the beast. I was trying to do a repair to correct boot problems of XP on 0,1 and actually reinstalled as if from the beginning and it wrote over the entire drive so now my 1,1 drive is not even being seen in my computer nor in disk management but it seen in the bios. So, I am going to take out the 0,1 (C) drive out and reboot and see what happens. The XP disk is an Alienware disk and I don't remember it giving me an option to repair,?, any ideas on that?
Thank you sweetie!:p

so now my 1,1 drive is not even being seen in my computer nor in disk management but it is seen in the biosIf its seen in the BIOS then it should also be seen in disk management unless there is something like a loose connection or a failed PCB. Possibly this drive is the source of the problems. Double check that both its power and data cables are tight (a common problem with SATAs). I think the only way to be sure of what is what is to remove one drive and work with the other one. Perhaps what you think is 0,1 is in fact 1,1 because the enumeration in the BIOS and in Disk Management do not necessarily coincide.

If you can get one drive working flawlessly then consider adding the other one back in. Are you still getting a dual boot menu?

It does not give me the option of OS to run. If I take the drive out that I think is , (C) do you think that the one that I think is 1,1 (D) will boot? I will give it a try. Still working on this other system.

Thank you Paul!

If boot.ini gives you no option then there is either only one option for it to perform or else it has no timeout value.

It's still hard to be sure what is what since you have one drive with patchy recognition and it is still not clear which partition is which. It might even help you to resize one partition down (say by 10 or 20 GB) using BiNG (in my sig) so that you can definitely tell the two partitions apart.

The boot floppy linked in post #4 above supplies its own boot files and allows you [because of the settings in its boot.ini file] to choose which physical drive and partition to attempt to load the Windows files from [rdisk 0 or 1, partition 1 or 2].

to choose which physical drive and partition to attempt to loadI just wish that I knew which disk was which and unless resized or renamed there is going to be no easy way to tell them apart (without digging out their disk signatures using a hex editor) if both are recognised simultaneously in the BIOS setup.

To just further indicate the complexities of this area it is worth noting that whatever boot order the BIOS decides is usually mirrored under Win2K but reversed under WinXP - but neither of them are constants.

The boot floppy would have its uses if there is a total boot failure (with ntldr or hal.dll is missing etc) when only one drive is in the system but I have steered away from it in the hope of keeping things as simple as possible.

Ok, I will try to work on the beast but it probably be tomorrow. I did unplug the drives and then plugged one in at Sata 0 and it booted fine, this hdd is the one that had the reinstall of XP, I then unplugged it and plugged the other one on Sata 0, and it got to the Alienware boot screen and did not budge, hit restart and went into the bios and it is recognized and rebooted and rec'd the Disk Read Error, ctrl, alt,del. Then I hooked up the other hdd onto Sata 1 and rebooted and what was loaded was the drive that the XP reinstall.

Ok, what should I do now?:p

At this stage it looks as if the one with the reinstall is OK but that there are ongoing problems with the one with the Alienware boot screen.

I would suggest you wipe this second hard drive (having backed up anything of value) and reinstall or restore the OS to it if you want to have a dual boot system. If not just keep it for storage and maybe keep the pagefile on it for a small performance gain.

Why all the problems stared after a firmware upgrade and only affected one installation may never be known. It looks as if this (maybe in conjucntion with spyware on that system) somehow cased a corrupted file system (notwithstanding that you got some HDD errors with a long test on the other hard drive).

You could of course just run with one HDD for a while to ensure that things are commpletely stable on that system before making any other commitments for now. An alternative if you have RAID capability would be to deliberately create two mirrors and then if one goes down the other should continue working till a replacement is obtained and the mirror rebuilt.

I would suggest you wipe this second hard drive (having backed up anything of value) and reinstall or restore the OS to it if you want to have a dual boot system. If not just keep it for storage and maybe keep the pagefile on it for a small performance gain.


Well at this point, what I would like to do is to just have one hdd with the OS and the hdd to put everything else on it so that if I have to go through this again, the non OS hdd will have the drivers, games, office programs on it and it .....but being that this drive can't be seen, how do I get the stuff off of it before I reformat it? I do have an external enclosure but it is for IDE drives and I don't know if they make one for SATA's.

and plugged the other one on Sata 0, and it got to the Alienware boot screen and did not budge, hit restart and went into the bios and it is recognized and rebooted and rec'd the Disk Read Error, ctrl, alt,del.
The above quote indicates that the drive should be visible in some way within the system and there is no reason to suppose it would work in an enclosure if it cannot be got to be recognised within the PC - and even though you can get either a USB to SATA enclosure or a USB to SATA converter (http://www.addonics.com/products/io/adsau2.asp).

