New harddisks don't boot when old harddisks are disconnected.

On Thu, 22 Sep 2011 16:45:10 -0400, "Tom Del Rosso"
wrote:

John Larkin wrote:

Windows 8 and UEFI will be worse.

And UEFI will standardize the BIOS to the point where it will be possible
for a generic virus to infect a flash BIOS.

It will also allow Microsoft to twist the arms of PC vendors so that
they ship machines that will only boot Windows.

John

On 9/22/2011 2:42 PM, John Larkin wrote:
On Thu, 22 Sep 2011 16:45:10 -0400, "Tom Del Rosso"
wrote:

John Larkin wrote:

Windows 8 and UEFI will be worse.

And UEFI will standardize the BIOS to the point where it will be possible
for a generic virus to infect a flash BIOS.

Possible, we know it WILL be tried.

It will also allow Microsoft to twist the arms of PC vendors so that
they ship machines that will only boot Windows.

John

Cites please?
Otherwise you are just another idiot fanboi parrot.


--
"**** this is it, all the pieces do fit.
We're like that crazy old man jumping
out of the alleyway with a baseball bat,
saying, "Remember me mother****er?"
Jim “Dandy” Mangrum

John Larkin wrote:
On Thu, 22 Sep 2011 16:45:10 -0400, "Tom Del Rosso"
wrote:

John Larkin wrote:
Windows 8 and UEFI will be worse.
And UEFI will standardize the BIOS to the point where it will be possible
for a generic virus to infect a flash BIOS.

It will also allow Microsoft to twist the arms of PC vendors so that
they ship machines that will only boot Windows.

John

See:

http://www.itworld.com/it-management...-linux-booting

--
Virg Wall

On Sep 22, 2:21 pm, "Skybuck Flying"
wrote:

Possible causes:

1. Windows 7 boot program installed on old harddisk instead of new one.

2. ASRock motherboard has issue with booting 2 terrabyte harddisk.

3. ASRock motherboard sata port 1 and 2 only work for booting.

XP - I don't do cross-posts (nor does google) as a rule since I'm too
lazy to dick with free univ. news servers

Believe (been awhile could be wrong) I installed a fresh XP on another
system - ASUS Intel Duron 2.4Ghz, via a SATA. I'll have to crack the
case and look at the three HDs in it to verify they're all SATA. I DO
KNOW I had no issues with XP install-disc and drive controllers. Went
smooth as silk (a media-only/player computer ever since).

I'm now getting a variant of your problem with a Gigabyte's BIOS.
(Totally different XP [pre-]install from another system, binary sector-
to-sector transfer, though). Point is, when I *then* swap an
"EVERYTHING-working-perfectly" XP *off* the IDE channel, into a
different HD on the SATA controller (again, binary to 1T Samsung F2
Black Ed.), XP craps (cyan blue-screen XP logo, but never reaches the
login stage).

Possible inferences:

scratch - 2T limitation (if you got it working once on a boot, it
boots then).

scratch - I've never heard of SATA being channel-limited to boot
options

Though there may be some truth to what I have heard "stories" about M$
stipulating computer hobbyist re-buy windows everytime they build
their computers - lets see, do the math. . .compulsive builders of
machines, at up to a machine every few month, yep, time it takes to
figure the machine quirks, figure they'd need at least to buy a couple-
thousand shares M$ stock to pay to play for licensing rights. Maybe
sometime after the current meltdown recession. If W7 is already
advanced to that stage, can't wait to see what W8 hold in store.

On Thu, 22 Sep 2011 14:55:53 -0700, "Nobody (Revisited)"
wrote:

On 9/22/2011 2:42 PM, John Larkin wrote:
On Thu, 22 Sep 2011 16:45:10 -0400, "Tom Del Rosso"
wrote:

John Larkin wrote:

Windows 8 and UEFI will be worse.

And UEFI will standardize the BIOS to the point where it will be possible
for a generic virus to infect a flash BIOS.

