SP2 and second hard drives?

I recently installed SP2. Afterwards I was having the problem in which
I could not boot -- from anything (safe mode, reinstallation CD,
floppy boot disk, last known good config., etc.). I decided to see if
I couldn't switch my hard drives around and put my data only (no
windows) drive as the master drive, and then install XP (home edition)
onto that to get things running again.

In the process of doing this, I discovered that I could actually boot
my computer just fine off of my 1st HD (western digital 80 gb) when
the 2nd (western digital 120 gb) was diconnected. I then removed evil
SP2, and then tried to put the 2nd HD back in, which cuased the same
unable to boot errors.

I admit that there is a chance that my 2nd HD could have gone bad at
the very instant that I restared after installing SP2 (this was when
the problems started), but has anyone heard of anything like this? Is
there any way to check to verify whether the 2nd HD is okay? Should a
non-functioning 2nd HD prevent the computer from booting? Thanks.

stephanie wrote:

I recently installed SP2. Afterwards I was having the problem in which
I could not boot -- from anything (safe mode, reinstallation CD,
floppy boot disk, last known good config., etc.). I decided to see if
I couldn't switch my hard drives around and put my data only (no
windows) drive as the master drive, and then install XP (home edition)
onto that to get things running again.

In the process of doing this, I discovered that I could actually boot
my computer just fine off of my 1st HD (western digital 80 gb) when
the 2nd (western digital 120 gb) was diconnected. I then removed evil
SP2, and then tried to put the 2nd HD back in, which cuased the same
unable to boot errors.

I admit that there is a chance that my 2nd HD could have gone bad at
the very instant that I restared after installing SP2 (this was when
the problems started), but has anyone heard of anything like this? Is
there any way to check to verify whether the 2nd HD is okay? Should a
non-functioning 2nd HD prevent the computer from booting? Thanks.

Of course there's always a chance. Yes, a malfunctioning second hard
drive can cause a good one not to boot, particularly if the problem is
a short. You can test the drive with a diagnostic utility downloaded
from the drive mftr.'s website. Normally you make a bootable floppy.
Boot with it and run a full test. If there are errors, replace the
drive.

Malke
--
MS MVP - Windows Shell/User
Elephant Boy Computers
www.elephantboycomputers.com
"Don't Panic!"

"stephanie" wrote in message
m...
I recently installed SP2. Afterwards I was having the problem in which
I could not boot -- from anything (safe mode, reinstallation CD,
floppy boot disk, last known good config., etc.). I decided to see if
I couldn't switch my hard drives around and put my data only (no
windows) drive as the master drive, and then install XP (home edition)
onto that to get things running again.

In the process of doing this, I discovered that I could actually boot
my computer just fine off of my 1st HD (western digital 80 gb) when
the 2nd (western digital 120 gb) was diconnected. I then removed evil
SP2, and then tried to put the 2nd HD back in, which cuased the same
unable to boot errors.




I admit that there is a chance that my 2nd HD could have gone bad at
the very instant that I restared after installing SP2 (this was when
the problems started), but has anyone heard of anything like this? Is
there any way to check to verify whether the 2nd HD is okay? Should a
non-functioning 2nd HD prevent the computer from booting? Thanks.

Probably not, as in you mean a broken drive. But Yes, if you have the
jumpers on the back of the hard drives misconfigured. I have had two
healthy hard drives not boot when both were connected because I had
the jumper settings wrong. They are on the back of the hard drive usually.

This does not sound to me like an SP2 problem because you write:

I then removed evil
SP2, and then tried to put the 2nd HD back in, which cuased the same
unable to boot errors.

SP2 is gone and you can't boot because the drive jumpers are not right.
When you have one drive in and the jumpers wrong it will sometimes work.
The position of the drive cable (1st or end position) is not really
important
but I set them right unless the cable is short (or some problem like that).
On the motherboard, the drive cable goes to ide1. ide2 is for the
cd rom(s) except in the unlikely event you have no cdroms.

The primary and slave hard drives properly jumpered connect to ide 1.
The cdrom and cdrom2nd if you have it, connect to ide 2.

If you have the hard drive booklets you can read them to discover
the position of the jumper pins to configure the primary and secondary
hard drives and since you have both WD they might be the same
but you better check them to be sure. Otherwise you have to take
the hard drives out to look at their backs for info.

It is recommended that the large hard drive is usually the primary
since it is usually newer and faster. But if you started with the 80g
and then added the 120g storage, not much you can do now.

