HDD won't boot after XP install

[RobGraham]

Samsung Spinrite P80 IDE (ie not SATA). Was running XP Pro and the system went down - wouldn't go passed the password screen.

I bought a proper copy of XP Home (first time I've ever bought an OS!) and installed it successfully onto an older drive; found that the first drive was accessible as a slave and extracted my required files. I cleared the first drive (Format) and set it back as master on the same IDE and went to install XP; the files load and then when it goes to re-boot the BIOS screen hangs at

Pri Master HDD Error
Run Setup
Press F1 to Resume.

Pressing F1 takes me back to the boot CD.

The switch-on boot screen shows this HDD as the Primary master.

Checking the HDD as a slave to the other drive, I find the XP files have been loaded. Other things I've done which all lead back to the same problem:

* MBR of both drives has been read and is the same apart from the disk identifier and the partition data.
* The one partition was deleted and XP allowed to recreate the partition and do a full format of the area.
* TestDisk from an OpenSource web page didn't identify any faults and showed the drive as bootable.
* I've double checked the jumper !! And the lead is OK - the two drives have been swapped over and no faults on the IDE lead shown.

I think I'm missing something simple here ! Any ideas please.

Rob

[Paul Komski]

Missed your post till now. Suggest two things for starters.

(1) Get the Samsung diagnostic utility and run it on the problematic drive.
(2) If it passes then zero the whole drive or at least the mbr.

[Sylvander]

See Primary Master Hard Disk Failure link HERE (http://www.pcguide.com/ts/x/sys/booterr.htm).
See also http://www.pcguide.com/ts/x/comp/hdd/fail_Failure.htm

Are all your drives set to "Auto" so that as you switch the HDD's around they are being "Dynamically Aut-Detected" afresh at each new startup?
The drive parameters must be correctly specified at startup.

[marksd2]

Hi.

I have also been having a few HDD problems. Recently my ISP contacted me to inform me that my account had been suspended due to spam being sent from my PC. Also although the PC would Boot and work there was an error message saying that the system had recovered from a serious system error and would sometimes freeze and restart.

I decided to reinstall Windows XP. When I boot from the CD it goes through the steps of loading files, formatting the drive and copying files. When the installation requests for the PC to restart it restarts and goes back to the Windows Set Up Screen. I have done this 4 times.

Could there be a virus in the in the Boot files?
If so what is the next thing to do?

Any help is much appreciated, Thanks.

[mjc]

marksd2

Could you please start your own thread, in the Security forum...full details?

[marksd2]

Why? It's information about the HDD problem I,m after, which seems similar to the original posters problem.

If my original post is misleading I will edit it.

[mjc]

Then start you own thread about that...tacking your problem onto some other poster's thread is frowned upon.