this is my problem. i had 4 hard drives running fine in this system.
I bought a WD 250gb hard drive. I wanted to get the oem WD80gb out of the system and into an external case.
with the WD80gb oem, and did a clean format and install of windows xp pro.
well, everything started up and ran fine.
files on it and retrieve them.
I went ahead and connected the rest of the hard drives in this manner.
Both of these installed on same cable as master/slave.
Both of these installed on 2nd ide cable as master/slave.
When i started system back up, it would not load operating system.
I couldn't get into bios or anything. It would come up to the VPR Matrix logo screen, and hang there for a while and then go blank, before reaching the Window's XP logo screen.
I tried switching the G&H drives, master/slave configurations, with no luck.
I tried doing cable select settings, and again, no luck.
all the rest of the drives. it didn't matter which drive i unhooked, it still worked.
I hope i explained this ok without going on too long.
Last edited by wolfsmane; 05-23-2005 at 02:58 AM.
How big is your PSU and how are you using 4 IDE hard Drives and 2 IDE Optical Drives?
<!--StartFragment --> thanks for replying. sorry i left out that info, i thought i had it in there.
a pci card to hook the other hard drives up to.
it had a fortron(oem)300w psu when i installed the pci card. i had the configuration of the 80gb, and 3-160gb connected, and everything worked well for over a year.
the 250gb and 3-160gb hard drives, still with the 300w psu.
i had the 2-160gb's connected to the mobo, as master/slave, and the 160gb and 250gb connected to the pci card as master slave.
but when i take out ONE of the last two drives(it doesn't matter which one) everything works fine.
i bought a new fortron blue storm 500w psu, and installed it.
i talked with several people about my set-up and this drive, and was told it would do very good in my set-up.
after install of psu, absolutely no change.
<!--StartFragment --> here's an update.
i left everything alone until this morning.
i re-arrange the ide connections of the hard drives.
this morning i disconnected the 2nd 160gb connected to the mobo, and instead connected the 250gb in it's place.
on the pci card 2-160gb's.
everything SEEMS to be working fine. it came right on, and has been up and running ever since.
I REALLY APPRECIATE EVERYONE'S HELP WITH THIS SITUATION !!!