You can write me if you get stuck. Up to the point when you
see the second hard drive recognized in My Computer from
the boot drive.

"Malke" wrote in message
...
stephanie wrote:

I recently installed SP2. Afterwards I was having the problem in which
I could not boot -- from anything (safe mode, reinstallation CD,
floppy boot disk, last known good config., etc.). I decided to see if
I couldn't switch my hard drives around and put my data only (no
windows) drive as the master drive, and then install XP (home edition)
onto that to get things running again.

In the process of doing this, I discovered that I could actually boot
my computer just fine off of my 1st HD (western digital 80 gb) when
the 2nd (western digital 120 gb) was diconnected. I then removed evil
SP2, and then tried to put the 2nd HD back in, which cuased the same
unable to boot errors.

I admit that there is a chance that my 2nd HD could have gone bad at
the very instant that I restared after installing SP2 (this was when
the problems started), but has anyone heard of anything like this? Is
there any way to check to verify whether the 2nd HD is okay? Should a
non-functioning 2nd HD prevent the computer from booting? Thanks.

Of course there's always a chance. Yes, a malfunctioning second hard
drive can cause a good one not to boot, particularly if the problem is
a short. You can test the drive with a diagnostic utility downloaded
from the drive mftr.'s website. Normally you make a bootable floppy.
Boot with it and run a full test. If there are errors, replace the
drive.

Malke
--
MS MVP - Windows Shell/User
Elephant Boy Computers
www.elephantboycomputers.com
"Don't Panic!"

I interpreted stephanie's post to mean that bios would run
but no drive was recognized to boot from. That is not a short.
I don't know if you consider misconfigured jumpers a malfunction?

Perhaps I was wrong, and she did enable booting from cd as
first device in the bios and the machine turned off from the short after,
but it seems like she would have described this differently than no boot.

Your suggestion leaves some questions in my mind.
The C: drive is ok and does not need to be tested because it boots.
If you disconnect the (80g)c: drive and boot with a floppy
you will be able to see the data drive d: (120g) if it is not
formatted with NTFS. If the data drive is fat32 formatted
and can be seen from the boot floppy there is no short.
She could also try a different power supply plug and
and new data cable first. Run fdisk from the floppy.

The problem with diagnosing this as a short is that it is
1,000 to one or more that the (newish) hardware broke/shorted
just as she applied SP2. I think it is a lot more likely that SP2
reported an improper hard drive configuration --- I
think she installed a pre-fdisked hard drive as the data
drive and did not fdisk and format the newer data drive
while the first hard drive was hooked up. IOW, this is
much more likely to be bad jumpering or software.

Regards,
Stephen

"Stephen Harris" wrote in message
...

"Malke" wrote in message
...
stephanie wrote:

I recently installed SP2. Afterwards I was having the problem in which
I could not boot -- from anything (safe mode, reinstallation CD,
floppy boot disk, last known good config., etc.). I decided to see if
I couldn't switch my hard drives around and put my data only (no
windows) drive as the master drive, and then install XP (home edition)
onto that to get things running again.

In the process of doing this, I discovered that I could actually boot
my computer just fine off of my 1st HD (western digital 80 gb) when
the 2nd (western digital 120 gb) was diconnected. I then removed evil
SP2, and then tried to put the 2nd HD back in, which cuased the same
unable to boot errors.

I admit that there is a chance that my 2nd HD could have gone bad at
the very instant that I restared after installing SP2 (this was when
the problems started), but has anyone heard of anything like this? Is
there any way to check to verify whether the 2nd HD is okay? Should a
non-functioning 2nd HD prevent the computer from booting? Thanks.

Of course there's always a chance. Yes, a malfunctioning second hard
drive can cause a good one not to boot, particularly if the problem is
a short. You can test the drive with a diagnostic utility downloaded
from the drive mftr.'s website. Normally you make a bootable floppy.
Boot with it and run a full test. If there are errors, replace the
drive.

Malke
--
MS MVP - Windows Shell/User
Elephant Boy Computers
www.elephantboycomputers.com
"Don't Panic!"

I interpreted stephanie's post to mean that bios would run
but no drive was recognized to boot from. That is not a short.
I don't know if you consider misconfigured jumpers a malfunction?

Perhaps I was wrong, and she did enable booting from cd as
first device in the bios and the machine turned off from the short after,
but it seems like she would have described this differently than no boot.

