slave drive seems dead, but cannot boot without it

[ted demen]

my secondary/slave drive is not being detected by windows although it is detected by POST.

im loosing my head over this.

now my computer is useless:

i completely removed the problematic slave drive, and cannot boot into windows at all.

instead it just remains in DOS and after a few minutes shows nothing but a full page of slashes! (/)

why would removing the slave disable me from booting the main drive????

seems like i need to have the bad/slave drive installed (even though it is not detected by windows) in order to boot the main.

really weird.

IF I CHOOSE "cable select" on the slave drive, do both drives have to be set to this? (or is it ok to have the main drive set to master and the slave to "CS"?)

[Baldrick]

Moving you to our Computer forum section as this is not really video related.

[Richard_G]

If you are using CS, both drives have to be set the same. Some drives have an extra position for the link, Master or Master and Slave present as well as Slave and Cable Select. It may be that your Master drive is like this and is set for Slave present so it fails when it isn't.

If the drive is being detected in POST, there is no reason why Windows shouldn't see it unless it isn't formatted. Go into Control Panel, Administrative Tools, Computer Management, Disc Management and see if it is showing up in there.

[ted demen]

Richard,

i did check disc management and it does NOT show up there.
(but does in POST)

[redwudz]

I would check your jumpers. You may have your boot drive set to slave and your second drive set to master. If all this fails, you might try a repair re-install of Windows. But I would back up your data first, just in case.

[ted demen]

i should add that i also tried putting in the problematic drive into a firewire enclosure and tried it in another computer.

the computer "found new hardware" and said that a "maxtor device was found" but i could not access the drive eitherway.

[wulf109]

Some older HD's have a master and slave jumper that if set for master with slave present will not boot if you remove the slave drive. Check your jumpers on the master HD. If not clear on the drive go to manufacturers website and check the jumper settings.

[ahhaa]

ted- sounds like you won't be trusting that secondary drive again anyway; get to a BigBox or somewhere where you can pick up a new replacement- there are tons of sales for Father's Day, you should find something priced right.
if the drive was found in the firewire enclosure, you can download some diagnostics from the maxtor site that might help...

also, there could be one of those lil problems, like a power cable being defective or not fully plugged in- did you change anything just before this all hit the fan?:]

[jagabo]

Western Digital drives have a master, slave, and single drive setting. If the drive is set as master it won't work without a slave.

[Nelson37]

Set your main drive to standalone, you may actually have to look at it, or check the documentation for this setting. ALL, not just some, but ALL HD with a setting for Master with Slave present will fail to boot if you remove the Slave without changing the Master to Master with No Slave or Standalone. Some drives the jumper setting is the same for Master with Slave present and Standalone or Single.

If CS is used, all drives on cable must be set the same and you must use a CS cable, these are NOT the same as a standard cable. I personally dislike these intensely and avoid them whenever possible.

If you had put the swap file on the slave I would suggest first booting into Safe Mode, then putting the Swap file on the Master drive.

The page full of slashes is rather odd, are you certain that there is not a stuck key on the keyboard? Try hitting the slash keys to make sure they are not stuck. This can actually prevent the PC from booting. A paper clip, other debris, or some object resting on the keyboard, or a defective keyboard can cause this. One way to test is to disconnect the KB completely and test boot. No, you won't be able to login but if you get that far, problem solved.

[Bjs]

Put it correctly :

Nelson37

If CS is used, all drives on cable must be set the same and you must use a CS cable, these are NOT the same as a standard cable. I personally dislike these intensely and avoid them whenever possible.

Answer = WRONG

Ordinary cable works (no such thing as a cs cable) .
If only one drive is connected to the cable , it can be set to cs .

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Pages full of slashes can come from several areas .

A: During os boot up , caused by driver corruption .
B: Malfunction with gpu / driver corruption .
C: Keyboard in conflict (jammed key , poor quality board , loose / damaged pins) .
D: Memmory malfunction (run the tool from ms site to check it) .
E: Psu fault .

How many more you want ?

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We'll ignore these only because the system works with the unit connected , even though windows can not do anything with it .

Confirm main drives jumpers are set accordingly to manufacturers specs first .

As others have mentioned , some have single master , while others use a combination of pins to determine the order whether it be a single drive or more connected to the same channel .

Most hard drive manufacturers tools , essentially the "new install" tools , do include a full range of pin arrangements covering all drives they ever made and the correct order to set them under any setup configuration . You simply locate the model , and go from there .

Once you have configured the main drive as a "single" master , and removed the offending drive from the pc , enter bios and check the offending unit is not listed in the pc's configuration . This is not the boot sequence screen I am talking about .

If it is listed , remove it , save and reboot , done .
If not listed , just reboot , done .

If swap file was on other drive , no need to panic , the os will / should warn you and you simply need to make the required change while in the os ... it will be rather slow until you reboot the system .

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Dont trust the hard drive manufacturers diagnostic tools , there utter rubbish .

To test drives thoroughly , grab a bootable linux distro called INSERT .

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To test for recovery , about as far as you can go is to try the drive in different modes and see if windows disk management eventually spots it ... if it dose , then use drive rescue to recover files from the unit .

In some cases , you may need to reinitialize the unit , and start drive rescue (do not partition it) , drive rescue will find all the partitions , and everything else on its own .

I have had a few western digitals refuse any mode other than cs , and other brands work in a similar pattern , but if that fails , the drive is considered gone for good .

Unless you have another matching model in which to exchange the platters , in which recovery can take place , been there before .

[Nelson37]

That is incorrect. CS cable is different. Many have a visible hole cut into wires.

HD manufacturer diag tools, whether you like them or not, are the definitive tool used by the manufacturer to determine if the drive is defective under warranty. They are NOT required to accept info from any other tool. Their tool says FAIL, RMA is automatic.

Never, ever seen a drive which REQUIRED jumper set to CS. Many hundreds installed, never seen such a thing.

As for the slashes, no OS boot has occurred, no drivers are loaded, it could be other things but the stuck key is easiest to check and is a high probability.

Jumpers are fairly simple, no "table" I know of listing all possible models and combinations. That would be one huge list. Master, Master with Slave present, standalone, Slave, CS. That's it. Some drives will NOT work together on a Master-Slave combo. Some will work but with dramatically reduced performance.

Not necessary to remove the missing second drive in BIOS. PC will search for it for several minutes, boot will be slower, but eventually a message will appear stating Slave not found or something similar, F2 to continue, and off you go.

A PC which does not boot the installed OS is NOT working correctly.