Windows 7 won't start with old hard disk inserted

I've just bought a new PC. The boot drive is SSD and it's quick and quiet. I want to move the hard disks from the old PC across to the new PC. The new PC has an ASUS P8Z68-V/Pro-GEN3 MOBO with AHCI enabled. On the old PC I did a Windows Quick Format on one drive and put it in the new PC. The BIOS can see it but Windows hangs on the Starting Windows screen (the animation plays then just hangs). The drive is a Maxtor 6V250F0 about 6 years old. The drive was jumpered to 1.5Gb/s SATA and I removed the jumpers, either way makes no diff. Windows 'Repair PC' boot gets nowhere (the report looks like everything is OK). I've checked the new PC Reg entry HKLM/.../msahci; it was 3, changing to 0 made no difference. The drive works fine in the old PC. Any suggestions? Is the disk just too old for a new PC? I don't want to buy a new drive and find I still have the problem!

Have you checked the boot sequence in the Bios

DVD, SSD, Generic USB3 - without the extra disk. BUT, it was starting windows so it must have found the boot disk (SSD), right?

Not necessarily true
Windows has a nasty habit of looking for files on two disks if it thinks it will

In reply to a post by andygegg:

DVD, SSD, Generic USB3 - without the extra disk. BUT, it was starting windows so it must have found the boot disk (SSD), right?

Yeah, would suggest BIOS is fine..

Check here: http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/191201-10-proble...

First of all try changing the sata port it is connected to..

What I'd try first is to put the disk back in the old computer, and run a diskpart "clean all" on the disk. Make sure you select the right disk!

This will clear all partitions, then when you pop it into the new computer, windows will not try assigning a drive letter because the drive will have no partitions. This might get you by.

Is this an OEM image of Windows? It's possible it's just a bodged windows installation and some error is stopping it add a new storage device properly..

Edited by Pipexer (Mon 09-Apr-12 15:22:05)

In reply to a post by Oldjim:

Not necessarily true
Windows has a nasty habit of looking for files on two disks if it thinks it will

But that doesn't have anything to do with BIOS boot order. Windows has no reason to look on the other disk because it has only just been introduced to it. Windows would only look on the other disk if you previously had installed some service or system component on it, giving it a reason to try and look at the other disk.

Further info.
BIOS gives boot sequence as DVD, SSD, hard disk,...
When it went into the recovery environment I carried on to the command prompt. I used chkdsk to see if it could find the disk (where are these commands documented?):
chkdsk D: was the 100MB partition
chkdsk E: was the SSD
chkdsk C: was the new (old!) hard disk
If the OS thinks the HDD is C: no wonder it falls over. But does it and how can I fix this?

Be a setting in BIOS about HD booting order.

In reply to a post by Pipexer:

Check here: http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/191201-10-proble...

If I were sure it was the disk I'd be quite happy to get a new disk and put it in

In reply to a post by Pipexer:

Is this an OEM image of Windows? It's possible it's just a bodged windows installation and some error is stopping it add a new storage device properly..

The PC (from Chillblast) came with the OS installed so yes, it's OEM

In reply to a post by DavidFinbarr:

Be a setting in BIOS about HD booting order.

See my overlapping reply - the HD boot order is SSD, HDD

Post deleted by DavidFinbarr

Can you remove HD from booting in the menu?

Have you also tried installing sata drive with system running, then rebooting?

Edited by deleted (Mon 09-Apr-12 16:33:10)

In reply to a post by andygegg:

But does it and how can I fix this?

What happens in the recovery environment does not always translate to what is happening when you boot up the OS.

Nevertheless, you fix it by following my instructions above This disk has just been formatted, correct? Therefore there is no data on it you need? If so run the diskpart clean command, this will strip the disk of partitions. Therefore windows cannot give it a drive letter because there is no partition to give it to!

In reply to a post by DavidFinbarr:

Have you also tried installing sata drive with system running, then rebooting?

Hehe, I was going to suggest this originally too. But given it's a brand new system it's probably not a good idea to resort to hot plugging the drive

I'd still do it myself though!

I've forgotten what a new system is like.

Mines like Trigger's broom, had it years, but replacement HDs, MoBos, Cases, etc, etc.

I had to look that one up http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pbha4XclSMU

Edited by deleted (Mon 09-Apr-12 16:48:44)

Just another titbit - I tried booting with a Live Ubuntu disk and it can see the HDD, read files, etc.
Maybe this is the solution - teach the wife to use Ubuntu!

I recently did a restore from backup and Windows was assinging B as boot drive. I had to boot into a PE environment, Windows 7 command prompt may be similar and use the DISKPART command to re-assign my Hard disk B drive to C then it would boot. I also have a Linux restore boot disk and it correctly identified the hard disk as C not B. Windows is funny. See if you can use Diskpart, it's a bit fiddly as you have to select the disk and partition then re-label it.

OP seems reluctant to use diskpart for some reason despite me mentioning giving it a try even from the start... It would certainly stop the disk being assigned a letter in WinRE.

Strictly speaking, the disk should be cleaned and formatted on a Windows 7 installation anyway as best practice, due to the slight changes in the NTFS file system specification over the versions, assuming the old PC wasn't running Windows 7.