Your suggestion leaves some questions in my mind.
The C: drive is ok and does not need to be tested because it boots.
If you disconnect the (80g)c: drive and boot with a floppy
you will be able to see the data drive d: (120g) if it is not
formatted with NTFS. If the data drive is fat32 formatted
and can be seen from the boot floppy there is no short.
She could also try a different power supply plug and
and new data cable first. Run fdisk from the floppy.

The problem with diagnosing this as a short is that it is
1,000 to one or more that the (newish) hardware broke/shorted
just as she applied SP2. I think it is a lot more likely that SP2
reported an improper hard drive configuration --- I
think she installed a pre-fdisked hard drive as the data
drive and did not fdisk and format the newer data drive
while the first hard drive was hooked up. IOW, this is
much more likely to be bad jumpering or software.

Regards,
Stephen


I have had a computer not boot with a bad hard drive connected to a good
drive.
The computer would not boot to a floppy either.
What does NTFS have to do with testing a drive?
The drives were already in the computer when SP2 was installed. That rules
out the bad jumpering.
--
Ron Sommer

"Ron Sommer" wrote in message
...

"Stephen Harris" wrote in message
...

"Malke" wrote in message
...
stephanie wrote:

I recently installed SP2. Afterwards I was having the problem in which
I could not boot -- from anything (safe mode, reinstallation CD,
floppy boot disk, last known good config., etc.). I decided to see if
I couldn't switch my hard drives around and put my data only (no
windows) drive as the master drive, and then install XP (home edition)
onto that to get things running again.

In the process of doing this, I discovered that I could actually boot
my computer just fine off of my 1st HD (western digital 80 gb) when
the 2nd (western digital 120 gb) was diconnected. I then removed evil
SP2, and then tried to put the 2nd HD back in, which cuased the same
unable to boot errors.

I admit that there is a chance that my 2nd HD could have gone bad at
the very instant that I restared after installing SP2 (this was when
the problems started), but has anyone heard of anything like this? Is
there any way to check to verify whether the 2nd HD is okay? Should a
non-functioning 2nd HD prevent the computer from booting? Thanks.

Of course there's always a chance. Yes, a malfunctioning second hard
drive can cause a good one not to boot, particularly if the problem is
a short. You can test the drive with a diagnostic utility downloaded
from the drive mftr.'s website. Normally you make a bootable floppy.
Boot with it and run a full test. If there are errors, replace the
drive.

Malke
--
MS MVP - Windows Shell/User
Elephant Boy Computers
www.elephantboycomputers.com
"Don't Panic!"

I interpreted stephanie's post to mean that bios would run
but no drive was recognized to boot from. That is not a short.
I don't know if you consider misconfigured jumpers a malfunction?

Perhaps I was wrong, and she did enable booting from cd as
first device in the bios and the machine turned off from the short after,
but it seems like she would have described this differently than no boot.

Your suggestion leaves some questions in my mind.
The C: drive is ok and does not need to be tested because it boots.
If you disconnect the (80g)c: drive and boot with a floppy
you will be able to see the data drive d: (120g) if it is not
formatted with NTFS. If the data drive is fat32 formatted
and can be seen from the boot floppy there is no short.
She could also try a different power supply plug and
and new data cable first. Run fdisk from the floppy.

The problem with diagnosing this as a short is that it is
1,000 to one or more that the (newish) hardware broke/shorted
just as she applied SP2. I think it is a lot more likely that SP2
reported an improper hard drive configuration --- I
think she installed a pre-fdisked hard drive as the data
drive and did not fdisk and format the newer data drive
while the first hard drive was hooked up. IOW, this is
much more likely to be bad jumpering or software.

Regards,
Stephen


I have had a computer not boot with a bad hard drive connected to a good
drive.
The computer would not boot to a floppy either.
What does NTFS have to do with testing a drive?

How are you going to read the drive from a floppy boot
if the drive is formatted with NTFS. It gives an error message.

The drives were already in the computer when SP2 was installed. That
rules out the bad jumpering.
--

No, it does not. You mean it is not supposed to work.

Ron Sommer

"Ron Sommer" wrote in message
...

"Stephen Harris" wrote in message
...

"Malke" wrote in message
...
stephanie wrote:

I recently installed SP2. Afterwards I was having the problem in which
I could not boot -- from anything (safe mode, reinstallation CD,
floppy boot disk, last known good config., etc.). I decided to see if
I couldn't switch my hard drives around and put my data only (no
windows) drive as the master drive, and then install XP (home edition)
onto that to get things running again.

