Problem: Files on IDE drives locked when SATA connected

[BJ Dibbins]

Hi all,

I'd like some help with a problem I have..

I have recently bought a WD 200g SATA drive, and plugged it into my ASUS A7N8X motherboard (bios flashed to 1008). It shares space with two Seagate 80g Barracuda's on the Primary IDE, and 2 DVD opticals (rom and burner) on the Secondary IDE. The boot IDE has Windows XP SP1 installed (+ regular updates), but not SP2 yet.. Call me cynical, but I have too much stuff installed to worry about conflicts.

I've set up my SATA drive fine - it's currently formatted into 3 primary partitions of ~64g each, and was able to install XP Home (and SP2) on it without any drama. I can boot from IDE or SATA now depending on how I set my bios.

The problem I have is that when I boot up normally from my IDE, with my SATA drive connected, some files on my IDE drives become 'locked'. eg, my antivirus (NOD32) won't update the latest definitions, MIRC creates .tm_ files every half hour etc, etc.. There are some files that I just can't modify or delete, but there doesn't seem to be an easy way to work out which ones are affected. So the idea of logging on in safe mode and fiddling with an individual file doesn't appeal to me.

The problem disappears if I reboot with the SATA drive disabled.

I tried using the Windows troubleshooter on my IDE drive, and found a reference to having more than 4 IDE or ESDI devices on my system. With 2 IDE's and 2 opticals, could that be my problem? (I'll check next time I power off)

Other than the miscellaneous file errors I'm having with *some* programs, everything else seems to be fine.

Comments, suggestions and help welcome..

Cheers,

Brian

[glc]

I think the problem is you installed XP on it, so you have 2 XP installs, and you have ownership/permission conflicts between the 2 when it comes to files and folders.

[BJ Dibbins]

Hi glc,

Thanks for the reply.

I only installed WinXP on the SATA drive yesterday. I'd only intended to use the SATA drive for storage until I bought a new computer - then I'd move the SATA into it and load Win, etc..

But after failing to resolve the problem with my IDE drive (for about a week), I decided I'd start moving things over to the SATA drive earlier than planned. The idea being, once I had the SATA drive set up with the programs I wanted, I could then try a repair install on the ide drive without concern.. and if that didn't work, just reformat it and start from scratch.

Cheers,

Brian