Hi there, I have spent hours searching through forums for an answer, but nothing has helped so far, not even the other thread in this forum.

I have a windows XP home SP2 seagate HD, from an older PC, with everything including windows still on it. Now that the HD of the newer PC, also XP home, SP2, also seagate HD, has a slight problem and needs to be moved to the bin, I wanted to put the old HD into the PC, as I never kept the old case. Old PC was a packard bell and new one is a packard bell, too.

I have never been able to start the thing in there. It gets to the black screen with the safe mode, last good, start normally options and then, whatever I select, restarts.

The drive is fine, has been checked for viruses and rootkits, all clear. It is working when used as an external HD.

I have checked the master/slave settings. Anybody got any ideas?

So you have the drive set as slave and it is connected to the middle connector on the ribbon cable?

When above is correct, turn on computer to see if you can get into windows - if so, check windows explorer to see if it is recognized

It that does not help
-with above settings still true, restart PC and go into the BIOS to see if the slave drive is recognized or not

If not, turn off computer and change the jumper on the drive to
Cable Select (CS) and on same middle connector on ribbon cable

Now restart and do same process as above


Hope this helps out

Thanks, but no luck. I have tried master, slave and cable select, when the drive is in the PC, but none does the trick.

So you do have it set up on the middle connector on the ribbon cable which is attached the master drive on the end of the cable

How about the BIOS, is the drive recognized there

If you have access to another ribbon cable, put the drive on the end connector and connect other end to IDE 2 slot (plug) on the motherboard and set it to all 3 and try each, master 1st, slave then cable select

Check bios also to see if recognized by the system

Still no success. And yes, BIOS recognises the drive. :(

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has a slight problem and needs to be moved to the bin

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So this drive is not in the picture?

How is it recognized in bios?

Can you boot this computer from the CD rom?

Which connector do you have it connected to when the bios reconizes it

Are you trying to move a hard drive from one computer into another, and hoping windows XP SP2 will start without reinstalling it? Reinstalling windows would be the best way forward I think. If you just want to rescue files from the Hard Drive try copying them to a USB or other device. Reinstall windows on the new hard drive and copy your files back.

I've seen this type of behavior on three occasions. On one of them, I was able to get the computer working by reinstalling the operating system. On the second, I had to reinstall the hard drive and the operating system, and on the third, I had to get a new motherboard.

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Originally Posted by rwinterton

I've seen this type of behavior on three occasions. On one of them, I was able to get the computer working by reinstalling the operating system. On the second, I had to reinstall the hard drive and the operating system, and on the third, I had to get a new motherboard.

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I agree with rwinterton. There is also possibly something wrong with the Boot Sector of your HDD. Also, keep in mind that when windows is installed, it has motherboard drivers installed into it. Sometimes if you swap drives from one to another, if the motherboard wasn't the same, it won't boot up. Then your best bet is to reformat.

Sorry about the gloomy answer but there is light at the end of the tunnel!