I installed a hard drive on my main computer and then...?

Question

my computer froze, I had to shut it down manually. Well now it keeps trying to read the external hard drive. After days of messing with it..I finally got it to read the main hard drive again, but when I shut it down it is messed up again. I safely removed the hardware, but it is still trying to read it...so it keeps looking for it as a slave drive and I can hardley get windows XP to load maybe it will after I restart 100 times, can anyone who's good with computers tell me how I can fix my computer so it will stop doing this and load normally. Also, my husband's comp is doing worse..same prob with his, I got it to read but now it tries to load windows XP and keeps going to that blue screen that says windows detected an error..I can't get past it. I don't have a floppy disk to make a boot cd and was wondering if anyone knows if there is a way to make a boot cd?

Answer 1

What you got there is a "blue screen of death"...
what that means is that the hard drive files are corrupt or there is a problem with the hard drive.

there are 2 ways to fix it:

1: Reinstall windows with a boot-cd (make it with a program called nero)

2: If the first step didint work then the hard drive is broken (thats rare), that would mean buy another or exchange it for another... Also, check that the cables are put in the hard drive CORRECTLY as that might be the problem.

good luck and email me if you need more info at [e-mail]

Answer 2

It's possible that you managed to change some CMOS settings - you can usually get to it by pressing 'del' or 'f1' or something while the computer is booting. Make sure your main drive is the default boot drive, and that no other drives are selected.

It sounds like you may be using some older hardware - so you might want to see if anyone you know has a copy of Win98 with a boot disk - ditch XP unless you absolutely need something that it does.

If your hardware newer, it still may require some upgrades - or you may have some faulty hardware - drives, ram, processor, or motherboard. If you have reinstallation software, you can try formatting your drive (after backing up important stuff) and reloading it from scratch - you can make your computer boot from a (bootable) CD by going into CMOS too.

Answer 3

Go into your BIOS when your computer first starts up [something like TAB or F something]and check your boot order and tell it not to boot from your external and have your internal HD followed by Cd rom and then floppy or w/e. After that restart it and then plug in your external.

Answer 4

intercept the boot process and go directly to the BIOS setup (keep hitting DEL key when the computer is booting)

In the BIOS look for ur Hard Drive setup, make sure that only ur original Drive is there, make sure there are no other one...

When u add an Additional Drive to ur system, the first (main) HD has to be the Master and the Additional One is then ur Slave, you must manually set the pin arrangement like that, otherwise they will be conflicts...

Answer 5

You're not trying to start XP from that external HD are you? Normally, your boot and system partition should be on an internal drive, you then partition the external as logical.

I recommend you get someone who knows what he or she is doing, otherwise you could lose data if you start messing with partitions.

Answer 6

First, make sure jumpers are set to primary. Second, after installation you have to enter the BIOS and scan/install the drive. Save changes and exit. Done. If any of that was gibberish, call Geek Squad or some similiar company.

Answer 7

best advice - take it to someone who knows what they are doing.