Odd hard drive error

[badger]

Sorry, this is a long one...


I just got a new Samsung F1 1TB. Very quiet next to my old Raptor, seems quick, all very good.

Formatted, installed Windows and all seemed happy, so I plugged in my other two hard disks and popped the side panels back on my case.

Upon reboot I got a weird error, which said something like 'no boot media detected, insert boot media or choose boot device then press enter'.

I've messed up a lot of PCs before and have never seen this error, it didn't look like any XP boot error I've ever encountered.

Tried to use the Windows CD to format, but it kept saying it wasn't a recognised XP partition. Every time I deleted and tried to create the partition it went back to the screen saying it wasn't recognised.

Boot settings in the BIOS were all fine, it had been quite happy until I connected the other three HDDs.

I used a partition app on the Ultimate Boot CD to check the drives, and it claimed that 'harddisk 1 is not active, do you want to activate it?' After disconnecting the other drives, I 'activated' it, and then formatted and installed Windows.

The two other drives are: 1TB Hitachi (general download junk drive) and a 74GB Raptor. I've now reconnected the Hitachi and it's chugging along happily, but I'm wondering if the Raptor could be the problem. It has Windows Vista installed on it from a previous dual-boot setup, so could the system be seeing that and getting confused? Or was it just a random glitch?

[mightymouse]

not sure if its the same problem but earlier my setup was a bit weird when i added a 1TB seagate, upon removal of the jumper everything was back to normal. not sure why it was there in the first place but something you can try out. also can you try different combinations to see if any of the drives are affecting it?

[badger]

Well it works okay now with the Hitachi 1TB, but I don't want to try it with the Raptor if that might be the problem in case it goes tits up again and I have to reinstall Windows for a third time. I might pull the Raptor and format it in an external enclosure, then try it again.