Possible, we know it WILL be tried.

It will also allow Microsoft to twist the arms of PC vendors so that
they ship machines that will only boot Windows.

John

Cites please?

Virg beat me to it.

John

Skybuck Flying wrote:
Hello,

I have discovered a very serious issue with my DreamPC from 2006
(updated along the years because of hardware failures) for which I will
seek help.

(Computer has 4 harddisks).

The problem is:

When the old harddisks are disconnected the new harddisk don't boot.

Ofcourse I tried changing boot order in bios, or tried the boot option
menu but all of this didn't help/work which indicates a more serious issue.

I suspect the problem is with how Windows 7 installed itself and how it
arranged the boot program. I suspect the boot program is on an old
harddisk instead of the new one.

Windows 7 was installed on the new harddisk, but I suspect Windows 7 did
not install the boot program on the new harddisk, which would be a
pretty stupid thing for Windows to do ! So this could be a very serious
issue for Windows 7. But enough speculating there could also be other
causes which I will sum up here so I know what to investigate:

Possible causes:

1. Windows 7 boot program installed on old harddisk instead of new one.

2. ASRock motherboard has issue with booting 2 terrabyte harddisk.

3. ASRock motherboard sata port 1 and 2 only work for booting.

Bye,
Skybuck.


Executive summary: don't remove fixed hard disks after installing an OS.

I have no idea how the new stuff works, but your old stuff probably
lets the bios assign logical drives according to the physical attachment
of the physical drives on the various connectors.
The OS starts with this info, then does it's own magic.
When you add/remove anything that changes the BIOS mapping or the OS
mapping,
you can't expect the system to boot.
Sometimes it's just "not found" Other times, the system will boot to the
point that it accesses its OS mapping then pulls the rug out from
under itself trying to access a non-existent or different physical medium.

Bottom line, don't remove fixed hard disks after installing an OS.

If you want removable drives, use usb or networked drives.

Back in the days of win95, there was a boot manager that could remap
the physical/logical relationships between hard drives. Was very useful
for multi-booting with drives common to both. Sadly, that no longer works.
It's also possible to add/remove a hard drive if you put it on the right
connector relative to the boot drive, but I quit trying to do that at
XP. SATA adds another layer of complexity. I've never been able to get
XP to boot from a PATA drive when there's a SATA drive installed/active
in the system. Boot order be damned, it always boots from the SATA
drive. I have to disable the SATA in the bios to get PATA to boot.
YMMV.

To fix your system, here's what I'd try.
Put back all the drives.
This assumes they're all PATA drives...won't work with a mixture of
pata/sata...

There's also a BIG issue about how you installed win7.
If you let win7 partition and format your hard drive,
it will have an invisible partition at the beginning.
That messes up the mapping to the point that I've never
been able to get Acronis to restore its own backup.
If you have the hidden partition, I think you're screwed.
Using GPARTED to partition/format the drive eliminates
this problem. It also makes some features of win7 not work,
something about encrypted usb drives???
But if your backup was from a drive with this partition,
the following won't work. If you installed win7 on a partition
other than the first available, it probably won't work.

Boot it and do an image backup of the boot partition.
The free versions of Acronis available from disk vendors works.
If you don't have the right vendor drive, you can use a usb drive
of the right vendor to get past the vendor check.

Back up ALL the drives while you're at it.

Reconfigure the hardware drives the way you want 'em.
Boot a live linux CD or the GPARTED live cd and use
GPARTED to partition/format your drives the way you want 'em.
Don't forget to set the boot flag.

Restore the backup of the boot drive to the new bootable partition.
Depending on what you had on the other partitions and how you installed it,
you may be able to just copy the data to the new drive with the correct
drive letter. If the data doesn't care what drive letter it's on, don't
worry about it.

Again, the presence of the hidden partition can mess this all up.
It might not work. But if your alternative is to reinstall from scratch,
this might be worth a try.

