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Hello,I have recently bought a Western digital 500 gb hard drive and installed Windows Xp on it by configuring it as a slave drive.During installation there was no problem but when i connect this hard drive as master it does not get detected by the computer. The drive works fine as a slave but whenever i try to boot from it, the system shows "Disk boot failure". I am using Sont VAIO PCV RX 860 computer.Please help
Try detecting the hard drive manually from the BIOS. When the system boots press DEL to enter BIOS set up. Now go to hardware peripherals tab. Now highlight IDE primary or Secondary (depending on the port you connected the hard drive) and press enter to detect. The hard drive should get detected if it is working properly.
As your hard drive is not getting detected by the system on start up, there may be a possibility that the hard drive is faulty. Connect this hard drive in slave mode and download the western digital diagnostics tools for checking the hard drive. After downloading run the diagnostic tool on slave disk and check the results of the test. The test result should be ok if the hard drive is good else it will list all the problems with the hard drive which can be repaired by highlighting and selecting the action to be taken.
Sometimes when the system is connected with two hard drive working as the Master it is unable to boot and displays "Disk boot failure". When you connect the WD hard drive as master make sure that the other hard drive is put to slave mode. A system cannot boot if two hard drives are in master mode. Just change the jumper setting of the hard drive from master to slave according to layout given by the manufacturer.
You say you installed windows xp to this drive in slave mode which i think could be the problem in this case. Connect the drive in master mode and install windows xp to it using a bootable CD. During installation when the comp restarts, go to bios set up and check if the hard drive is detected. If the hard drive is detected then exit bios and continue with the set up. After installation the hard drive will work fine.
I think there must be a problem with format of the drive. Try formatting the drive again with Fat32 or NTFS but make sure you dont do a quick format. After reformatting the drive, run the WD Lifeguard Wizard software on the hard drive while keeping it in slave mode. Check the results of the tests and do the needful.