In the process of doing this, I discovered that I could actually boot
my computer just fine off of my 1st HD (western digital 80 gb) when
the 2nd (western digital 120 gb) was diconnected. I then removed evil
SP2, and then tried to put the 2nd HD back in, which cuased the same
unable to boot errors.

I admit that there is a chance that my 2nd HD could have gone bad at
the very instant that I restared after installing SP2 (this was when
the problems started), but has anyone heard of anything like this? Is
there any way to check to verify whether the 2nd HD is okay? Should a
non-functioning 2nd HD prevent the computer from booting? Thanks.

Of course there's always a chance. Yes, a malfunctioning second hard
drive can cause a good one not to boot, particularly if the problem is
a short. You can test the drive with a diagnostic utility downloaded
from the drive mftr.'s website. Normally you make a bootable floppy.
Boot with it and run a full test. If there are errors, replace the
drive.

Malke
--
MS MVP - Windows Shell/User
Elephant Boy Computers
www.elephantboycomputers.com
"Don't Panic!"

I interpreted stephanie's post to mean that bios would run
but no drive was recognized to boot from. That is not a short.
I don't know if you consider misconfigured jumpers a malfunction?

Perhaps I was wrong, and she did enable booting from cd as
first device in the bios and the machine turned off from the short after,
but it seems like she would have described this differently than no boot.

Your suggestion leaves some questions in my mind.
The C: drive is ok and does not need to be tested because it boots.
If you disconnect the (80g)c: drive and boot with a floppy
you will be able to see the data drive d: (120g) if it is not
formatted with NTFS. If the data drive is fat32 formatted
and can be seen from the boot floppy there is no short.
She could also try a different power supply plug and
and new data cable first. Run fdisk from the floppy.

The problem with diagnosing this as a short is that it is
1,000 to one or more that the (newish) hardware broke/shorted
just as she applied SP2. I think it is a lot more likely that SP2
reported an improper hard drive configuration --- I
think she installed a pre-fdisked hard drive as the data
drive and did not fdisk and format the newer data drive
while the first hard drive was hooked up. IOW, this is
much more likely to be bad jumpering or software.

Regards,
Stephen


I have had a computer not boot with a bad hard drive connected to a good
drive.


The computer would not boot to a floppy either.

Then how does Malke's advice work?

"You can test the drive with a diagnostic utility downloaded
from the drive mftr.'s website. Normally you make a bootable floppy.
Boot with it and run a full test. If there are errors, replace the
drive."

SH: I think an early move is to see if the physical presence
of both drives is registered in bios (F2, del, etc.) assuming
that it boots that far.

What does NTFS have to do with testing a drive?
The drives were already in the computer when SP2 was installed. That
rules out the bad jumpering.
--
Ron Sommer

Stephen Harris wrote:


Probably not, as in you mean a broken drive. But Yes, if you have the
jumpers on the back of the hard drives misconfigured. I have had two
healthy hard drives not boot when both were connected because I had
the jumper settings wrong. They are on the back of the hard drive usually.

It can sometimes happen too if you have mixed drives, correctly jumpered
on the same cable. WD ones tend not to be good bedfellows with other
makes. I would try simplifying to the two drives each on its separate
cable as master.

And make sure that neither BIOS nor XP Device manager has the secondary
channel disabled


--
Alex Nichol MS MVP (Windows Technologies)
Bournemouth, U.K. (remove the D8 bit)

"stephanie" wrote in message
m...
I recently installed SP2. Afterwards I was having the problem in which
I could not boot -- from anything (safe mode, reinstallation CD,
floppy boot disk, last known good config., etc.). I decided to see if
I couldn't switch my hard drives around and put my data only (no
windows) drive as the master drive, and then install XP (home edition)
onto that to get things running again.

In the process of doing this, I discovered that I could actually boot
my computer just fine off of my 1st HD (western digital 80 gb) when
the 2nd (western digital 120 gb) was diconnected. I then removed evil
SP2, and then tried to put the 2nd HD back in, which cuased the same
unable to boot errors.

I admit that there is a chance that my 2nd HD could have gone bad at
the very instant that I restared after installing SP2 (this was when
the problems started), but has anyone heard of anything like this? Is
there any way to check to verify whether the 2nd HD is okay? Should a
non-functioning 2nd HD prevent the computer from booting? Thanks.

