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help xp won't start!

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djs488

Member
Joined
May 28, 2002
Location
Maryland
Hey guys, I just added a second hard drive that already had windows ME on it. I want to format it. But now I can't get into my old hard drive with xp on it. Is there any way I can format a drive without being in a OS? Or is there another way I can solve the problem?
 
actually after a long wait, I do get into xp. but then everything runs slow. The other hard drive is only 3 gigs, but Im formatting one of it's partitions and its taking a long time. Will formatting it fix the problem?
 
It might. Though if you just added a hdd and didn't do anything else I don't really see it as being a software problem.

Did you put them on the same IDE cable?
 
I finnally formatted it only to get the message that 'The format could not be completed'. Anyway, the hard drive's partitions were removed from My Computer. But, when I restarted, it said it couldn't find the second hard drive. I checked my BIOS, and I didn't have it anywhere in the boot sequence. Right now it is disconnected.
 
As Thelemac said: are they on the same IDE cable? If so, are the settings correct (one master, one slave OR cable select for both?).

Try running the second harddisk on a seperate IDE channel, and format the harddisk from there. You may have to temporarily disable your CD-ROMS to give the second harddisk a seperate channel.

good luck!
 
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