Edited by Pipexer (Mon 09-Apr-12 20:32:39)

Could OP could try putting HD back in old system, deleting volume, then try it back in new system? Dunno if that would work.

You're right it would accomplish more or less the same thing and I'd normally do it that way, but diskpart is more robust, if you have a corrupt partition on the disk (which we could suspect), Windows may not display it in the UI - then you assume that the drive is blank, whereas clean tells it to -- clean, regardless whether it can interpret the contents or not, removing that potential. Notice sometimes during installation the Windows installation GUI shows you multiple "Unallocated space" under the same disk which is impossible to merge using the UI, even if you try creating partitions and deleting them, it keeps showing you multiple instances of Unallocated space, you have to use diskpart to run clean, and then you see the full block of "Unallocated space".

Another instance of diskpart prevailing over diskmgmt is where someone may create a primary partition on removable media of a size less than the full size of the disk, you cannot expand it using the UI to the full size as the unallocated space sticks at the low amount, even after deleting the volume/partition. Once again you have to run clean.

It may or may not fix the issue, but it's worth a try

Edited by Pipexer (Mon 09-Apr-12 21:07:33)

A "fixmbr" may work but I suspect that all partitions need to be deleted and the disk structure recreated to suit your needs. Even then, it then may require a "repair installation".

In reply to a post by Pipexer:

What I'd try first is to put the disk back in the old computer, and run a diskpart "clean all" on the disk. Make sure you select the right disk!

This will clear all partitions, then when you pop it into the new computer, windows will not try assigning a drive letter because the drive will have no partitions. This might get you by.

Did that, put disk in new PC - still hangs

In reply to a post by Pipexer:

assuming the old PC wasn't running Windows 7.

It is running Win 7 Home Premium (installed by yours truly as a retail upgrade from XP). Have reformatted disk on old PC, about to try in new PC. Hohum.

In reply to a post by andygegg:

..... as a retail upgrade......

I wouldn't recommend OS upgrades under any circumstances. All too often they come back to bite you at a later date.

You might try sticking the HDD in an enclosure, use this free tool http://download.cnet.com/EaseUS-Partition-Master-Hom... to remove any partitions etc. and reformat as NTFS from the new Win7 machine.

I did this with an old IDE drive that was giving problems: it had partitions, possibly corrupt files, XP on it and wouldn't boot, now it works perfectly as an external drive in an enclosure over usb2.

Doing the same thing with a SATA drive and then using it as an internal, after formatting, should also work assuming the mobo is happy with it...

Are there any options for a "HDD delay"? It may be that the BIOS is slow in recognising the SSD is present and jumping straight to the HDD. Taking the HDD out of the bootable devices list should have the same effect.
What's the make/model of motherboard? Is there a BIOS update available?

If this was the case, Windows wouldn't load at all.

Hello Andy,

I've read through the entire post, and nobody has pointed out that the SATA hard drive your trying to put into your new pc is 6 years old.

6 years ago, SATA drives didn't support the modern/high performance modes which the SATA controllers use these days. Inside your bios, check to see in the advanced menu's for the SATA controller, if you can change it down to either compatability mode or IDE emulations. without that change Windows will just hang because the hard drive doesn't know how to respond.

In doing the above, your compromising the overall performance of your SSD and PC, because it will be the cause of a bottle neck.

In reply to a post by Pipexer:

If this was the case, Windows wouldn't load at all.

It would if it was still present on the old disk.

In reply to a post by wanapoo:

I've read through the entire post, and nobody has pointed out that the SATA hard drive your trying to put into your new pc is 6 years old.

6 years ago, SATA drives didn't support the modern/high performance modes which the SATA controllers use these days. Inside your bios, check to see in the advanced menu's for the SATA controller, if you can change it down to either compatability mode or IDE emulations. without that change Windows will just hang because the hard drive doesn't know how to respond.

In doing the above, your compromising the overall performance of your SSD and PC, because it will be the cause of a bottle neck.

Not actually true - the disk supports NCQ which is pretty much what AHCI seems to be about and is rated at 3Gb/s (i.e. SATA II). Moreover, today's breakthrough came when I attached the disk to a SATA III (yes, 3, i.e. 6Gb/s) socket - but on the Marvell controller, wouldn't work on the Intel controllers.

In reply to a post by Deadbeat:

In reply to a post by Pipexer:

If this was the case, Windows wouldn't load at all.

It would if it was still present on the old disk.

But he stated he formatted it.

Doesn't work on the Intel controllers, because there on the wrong setting in the bios.
Have a read of the user Manual.

To wrap this up tidily:
The old disk would not work on any of the Intel contollers (SATA II or III) but worked quite happily on the Marvell controller on the mobo - SATA III controller with AHCI enabled, disk runs at 3Gb/s as it's only SATA II. I took out a second mortgage and bought a new HDD (Seagate Barracuda, SATA III) which works quite happily on the Intel SATA III ports. I've reformatted the other old disk in my old PC (using a Ubuntu Live DVD) and moved that into the new PC on the Marvell controller and all is fine (although the nice neat Chillblast cabling is now my usual rat's nest!).

Thanks to everyone for their help and very useful suggestions.