Here are reports related to yours that are not hard drive failures:

From: Doug
Subject: hard drive failure
Newsgroups: microsoft.public.windowsxp.hardware

-----Original Message-----
I installed Winxp a few weeks ago and now it wont
recognize one of my hard drives. When ever I try to access
the drive it gives me an error telling me the file system
is corrupt. If I remove the drive and put it in my Win98
machine it works great, but it cant see the stuff I put on
the drive after I installed Winxp. Is there any way I can
fix the problem without formatting, I have alot of
important files I need to get off. I scanned my winxp
machine for viruses and the hard drive when I installed it
in my win98 machine and they were both clean. One of my
friends told me to run scandisk with my win98 machine, but
I didnt want to try it in case it makes it worse.
.

I HAVE HAD A SIMILAR PROBLEM: I HAD WIN 98 RUNNING ON A
80 G DRIVE WITH A 100 G, AND TWO 120 G DATA DRIVES
ATTACHEDE THROUGH A PROMISE ULTRA 100 DISK CONTROLLER
CARD. I INSTALLED WINDOWS XP ON ANOTHER 100 G DRIVE AND
ATTACHED MY DATA DRIVES. AT FIRST IT SEEMED FINE AND THE
DATA DRIVES WERE ALL RECOGNIZED. BUT THEN I HAD TO
UNINSTALL THE SOUND CARD DRIVERS AND WHEN I REBOOTED WIN
XP I GOT A BAD BLUE WARNING SCREEN THAT THE OS WAS NOT
RIGHT. SO I FIGURED, NO BIG DEAL, I'LL REINSTALL XP.
WHEN I DID ALL THE DATA DRIVES DISAPPEARED. I STILL
WASN'T TOO WORRIED BECAUSE I FIGURED I COULD JUST SEE
THEM WITH THE WIN 98 DRIVE I STILL HAD SET UP FROM
BEFORE. BUT WHEN I ATTACHED THE ORGINAL WIN 98 DRIVE AND
THE DATA DRIVES--I.E. MY ORIGINAL SYSTEM SETUP BEFORE WIN
XP--THE DATA DRIVES HAD STILL DISAPPEARED. NOW IT WAS
PANIC TIME! I STAYED UP FOR DAYS TRYING ALL MANNER OF
JUMPER SETTINGS ETC. TO GET THE DATA BACK WITH NO LUCK.
THEN, A THE POINT OF DESPAIR, I FOUND THAT IF I TOOK A
SINGLE DATA DRIVE, SET THE JUMPER ON CS (CABLE SELLECT)
AND ATTACHED IT TO THE DISTALL CONNECTOR OF THE PRIMARY
IDE CONNECTOR OFF THE MOTHERBOARD, I COULD SEE THE DRIVE
AND THE DIRECTORIES/FILES. BUT THEY WERE SEEN ONLY UNDER
DOS SO ONLY THE TRUNCATED SHORT FILE NAMES WERE VISABLE.
I FOUND THAT IF I USED A OLD COPY OF NORTON COMMANDER, I
COULD COPY THE DIRECTORIES AND FILES TO A NEW DRIVE--BUT
ONLY WITH THE SHORT FILE NAMES. THIS IS BAD IF YOU HAVE
A LOT OF FILES THAT ARE HARD TO IDENTIFY ONCE THE LONG
FILE NAME IS STRIPPED OFF. AND I DO HAVE A LOT OF FILES
ON 340 G OF DATA! FORTUNATELY I FOUND A PROGRAM ON THE
WEB, "DOSLFNBK.EXE" THAT LETS YOU CREAT A BATCH FILE THAT
HAS ALL THE LONG FILE NAMES OF YOUR FILES. IF YOU COPY
THIS FILE TO YOUR NEW DRIVE THAT HAS YOUR FILES COPIED
WITH NORTON COMMANDER, AND THEN RUN THE PROGRAM YOU CAN
RESTORE ALL YOUR LONG NAMES. THEN YOU HAVE A WORKING
DRIVE WITH YOUR DATA AGAIN.

