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Question

Repairing while connected USB?

Oct 4, 2013 5:53AM PDT

I attached a seconday SATA drive to my system and then it stopped working. The primary drive is a 60gb Mushkin Digital SSD.

I tried to repair using the Windows disk however when I get to the point I need to type "R" to enter the recovery console, it tells me there is no drive present.

So I am wondering if I can repair Windows while the drive is attached to my other system (Win7 Ult. 64bit) as a USB external.

I can access all the data on the drive while it's connected via USB, but I don't know if I can do anything else.

Please advise.

Discussion is locked

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Answer
This is a very complicated method.
Oct 4, 2013 6:03AM PDT

XP would have to be at least SP2 if the drive is in SATA and there is no BIOS emulation mode for IDE in the BIOS. Then you would be feeding it diskettes for the SATA driver during the boot off the CD and I know of one other person in the world that knows this so my bet is you are unaware of the issues here. It's so complicated that I have seen folk lash out at others about it.

And XP has no native USB support to speak of when booting from CD, yet another dead end.

-> Since you can access all the files and there is no risk of file loss why not just reload the OS and get it working like you had it before?
Bob

PS. Since XP didn't have the trim command, I can only guess you elected to live with reduced performance and life span of the SSD drive.

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I think you misunderstand...
Oct 4, 2013 6:10AM PDT

I have the drive connected to my other computer via USB. I am trying to find a way to repair the boot with my other computer.

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There is no Microsoft sanctioned procedure for this.
Oct 4, 2013 6:15AM PDT

And the ones we use with the XP BOOT CD are very complicated for most.

Why not put the drive back into the PC it belongs, use the IDE emulation mode and try the MSFT ways or even EasyBCD's boot repair?

Remember I am taking your word that this is a boot issue and not any of the other XP issues. Again, to clarify, we can repair the boot area with ease. Repairing the OS is something else entirely and is done with methods like "XP REPAIR INSTALL."
Bob

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well...
Oct 4, 2013 8:57AM PDT

I think the drive I connected may have a working (or at least it was working) installation of Windows XP on it. I think there was a conflict between the two and that's why my OS drive stopped working.

As for an overlay install... I can't get the drive to be recognized upon startup. Although it does start the Windows boot screen, before a BRIEF blue screen then reboot.

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Now that's a good clue.
Oct 4, 2013 9:02AM PDT

It sounds like the SATA drive is doing exactly what you see with XP when the host PC is set to SATA mode and XP was not installed with the F6 Floppy install method.

Again, and for what looks like the 3rd time, set the host pc to IDE emulation.

This issue has been discussed for over a decade so I'll stop for what else you can tell after you do this.
Bob

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Answer
Let me very clear about something.
Oct 4, 2013 9:07AM PDT

XP knows nothing about SATA. If you take a working XP install that used the IDE emulation and reset the BIOS and the BIOS does not default to IDE emulation then it will BSOD.

In the past some motherboards defaulted to IDE emulation for the reason you suspect.
Today they should default to SATA mode and XP should BSOD.

And here I want to be very clear about fixing this. There is no known procedure to repair XP to add SATA boot support after the fact. Only IDE emulation is used and if you wanted to have XP (SP2 or later) boot in native SATA without emulation you must do the full XP SP2 or later F6 install method.

-> It's an old OS so I don't duplicate a lot of old lore so ask if you forgot about this area.
Bob

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Answer
I attached a seconday SATA drive to my system and then it st
Oct 4, 2013 4:24PM PDT
"I attached a seconday SATA drive to my system and then it stopped working."

How did it stop working? You just couldn't access it anymore? You had two drives internal in the computer and the SSD was the boot drive? Were you trying to boot from the SATA drive, or just use it as storage space? Which drive is not working, the SSD? Just adding another hard drive, even if it had been a boot drive in some other computer, wouldn't do anything to the boot drive you were using, it would just become a drive to put data on, unless you changed the boot priority in the BIOS. Did you change the boot order in the BIOS? If so, change it back to your boot drive, which should be the SSD. You can have two drives which can boot and switch between them if you want and neither one will interfere with the other when it's chosen as the boot device.
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I will try to clarify
Oct 4, 2013 11:21PM PDT

The system was working well with the SSD as the boot/OS drive. I then plugged in the WD drive (have no idea what's on it), and when I did; the PC wouldn't boot completely.

What it does: It will recognize the SSD in the bios and go through the normal boot and show the Windows logo with the blue bar animation. Then it flashes a BSOD and restarts.

The SSD is the only drive I am concerned with, however I don't believe the other drive (500gb Western Digitial) even works.

I connected the SSD to my primary system using an external SATA to USB cable and I am able to browse the files on it. I just need a way to repair the Windows installation and I believe the drive will work fine again.

When I have the drive in the system the way it was and boot from Win XP CD to attempt to use the repair console, it tells me there is no drive on the system (it is recognized in the BIOS).

Hope this clarifies.

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I can make this happen.
Oct 5, 2013 2:07AM PDT

If the original setup was for some odd reason on SATA PORT 2 and I add a drive to SATA PORT 1 then it will fail.

There is nothing wrong about this failure and only the newest of techs will make that error.

DETAILS ARE SLIM HERE so unless I know more I can't find the problem but will share item after item until it gives.

-> Again, XP CD boots should not report any hard drives in today's SATA systems. This is well discussed and while there is a procedure (the F6 method) I find most folk screaming over the arcana.
Bob

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He needs to test by putting
Oct 5, 2013 1:47PM PDT

it back the way it was, with just the SSD in it and the SATA drive's data cord unplugged. If he's made changes in the BIOS, change them back. I bet it will boot again then.

I suspect after windows was installed and with no SATA drivers added, he then changed the BIOS to allow the SATA and didn't use IDE compatible setting for the SATA, and windows having no drivers to load it, BSOD's.

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Ah, both are SATA
Oct 5, 2013 1:51PM PDT

Brainfart, thought one was IDE. Still, Bob gave the answer here.

"XP knows nothing about SATA. If you take a working XP install that used the IDE emulation and reset the BIOS and the BIOS does not default to IDE emulation then it will BSOD."

If you changed that, change it back. Try it with just the SSD drive again.

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Answer
After reading this and other thoughts, I have seen something
Oct 5, 2013 7:35PM PDT

similar when using an SATA CD/DVD drive with some boards that have more than two SATA ports. I don't know why but the ports seems to be somehow paired. Perhaps two are standard ports and the other two have RAID capability. In any event, I need to either swap the SATA cables around on the MB or use a USB CD ROM drive for the boot media. If you have such, I'd give that a try.