Somehow, after keeping the PC off for two days, Windows won't boot with my secondary hdd inserted. Once i take it out, everything works just fine. When i put it in, it goes past the loading lines thingie (you know, the XP logo and the blue lines that go back and forth) and there it stops, no hdd light blinking, nothing. Even if i reboot and try to enter safemode, it just stops loading at some point. It doesn't freeze or reboot or go clank clank. It just stands there ignoring me.

Any ideas why? Please don't tell me that the secondary HDD is fucked because i have all my movies there and i will fucking kill myself if i lose them. Haven't tried on another PC yet, will try but first i thought i'd ask.

Reminds me of the case about a month ago when my HDD died, but hopefuly yours didn't

You could also buy a cheap external HDD case with USB and connect it as an external.

If that doesn't work, then I'm afraid it might be dead

Nonononononono. But how can it die all of a sudden? I mean...it was working just fine 2 days ago...

Hey maybe it didn't, don't give up hope yet!

As I said, the best way would be I think with an external HDD case, if windows can pick it up from there than it's fine!

Who knows, maybe it's the cable, motherboard?

I hope it's the cable. Fuck, i even hope it's ME! I'll test it out on another computer and try to find an external HDD case (don't even know where to get those from but heck, i'll search). Oh dear sweet lord, i hope i haven't lost my fulci collection

Is it an IDE drive or a SATA drive? Anyways, those HDD cases are pretty cheap and could be useful in the future too so wouldn't hurt to invest in one.

In case it really did die well at least you have the ability to download the same files again, so it's not a total loss. With my HDD crash I lost more than
100 movies, including all Friday 13th's, Chucky's, Children of Corn etc.

did you install any programs to it recently?

@Lux: it's IDE.



That means months of searching and pain and despair.

@grInd: No, it was just for storage purposes only.




Thanks for all the help

Hopefully it's the cable then, since IDE cables are crappy and can get fucked. Hoping for the best

I hope so as well. Also, one more thing: i don't get any BSODs and it's recognised in the BIOS...maybe it's the cables?

If you have another one in the pc try that one. But also on the other computer if that doesn't work.

Will try that. If anyone has any other ideas (including killing myself - i am contemplating this at this moment), please shout'em here.

Thanks for all the trouble and help

be sure that you set up your second drive as Slave and not master. You got these little pins on the HDDs, that you move around telling the HD just how importain it is for the system.

r.i.p....

does it make an unusual clicking noise?

What can happen (& has happened to me) is if you normally leave the pc on 24/7 the disks get used to the heat & by turning them off for a long period of time the disks can shrink & warp out of shape & then your drive is doomed. Theres a 50% chance that by putting it into the fridge it may go back into shape although this didnt work for me.