THE WEIRD THING WAS THAT AFTER I RECONSTITUTED MY DATA IN
THIS CONVULUTED AND TIME CONSUMING FASHION. I HAPPEN TO
RECONNECT THE ORIGINAL XP DRIVE WITH ONE OF THE DAT
DRIVES AND...THE DATA WAS THERE AGAIN! I JUST COULD'T
BELIEVE IT BECAUSE I HAD JUST DONE ALL THIS AGONIZING AND
WORK. SO NOW I ERASED THE RECONSTITUED DRIVE BECAUSE IT
SEEMED THE ORIGINAL DATA DRIVE WAS WORKING WITH WINDOWS
XP. BUT THERE WAS ONE LAST HITCH. THE WINDOWS XP WAS ON
A 100 G DRIVE AND I WANTED IT ON A 120 G DRIVE. SO I WAS
TRYING TO SET UP THE 120 G DRIVE WITH WIN XP BUT THE NEW
SET UP WOULD NOT RECOGNIZE THE DATA DRIVES. AND TO MAKE
THINGS WORSE, I HAD THE ORIGINAL 100 G WIN XP DRIVE
CONNECTEDE WHEN I DID THE SETUP OF XP AND IT CORRUPTED
THAT DRIVE SETUP. SINCE THAT WAS THE ONLY SETUP THAT
CAN "SEE" THE DATA DRIVES, I NOW HAVE TO START ALL OVER
AND RECONSTITUTE MY DATA UNDER A DOS BOOT, NORTON
COMMANDER AND DOSLFNBK. THIS IS JUST HAIR PULLING
TORMENT! I HAVE ALSO TRIED TO MAKE A WINDOWS XP
INSTALLATION FROM SEVERAL OLD DRIVES THAT HAD WIN 98 ON
THEM AND FOUND THAT EVEN IF I DON'T INSTALL ON THOSE
DRIVES, A WORKING WIN 98 DRIVE THEN GETS CORRUPTED BY
EVEN THE WIN XP SETUP PROCESS. I'M CONVINCED THAT UNLIKE
WIN 98, WIN XP HAS THE ABILITY TO REALLY MESS UP EITHER
THE BOOT RECORD OR THE WINDOWS INSTALLATION ON OTHER
DRIVES SO THAT THEY ARE IRREPARIBLY DAMAGED (EXCEPT BY
REFORMATTING THE DRIVE)

OTHER WEIRD THINGS ARE THAT WITHING WINDOWS XP DISK
MANAGER PROGRAM, I COULD SEE THE DATA DRIVES BUT THEY
WERE NOT ACCESSIBLE IN EXPLORER OR "MY COMPUTER", EVEN IF
THE DISK MANAGER SAID THE DISKS WERE "HEALTHY"
AND "ACTIVE". AND ONCE A DISK DRIVE SHOWED UP UNDER "MY
COMPUTER" AND AS I WATCHED THE DRIVE ICON, IT DISAPPEARED
AND THEN REAPPEARED A LITTLE WHILE LATER. NOW THAT IS
REALLY WEIRD! THAT MADE ME REALLY WONDERE HOW RELIABLY
WIN XP WAS HANDLING MY DRIVES.

THIS IS OBVIOUSLY A VERY BIG RISK FOR ANYONE MOVING TO XP
AND INTENDING TO USE DATA DRIVES FORMATED UNDER A PRIOR
WINDOWS. I JUST CAN'T UNDERSTAND WHY THERE ARENT'T A LOT
MORE PROBLEMS AROUND THIS ISSUE SINCE I SAW NOTHING WHEN
LOOKING UP REPORTED PROBLEMS ON THE MICROSOFT XP SITE.
YOU ARE THE FIRST ONE I'VE SEEN THAT MAY HAVE A SIMILAR
PROBLEM TO MINE. LET ME KNOW IF YOU FIND A SOLUTION.
I'M BUSY RECONSTITUTING MY DATA, EVEN AS I TYPE.SH: The data drive, 120g,
may be healthy. Disconnect the data cable and the power cable from the 80g
which will boot.Plug them into the 120g drive. Set the jumper pins to
stand-alone, or copy the placement of the jumper setting positionson the 80g
(make a note of their position). Only the 120g drive is now connected. Boot,
enter bios and change the 1stboot device to floppy. Use a win98 rescue disk
or you candownload a boot floppy from the internet. The boot floppywill boot
to A: Then you can read the 120g drive unlessthis data disk has been
formatted with NTFS by typing:C: then type dir at the C: C:\dir should show
your files.From A: when you type C: it gives you an invalid media
formaterror message, that means the format is wrong but the driveis
physically recognized. There is a command 'fdisk' whichyou can use from the
floppy A: drive A:\fdisk which has anoption to provide you system
information. If fdisk reportsyou have a drive then the drive is ok. If there
is a reportof no drive found, then the drive is probably bad.If you can
navigage from A: to C: your problem can be fixed.I included all of the
quoted post, some of which is not relevant.