I would try once more to attach both drives and boot to whichever one was bootable when it was there on its own. Check the BIOS that both drives are detected there and then check disk management to see if there is just one or if there are two disks visible there. It doesn't seem logical that both drives can be accessed (even if not properly started up or booted to) individually but not when they are both in the system together unless there is something like a PSU problem with delivering adequate power with both in the system at once.

If a drive is visible in the BIOS and not in disk management it is (unless proven to the contrary or else is part of a RAID array) a dead drive. This could be confirmed by trying it in another system or by attempting to access it with its maker's diagnostics.

Well after all of that, I have to say that the other drive is indeed dead as I cannot get it to even read in the bios now, ***sigh***, so I guess it is time to get the other one up to speed. I do have another drive that has all of the word docs, ....so at least I still have those. I will probably get another SATA but I am still very unclear about using a RAID setup. I am wondering Paul, do you have a RAID setup?

So, the beast is sitting on the kitchen table, looking quite unbeastly now but we will get it up and running again.

Another day in the computer world eh?

I am wondering Paul, do you have a RAID setup?

Yes - I use two RAID-1 mirrors on my main PC/Server. Two small fast (37gig SATA Raptors) for the operating system and two large IDE drives for data, ISOs and a variety of image files. These four physical drives thus appear as two drives in disk management. The reason, for me, is that such hardware is now really not that expensive and that I am protected from any downtime (but not file deletion/corruption) if just one of the four hard drives were to fail.

I also automatically backup all mission critical data onto two external 2.5" drives, which are rotated nightly with one kept in a safe place on other premises. Now that I have broadband I am about to change this so that backup is to a distant file server via SFTP.

My backup philosophy may seem like overkill to some but is based on knowing that unless I automate such things they will get omitted and that since recovering data from failed drives can run into thousands an outlay of a few extra hundred now is well worth it, for me, for the peace of mind it engenders. Just one day out of production would also be costly in both time and money.

Wow, what a setup! I will be doing more research with the RAID configuration and see if that is something we should do, something else to learn. Anyway, thank you for all of your help, sorry it was to perhaps an inevitable ending but I did learn a thing or two on our journey.:D

Probably we should have been more "on the ball" about backing up any data while the drives were still accessible at all. RAID sounds more complicated than it usually is and for most ordinary users it is a choice between RAID 0 (striping) for performance (but puts your data at greater than normal risk) or RAID 1 (mirroring) to help secure data. The complexities of, or rather the number of different, RAID levels is what can be the most perplexing. If your mobo has no native RAID support then inexpensive host controllers for IDE, SATA or SCSI RAID are easily obtained. On board RAID is generally best if you want to be able to boot to your RAID volume and installing the NT-based OSes to a RAID volume will generally need the F6 drivers on a floppy at installation time.

PS
As with backing-up data it is probably more important to know how to restore than to create any backup. It's a bit like knowing where the brake is before you learn about the accelerator. So I would suggest now that before you rely on a RAID array to save your data that you start off by creating an array and access the data. Then deliberately break the array (just disconnecting one cable for one boot up would do the trick) to see if you can then rebuild it. The time you don't want to be experimenting is when you need it restored pronto. And - to reiterate - a RAID mirror is not a substitute for backing up any critically important data onto removable media or to another location. One failing HDD can bring down another one and any external event that can hit one can hit the other as well.

Well when hubbie got the beast, all I did was slave his old hdd from a Gateway 5238e and he is using this puter right now so at least he has not lost critical info and this is backed up by an external ide/pata enclosure.
We had meant to get a SATA enclosure before all this happened. The only thing he is crying the blues about losing is his saved game data files for Crysis!!:D

Well I will probably just stick to having 2 hdd's and the SATA that I am going to get is not going to be a Seagate so that I will be able to (God forbid that I go through this again) be able to tell them apart, plus the fact that I can back up using an enclosure...

On another note, he is thinking about getting another gpu (same kind, chipset...) and SLI controller to do a SLI configuration. My question is, do I need to get a "Y" DVI cable to connect the two cards and one to the monitor or does the controller take care of that and I just need to hook up one gpu?

Yeah, something else to screw up! LMBO