If you have to reinstall from scratch, I still recommend using
gparted and eliminating that extra partition. Many won't agree...
YMMV

On Sep 22, 8:37 pm, mike wrote:

Executive summary: don't remove fixed hard disks after installing an OS.

Wrong-o. You've officially been tagged & designated as
contraproductive to logical assessment and within a state and limits
of stated objectives to empiricism.

Already did it & works. Perfectly perfectamento. Trx'd an OS from
one computer to another. Totally different computers, two different
model# PATA hard drives. First never saw it coming: "Hello, second
HD." Second: "Hello, first HD, datum established. A-OK, blast off OS,
god speed."

Trick1: why abovesaid congeniality is only at PATA level and not
subsequent to SATA, given SATA is provisionally supported within prime/
perfect PATA upon establishment of MB functions, all support drivers
[again, inclusive of SATA]. FWIW: MB-provided support SATA drivers
*are* required, per MB specs via provisional floppy drivers, to
install the OS;- since it doesn't, however, per se say (read the fine
print and KISS off) they can't be used to repair a SATA install *were*
those drivers removed, the inference then is one to find and identify
OS offender(s), preventing their usage, differently than had an
initial OS install, at the SATA level, been without incident and
successful. The latter aftersaid is but one logically of stated
preposition to qualify (I haven't gotten around to test sticking an
adapter for a Compact Flash formatted card on the IDE chain for a
"fanless" case system scenario, or similarly converting down a SATA
into a IDE boot devices, with the appropriate $4 Singapore adapter,
for as well backtesting).

Just for your information, these drivers are all sata drivers.

So 4 sata drivers.

I also do not see a reason yet why so much complexity would be needed.

So far people have mentioned a "simple" looking solution which involves
executing a single command from windows console which is available from the
windows installation cd/dvd.

Something about setting back a boot sector and boot record and master boot
record etc...

However I am not just going to execute any command, until I am sure what it
does, I don't want to overwrite and damage anything on windows.

I hope that resizing partitions is not needed, I hope that complex stuff is
not needed.

I am starting to fear the worst though

First I have to look into why Windows 7 installation CD/DVD does not
recgonize the harddisks which is weird.

The BIOS seems to recgonize the harddisks just fine.

So my suspicion about it being a Windows 7 issue seems more than warranted !

This is very bad of Microsoft me thinks, very bad.

They have accured a big minus point in my mind. Yes I am keeping score you
know.. =D

Bye,
Skybuck.

Well you electronics people are probably also to blame for this, and not
supporting 64 bit lines, and instead being cheap skates.

Anyway hitachi seems to be a bitch, no drivers available for my drives:
deskstar 7K3000:

http://www.hitachigst.com/internal-d...eskstar-7k3000

It's starting to seem like another "Deathstar" LOL, but this time because of
no driver support in windows.

Since when do disks need drivers anyway gjez...

But this is giving me an idea.

I probably changed some bios setting to speed-up my drives.

I see somebody else mention it, since other people have problems getting
windows to recgonize this drive as well.

The idea is to change something in the bios so that the drive becomes
recgonizeable by windows !

If I can get to work than maybe windows repair disk will be able to fix
itself ?!?

It's also strange that repair tool claims somewhat of a success while it
could not see the drive ?!?

^ Again very weird from Microsoft.

Tut tut tut... people there talking a walk with Ballmer pretending stuff
works, while it does not !

Bye,
Skybuck =D

Well,

I have discovered some interesting things.

The console program on the installation CD/DVD of Windows 7 sees the drives
just fine.

Conclusion:

The installation program of Windows 7 is simply flawed, it's some kind of
software issue to me it seems.

I shall now continue and try the console command fix, which I shall lookup
on google and write down on a piece of paper so I can try it when my system
reboots.

And then I shall report back.

I want this problem fix as soon as possible before the old boot drive dies.

Bye,
Skybuck.