ATTN computer wizzes!
 

System:

Master Drive (with OS): Seagate Barracuda
DRV, SATA, NCQ, 160G, 7200, WS, Spares No 390598-001

HP Workstation xw4300, WinXP, Pentium 3.4G RAM 1G

Slave Drive (No OS): Seagate Barracuda
250G, 7200,

Once again, I'm guilty of a n00b blunder that might cost me a lot of time and money. Here's what happened.

Early this morning I woke up to my alarm. I stumbled out of bed, hit the button to power up my computer, and started heading towards the coffee pot. Then I glanced at the clock... Oh, dammit, it's not morning yet, my alarm didn't go off, I'm just having a freak moment. It was only 12:30AM or so, and I must have been confused. So I stumble back to the PC, and rather than wait for it to power up to turn it off - I push the power button until the bastard gives in and shuts off.



This morning, I wake up (to an actual alarm this time) and repeat the process. When I come back from the coffee machine, I see this:


Windows could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt: \WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\CONFIG\SYSTEM

You can attempt to repair this file by starting Windows Setup using the original Setup CD-ROM.
Select 'r' at the first screen to repair.



Why the heck not... I put in my original CD-ROM, boot from CD, go through the blue "loading components" etc screens, and select 'R'. then I get this message:

Setup did not find any hard disk drives installed on your computer.

Make sure any hard drives are powered on and properly connected to your computer, and that any disk-related hardware configuration is correct. This may involve running a manufacturer-supplied diagnostic or setup program.

Setup cannot continue. To quit Setup, press f3.

(For the record, F3 is no longer working at this point. I hit the power button to continue.)



Ok, let's follow the instructions. I insert my HP Insight Diagnostics CD, boot from cd.

Run diagnostics.

Every test passes. I'm not sure if it's actually testing the HDDs, because I don't see them listed.

Booting in Safe Mode returns me to the first error, here is the loading sequence:

multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS\system 32\ntoskrnl.exe
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS\system 32\hal.dll
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS\system 32\KDCOM.DLL
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS\system 32\BOOTVID.dll
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS\system 32\config\system
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS\system 32\config\system.log

Windows could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt: \WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\CONFIG\SYSTEM

You can attempt to repair this file by starting Windows Setup using the original Setup CD-ROM.
Select 'r' at the first screen to repair.


Soooo....... any ideas? I'd like to save the data on my master drive at least, the second drive is just *cough*notes*cough* and other replaceable shit.

Windows 2K pro. Get it. I can shut this damn thing on and off anytime. and it never fucks up. I've turned it off during boot up many times.

Have you tried maybe unplugging the HD's then rebooting to see how it treats them when they are not plugged in? then turn it off and plug them back in? kinda like cycling a cable modem?

You know who will know? Smokey. Hit him up.

You shouldn't have to lose all your HD info because of this. I hate XP.

um, its telling you what to do. boot up and go into repair mode,
type chkdsk

unless the disk is physically fucked, it will fix it 100% of the time

Hmm.. I've seen similar problems with XP's setup and SATA-drives...

It's like they aren't recognized *during* the setup, only once XP is fully booted.

Don't ask me how the f*ck people manage to install XP on a SATA-drive
as a master drive in the first place though, I switched to an ATA when I
got it, while cursing m1cros0ft for having their head up their ass as usual.

that's when you have to hit 'r', right?

I got an error on that one too.

Setup did not find any hard disk drives installed on your computer.

Make sure any hard drives are powered on and properly connected to your computer, and that any disk-related hardware configuration is correct. This may involve running a manufacturer-supplied diagnostic or setup program.

Reboot your system and hit F2
(the options are F2 for setup, F12 for boot sequence).

In the System Setup screen, do these steps.

Select Drives:
Make sure your Diskette Drive (3.5 floppy) is set properly (Usually set to Internal)
Make sure that "Drive 0: SATA-0" drive is set to "ON"

Go to "SATA Operation":

Your system set to "RAID Autodetect / AHCI"? - THIS SETTING CAUSES YOUR SYSTEM TO GO INTO AN IDE LOOP AND DOESN'T ALLOW IT TO FIND YOUR FACTORY INSTALLED SATA DRIVE.

CHANGE THE SATA OPERATION SETTING TO "COMBINATION"

Reboot - make sure that the boot sequence is set to CD rom before HD and make sure that the XP CD is in the drive.

where in milwaukee are you?

I got it fixed. For anyone who might search in the future, here's what Ihad to do.

I went and got a small IDE HDD, installed XP on it. Once I could boot the computer that way, I put my corrupted drive in an external drive that connected to the computer via USB.

(I tried to install the SATA drive as a secondary, thinking I could possible copy the missing SYSTEM files from the working OS on the new HDD, but the computer kept choosing the SATA drive as master, no matter how I set it.)

Reboot, f2, run WIndows Install disk. Choose repair ('r'). Chose the corrupted disk, that was now being detected via USB from the external drive.

At the command prompt, I did "chkdsk /p" - it took about an hour.

Reinstalled everything to the original setup, turned the pig on, and took a (big) shot of chilled Patron Silver® for luck.

Thankfully, Patron Silver® is a great luck enhancer, because I'm good as new now. Thanks for the help everyone :D

This last computer build I did it. It was a headache, though. Microsoft Windows XP didn't have the right drivers, so I had to slipstream a new install cd that included SP2. Once I did that it went right through. Only took me like 6 hours to figure out.

Yeah, I had to do the same thing. Even then I had to do the ATA first, and after everything else was working like a charm, then add in the SATA 2nd HD.

:disgust