Could not read from the selected boot disk

[cornishpasty]

Hi,

I have two hard drives, the primary one is a 160GB Maxtor STM3160815AS (SATA) with Windows XP Professional x64 on it (NTFS). Also connected is a 40GB Samsung SP4002H (IDE) that is partitioned into D: (NTFS) and E: (FAT32) drives.

I'm trying to install the same copy of Windows onto the D drive as part of a test format and reinstall before I format and reinstall Windows on C drive. After Windows completes the initial setup phase, the computer reboots and shows the load operating system screen. I choose the Windows loaded onto D drive to continue the setup, but this message comes up:

Windows could not start because of a computer disk hardware configuration problem.

Could not read from the selected boot disk. Check boot path and disk hardware.

Please check the Windows documentation about hardware configuration and your hardware reference manuals for additional information.

I have done some Internet searching and one suggestion was to run the Recovery program on the Windows disc and rebuild boot.ini using bootcfg. I did that and it detected both Windows installations, but the same problem happened.

I have tried formatting D drive and restarting the Windows installation but the same problem keeps happening.

I have tried disconnecting the primary hard drive (SATA) and getting the computer to boot from the second hard drive (IDE) but when I do that it won't recognise the HD as a boot device. The BIOS recognises IDE Channel 0 Master as None and IDE Channel 0 Slave as my DVD/RW. For some reason the BIOS can't see the IDE hard drive even though it comes up in My Computer.

I have tried taking the jumper pin out of the IDE hard drive (which was set as master) and putting it into the DVD drive, making the HD slave and the DVD master. The BIOS then recognises IDE Channel 0 Master as None and IDE Channel 0 Slave as the IDE hard drive. However with this configuration the DVD/RW is not recognised at all, not even in My Computer, and when I try to boot from the HD, this message comes up:

NTLDR is missing.

Press Ctrl + Alt + Delete to restart.

Is NTLDR loaded from the Windows disc after the first reboot in Windows setup? If it is then that's why it says it's missing. How can I get the BIOS to recognise both the IDE HD and the DVD drive? I have read the manuals for both and the jumper settings seem to be correct.

My motherboard is a Biostar GF7025-M2 TE. Both the IDE HD and the DVD are on the same IDE cable. The HD is connected at the middle of the cable and the DVD is connected at the end. The motherboard only has one IDE connection (besides the Floppy) and I can't switch the drives' connections around because then the cable wouldn't be long enough to reach the DVD.

Any help would be greatly appreciated. Many thanks

[T.J.]

I think that you have to go into BIOS setup to change the boot device order to make CDROM as the first boot device before your computer will boot from the CD ROM. If you have set CDROM as first boot device & it still not booting, then you probably have a copied XP CD which doesn't boot. In this case, boot the computer with the Win 98 boot disk and choose with CD support at the boot menu. After booting to dos prompt, change to the CDROM, change to the i386 directory (cd i386 and hit enter). Then type winnt32 and hit enter. This will start the windows XP installation program. Just follow the prompt from this point onwards. Normally, with a repair option as well, you can sort out the "NTLDR missing" issue.