NTLDR missing when 2nd HDD connected

[CrazyGreggy]

I've just completed a full reinstall of Windows XP due to the new mobo I bought. I did the whole thing with my 2nd (IDE) HDD unplugged because Windows XP setup insisted on trying to make the SATA my E: drive, so I forced it into the C: drive slot by leaving the IDE drive unplugged and only my SATA wired up.

Now when I plug in the 2nd HDD to get at my backups the boot fails with the NTLDR Missing message. If I unplug the backup drive and reset the boot order in the BIOS I get back into Windows XP with no problems at all.

Hardware:

Seagate 120Gig SATA hdd on SATA channel 1
Seageate 10Gig ATA100 drive on IDE 1 (Slave)
ABit IC7-MAX3 mobo, rev 17
IDE CD-Rom and Zip 100 internal on IDE 2 (slave/master in that order)

Can anyone tell me what BIOS settings I should be looking for to get this sorted? With only the SATA drive plugged in it sets as Primary Master, no slave. With the 2nd HDD plugged in the SATA drive jumps to Tertiary Master, the IDE drive goes to Primary Slave with no Primary Master installed.

All my backups are on the second drive

[sechs]

Change the boot order in your BIOS. Your computer is booting the parallel drive and not the serial drive.

[CrazyGreggy]

I'll try again on the assumption I'm missing something, but I'm positive I did that the last time I plugged the parallel in.

Edit - nope, no joy. Plugged the PATA drive in, set the boot device order to SATA/PATA/Zip Drive and it fell over again. Shut down, unplugged the PATA and the BIOS set boot order to Zip Drive/SATA drive and failed to load the OS. I had to go into the BIOS again and set the SATA back to priority 1.

Still no luck here. Anyone?

[sechs]

Don't put the parallel in the boot order at all. You're not going to boot from it anyway.

[CrazyGreggy]

It just appears in there anyway I'm afraid.

The funny thing is, I've disconnected the Zip Drive (only got it for backups before I went to a dual HDD setup) and plugged the PATA on secondary slave with the CD-Rom as master, it all works just fine. Very very odd.

[jonm01]

Can't you set boot order to HD, CD, FLOPPY?

Whatever is happening, the machine is trying to boot from that drive before your main one.

[CrazyGreggy]

Yeah. There's 2 menus in this BIOS. Device boot order and then HDD boot order. The device boot order is Floppy, HDD, CD. The HDD boot order only shows fixed drives, which right now is only my 2 hard drives cos I've removed the Zip Drive, but it WAS both HDDs and the Zip Drive. Didn't matter what order they were set in, it would fall over and not load the OS from the SATA drive. I've got it working, but only cos I've put the PATA drive on secondary slave, CD drive on secondary master and left IDE channel 1 empty.

[Bizkitkid2001]

Plug the second drive in. Boot from a Windows 98 boot disk. If it runs FDISK, make sure you quit. When you get to the command promt A:/ do a change directory so that the C:/ shows. Then do a FIXMBR command.

[CrazyGreggy]

The MBR is fine. I can boot from the SATA drive under the configuration above, but the instant the PATA drive goes on primary IDE with the SATA shifting to Tertiary I get the NTLDR Missing message. Put the PATA back to secondary slave with the primary channel empty (or at least the IDE 1 connector empty) and it boots fine, access to both drives without any difficulty at all.

It's just really, really strange....

[sr71000]

hey..i kno..oohhhhhh man...lol. im not sure what the setting is but it's your boot.ini file. grrr
damn...google it or wait for someone else to tell you but i'm almost POSITIVE it's your boot.ini file...wow..i kinda hafta go read the rest of the posts now...that just clicked and i was like AHH gotta put that down while i still remember. lololol. well..for those of u who don't kno the boot.ini file is what tells the computer where the os is. give me a while and i'll check back with some research. lol. if anyone knows what the settings are, please spare me lol