re: Failed (non-boot) Hard drive halts windows bootup!?
Friday, September 30, 2005 at 3:46 pm
Windows 2000 Annoyances Discussion Forum
Posted by C K
(6910 messages posted)
I think I understand what you are asking now and the answer IME is no, there is no
central config file or reg entry for the purposes of the control you are thinking
of. If you have a drive fail that you had installed programs to for instance, then
you have to do a repair install without the failed drive as the whole registry has
to be repaired. Windows is so complicated that "patching" is all but impossible
which is why you have an option for a repair install unless damage and data loss
is to severe. If Windows indicated it can't be repaired, you have no choice but
a clean install. If there was some kind of wierd install scenerio where some necessary
files were on the failed drive then again, you will have to try a repair install.
There are are hundreds of places or more where the failed drive could/will be referenced
depending on what was installed on it or used for. In many cases where this has
happened on systems I have worked on, it took a complete clean install and reload
of programs and data. I have had data only drives fail and windows will boot with
or without warnings. Exactly what was the drive being used for? Dynamic or basic
disk?? If a dynamic disk, the last physical disk is where all the data is stored
to revive spanned disks. If that one goes, there is no chance of recovery IME..
Other than that, I don't think this one will be easily resolved through the forum
as every install and program base is different.. One of those cases where I could
say for sure if I could physically work with the machine myself.. Good Luck!
On Friday, September 30, 2005 at 11:13 am, nick wrote:
>reply below...
>
>>when Windows starts. In this case, it sounds like the drive shows in the BIOS
but
>>the platters are not spinning up. The hive and key
>
>no, the BIOS doesn't recognize the drive as being there....
>
>>as Win 9X is the only system that supports a hardware change and re-detects hardware
>>on every boot up. Win NT/2k/XP doesn't. That's why NT systems won't start when
>>motherboards are changed (different IDE controllers) or HD's are moved to a new
>system.
>
>what i was getting at is there must be a location where the config info is stored,
>if i can find where that's at i could go in and tell it that the drive's not there....all
>of the stuff i've seen to this point says run chkdisk /f and fix the drive, none
>of them cover the situation where a drive totally fails and cannot be replaced,
meaning
>windows has to be patched to run without the drive...
>
>> If it can't, up pops the errors. Nothing you can do in the registry to stop that
>>except to remove the bad drive. All operating
>
>i have removed the bad drive, but it still didn't remove the _dependency_ on the
>boot sequence to that drive...in the "hkey_local_machine\system\MountedDevices"
key
>there is a list of the drives in the system...does anybody know if that is scanned
>at startup or referenced during the kernel load???
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