[BC] A puzzling computer problem

[Lewis Munn]

Kevin,
   
  IF the drive is defective, or the power supply is overloaded and unable to support all the hardware in the system, you could have power supply shutdowns amd other problems.
   
  Meter the power busses with and without the old drive on, and see if it is pulling the PS down.  12V line would be the likely culprit if it is.
   
  Also, you can get into boot problems running mixed systems.  If the drive ws made in Windows 98, XP might not fully recoignize it.  If the drive has an OS on it that is known good, set it for being the master drive, and see if it will boot w/o the XP-based drive in it.
   
  PowerQuest had a program clled "partition magic" to handle multiple OS's and multiple differing drives; I believe Symantec bought them out and has this in the Norton line.
   
  I had a similar sorta problem with a HD on an old machine tht used  SW BIOS extention for W/98 supplied by the manufacturer, Western Digital, and
when I moved to W/98SE it refused to run.  The BIOS company assured me Western Digital knew how to set the SW to bridge the gap, but WD never could help me, refused in fact, and told me that I had to reformat the disk and lose all my data. Not too happy with their customer support or engineering knowledge..
   
  There are some places now that advertise low-cost data recovery.  I cannot vouch for any of them, but check and see.  Might find a good one.
   
  I do not think a hard drive will corrupt the BIOS, unless you inadvertantly hit something while it was booting.  But it is possible.  Your new machine mfp tech support should be able to help on this.  Learn Pakistani!!
   
  I know the feeling...got 30G of old data I cannot access.  And Western Digital is not at all cooperative.  
   
  Good luck.  Just remember; the data is there, and I would try getting a machine with w/98 on it, call the drive the sole master, and see if it will not come up.  Means changing the drive select per the mfp specs to make it Master.
   
  I have done this with one machine and now can interchange 4 different drives on it with just changing the cables to the drive I want to use.  Salvaged data I thought was gone on one drive...but all the drives were the same OS.
   
  Good luck.  I have two relatives who are very knowledgable in computers, both HW and Software, who could help I am sure if I asked them, and if yu wish I will.  I do suspect there are many gurus tho in this 'room' that can help also.
   
  Looey Munn
  Rpoundup, MT
  "freezing and starving .. business ain't good, and all the wood is wet"
   
  
Kevin Trueblood <kevint at aaabloomington.com> wrote:
  Something very odd just happened to me, and I'm starting to wonder something:

		
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