Boot Problem

I have a machine that had 2 hd's installed, each with their own operating
system, both WinXP. I removed one drive, the primary ide and I jumpered the
other drive just like the primary one and I get the following error message:
"Boot Agent, Media Test Failure, check cable, exiting boot agent, Boot
Failu System Halted". Cables are okay anyway everything works fine when
I put it back to what it was originally. What am I missing?

Thanks,
Jack

--
Email no good, reply to group

Is the hard drive cable a cable select type with master or slave determined by
position on the cable? Or is it (less likely these days) a straight cable which
requires explicit master/slave jumper settings?

Does the drive have a "single drive" jumper position?

.... Ben Myers

On Sun, 12 Dec 2004 19:35:07 GMT, "JE" wrote:

I have a machine that had 2 hd's installed, each with their own operating
system, both WinXP. I removed one drive, the primary ide and I jumpered the
other drive just like the primary one and I get the following error message:
"Boot Agent, Media Test Failure, check cable, exiting boot agent, Boot
Failu System Halted". Cables are okay anyway everything works fine when
I put it back to what it was originally. What am I missing?

Thanks,
Jack

--
Email no good, reply to group

Hi Ben, good to hear from you again. Yes it has the 2 position cable and I
have it on the first (end)
connector. It has 4 jumper settings and I tried it in all positions and
without a jumper also.

Thanks,
Jack



ben_myers_spam_me_not @ charter.net (Ben Myers) wrote in message
...
Is the hard drive cable a cable select type with master or slave
determined by
position on the cable? Or is it (less likely these days) a straight cable
which
requires explicit master/slave jumper settings?

Does the drive have a "single drive" jumper position?

... Ben Myers

On Sun, 12 Dec 2004 19:35:07 GMT, "JE" wrote:

I have a machine that had 2 hd's installed, each with their own operating
system, both WinXP. I removed one drive, the primary ide and I jumpered
the
other drive just like the primary one and I get the following error
message:
"Boot Agent, Media Test Failure, check cable, exiting boot agent, Boot
Failu System Halted". Cables are okay anyway everything works fine
when
I put it back to what it was originally. What am I missing?

Thanks,
Jack

--
Email no good, reply to group

The boot sector was on the drive you removed. XP is a primary OS - it
boots from the first physical drive in the system.

You can try booting to a recovery console from the XP CD and doing a
fixmbr and fixboot to see if that renders the second drive bootable. If
not, the only thing you can do is reinstall the other drive or reinstall
WIndows on the second drive (with it in the master position on the cable).


JE wrote:
I have a machine that had 2 hd's installed, each with their own operating
system, both WinXP. I removed one drive, the primary ide and I jumpered the
other drive just like the primary one and I get the following error message:
"Boot Agent, Media Test Failure, check cable, exiting boot agent, Boot
Failu System Halted". Cables are okay anyway everything works fine when
I put it back to what it was originally. What am I missing?

Thanks,
Jack

Thanks Ed. I figured that I would maybe would have to do that. It's no big
deal, I was just curious why this worked the way it did. I didn't realize
that the boot sector was only on one drive.

Thanks,
Jack


"Edward J. Neth" wrote in message
...
The boot sector was on the drive you removed. XP is a primary OS - it
boots from the first physical drive in the system.

You can try booting to a recovery console from the XP CD and doing a
fixmbr and fixboot to see if that renders the second drive bootable. If
not, the only thing you can do is reinstall the other drive or reinstall
WIndows on the second drive (with it in the master position on the cable).


JE wrote:
I have a machine that had 2 hd's installed, each with their own operating
system, both WinXP. I removed one drive, the primary ide and I jumpered
the other drive just like the primary one and I get the following error
message: "Boot Agent, Media Test Failure, check cable, exiting boot
agent, Boot Failu System Halted". Cables are okay anyway everything
works fine when I put it back to what it was originally. What am I
missing?

Thanks,
Jack