xp wont boot

[MasterMushu]

Hi, yesterday my pc worked flawlessly. this morning the java console update tripped zone alarm, I allowed it then my desktop froze up so I did a hard boot. Now when I boot up it hangs on the xp loading screen. the progress bar continues to move but nothing is happening. Same results for safe mode and last known working config. I tried booting from the xp cd and using the repair console, it tells me there are no hard disks (actually there are 2 but one with the os). Originally they were both connected via an ide controller card, I figured that went bad or the drivers got messed up, so I moved both HD's to the onboard ide and moved the 2 opticals to the controller card. It still won't recognize the HD's but it will see the cdr on the ide controller card (so that should be fine), but still no idea why it won't see either HD.

[daboggeyman]

If you have anouther computer try placing the HD,s in it to see if they show up and might try to enter them in safe mod, if not sound like they may have gone bad. Hows the PSU?

[MasterMushu]

I can put them into another computer but was hoping it wouldn't come to that. It's kind of hard to think that 2 hard drives went bad at the exact same time and nothing else. Any other ideas?

[glc]

Check the cabling and jumpering on the drives. If they are on a controller card, you have to press F6 and load the card drivers before XP setup/repair will see them.

[dataDude]

At first I was thinking that possibly the boot.ini might have gotten screwed up with (virus that somehow got past the av?), but now yeah, it sounds like a cable issue. Also, when you're transporting hard drives I hope you're using antistatic devices before handling the hardware. Not doing so can really mess things up.

[MasterMushu]

I'll try replacing the cables first since it's the quickest and cheapest fix then go from there.

[MasterMushu]

I replaced the ide cable and got it booted up. It takes at least 5 minutes at the xp loading screen though, and it still won't see the second hard drive. In the device manager it shows both drives and registers them as having no problems, but in windows explorer it's not there. I'm at a loss. I figure if it was a virus it must have wiped the drive,other than that I don't have a guess as to what's wrong.

[glc]

How are the hard drives jumpered? What cable positions are they installed on? 40 or 80 wire cable? What does Disk Management say about the drives?

[MasterMushu]

the hard drives are set to cable select on a standard ide. I can't get to disk managegment for the inivisible drive, only the good one with the os and that one is fine.

[glc]

Cable select requires a 80 wire cable.

Is the drive showing in Disk Management or not? Disk Management should at least show all hard and optical drives.

Right click on My Computer, manage, disk management.

[Cricket]

Try running the computer with just your main hard drive connected (don't connect the 2nd hard drive or your optical drives).

Cricket

[MasterMushu]

I did disconnect the 2nd hard drive and the computer boots up fine, I'm going to re-connect the drive and check disk management.

[MasterMushu]

I re-connected the 2nd drive and the computer gets a fatal error and won't boot. So I don't think I'll get to see what the disk management has to say about it.

[glc]

Sounds like a bad drive - remove it and put it on a USB adapter and hotplug it.