Here's a poser for you

[KRSESQ]

When I'm troubleshooting computers, I sometimes find it useful to take the hard drive out and plug it into one of my test machines as a secondary drive, so when I boot into the test machine's WinXP Pro OS I can scan the problem drive to my heart's content without too much fear of mucking it up even worse. This generally works with every MS operating system EXCEPT the accursed Windows ME.

When I plug a hard drive installed with Windows ME into my test machine, it ALWAYS wants to boot ME. It doesn't matter if the drives are set to cable select or the problem drive is set to slave on the secondary controller. It will ALWAYS boot to ME, even if I rename the ME win.com. What causes this?

It's enough to make me spit in Bill Gates's eye.

Kevin

[KvHagedorn]

Just tell people with Windows ME that it's broke and can't be fixed.

[KRSESQ]

I try to upgrade them every chance I get, but some computers aren't worth the expense.

Kevin

[Maggi]

try this

http://www.nu2.nu/pebuilder/

It really helped solving HD issues on a system that was unable to chdsk it's own drives, claiming it couldn't exclusively access the partition in question

[Kooldino]

Install a boot loader (or use a boot disk) that allows you to choose a disk.

[KRSESQ]

Thanx for the link, Maggi. This could come in very handy.

As for my original problem, if I catch the bug (and I have one strong suspect in mind ) who changed my boot order from IDE0 to IDE1, I'm going to pull his wings off.

Kevin

[leech]

Here's a thought, why don't you pick up an external USB2 or Firewire case and just put whatever harddrive you want to look at in there. That way your OS can be plugged in when you attach the drive, then it won't boot up WinME or any other OS that is on it.

Leech

[Belwarrior]

Originally posted by leech
Here's a thought, why don't you pick up an external USB2 or Firewire case and just put whatever harddrive you want to look at in there. That way your OS can be plugged in when you attach the drive, then it won't boot up WinME or any other OS that is on it.

Leech

and you need not open the casing..

or even if you leave you casing bare , it is easier

[Wombat]

USB casings slow you down a good bit. It doesn't usually matter, but if what you're doing is a HD scan, then it matters.

[The PIT]

Originally posted by KvHagedorn
Just tell people with Windows ME that it's broke and can't be fixed.

I agree ME is shit just upgrade and charge them.

[Evildead666]

I use a USB2 80Gb HDD at work, and it is pretty fast.
480Mbps is good.
its a little bit faster than UDMA33, probably in the UDMA66 range.

Just depends on the size of the HDD then for scan time. and the length and quality of USB cable.

Can hot plug clients HDD's to recover info.

[leech]

Or maybe even go Firewire2 if speeds are really a concern. Still would be a lot easier to do what you're trying to.

Leech

[KRSESQ]

Thanx, guys. In fact I have an 80 GB hard drive that I often plug into systems as a slave drive and use it for backups. I want to get a USB case for it, but there are times when you can't use USB (which usually points to a more serious problem). I've very rarely had a system fail to read this drive. On the other hand, being able to plug a bootable drive into a system and not have it boot is handy too. My lesson from this experience: Take nothing for granted. It's usually the little stuff that messes you up the worst .

Kevin

[UtwigMU]

You could have overwritten boot sector of Me drive and latter restored it using fdisk from Me CD.