Originally Posted by jephree

Well a lot of confusion on my part.

What is the exact eMachine model?

You said: "I hooked up an old HardDrive I had to see if the CD needed something on the drive...when I start the recovery it DID give me those options "destructive recovery" or the recommended one that keeps the files which it wouldnt let me do. So I reinstalled the OS and it booted up like normal. But I need the original HD."

Are you saying you reinstalled on this computer? Why do you need the original hard drive?

I understand you have a damaged motherboard and very likely a damaged hard drive.

The D: drive makes no sense as a separate hard drive. As a separate partition it might but the CD should override it.

Are you saying this computer came with two hard drives installed? Anyway the exact model should clear that up.

Also if you could clarify the hard drives in question by say 1; 2; 3 etc. rather than old or regular that might help us help.

T3406 Celeron D 2.93

I don't care which of the 3 drives I use as long as one works. I Added the second HD long ago when I wanted more disk space. Whenever the last time I reinstalled the OS was, I must have selected to store the recovery information on the HD#2.

HD#1 tries the recovery and gets to 30% before it cant find that same file.
HD#2 boot it up, and bios WILL NOT find the drive OR the cd/dvd drive
HD#3 is very old and crappy, it reinstalled the OS just fine, but has other problems.

What you want is to boot the CD and choose the Destructive Recovery or reinstall.

All the data to do this is on that CD.

Next you need a hard drive that will accept this such as HD#3.

I would suggest a new hard drive if #3 has 'other problems' and if neither #2 nor #1 will accept a Destructive Recovery.

If you want to test these particular hard drives go to the manufacturers web page and look for their diagnostic tool.

This will be a boot floppy and or CD that will test the hard drive for functionality.

The label on the hard drive should ID the manufacturer.


Another option prior to a new computer:

Try installing ubuntu

http://www.ubuntu.com/

my mistake I thought I made it clear that I did the destructive recovery successfully on hd3.

My last idea would be to hookup both hd1 and hd2 to the pc im on now since I wont have to sacrifice the IDE slave to a cdrom drive, and can therefore see if the system recovery works with having BOTH those drives available and then transplant those 2 hd's to the original pc.

I find it very unlikely that both those drives or even one of them would fail to the extent where it wont accept an OS after crashing. I Think its just an unfortunate scenario I have of not being able to reinstall the OS unless both drives are ready, which I cant do unless sacrificing the cd/dvd. But youre the expert here my friend.

Originally Posted by Tuk

my mistake I thought I made it clear that I did the destructive recovery successfully on hd3.

You did make that clear. So if you had no "other problems" with hd3 you would be all set. No?

Originally Posted by Tuk

My last idea would be to hookup both hd1 and hd2 to the pc im on now since I wont have to sacrifice the IDE slave to a cdrom drive, and can therefore see if the system recovery works with having BOTH those drives available and then transplant those 2 hd's to the original pc.

You cannot install operating systems on hard drives that are not connected to the computer in question. In other words you cannot move hard drives from computer to computer and expect a Windows OS to boot. The licenses as well as the drivers are tied to the motherboard.

Originally Posted by Tuk

I find it very unlikely that both those drives or even one of them would fail to the extent where it wont accept an OS after crashing. I Think its just an unfortunate scenario I have of not being able to reinstall the OS unless both drives are ready, which I cant do unless sacrificing the cd/dvd. But youre the expert here my friend.

I am no expert but have some experience.

eMachine uses Norton Ghost on a D: partition of their main (single) hard drive for System Recovery. This is the option that does not destroy your data.

eMachine uses the Restore CD for Destructive Recovery which deletes all your data and returns the computer to factory status.

Having been able to do this to your drive #3 I don't see why you cannot repeat this on a working hard drive.

If you are confident that the drives are good (no reason not to test them) then run KillDisk on them first to remove any possible corruption.

http://www.killdisk.com/

Originally Posted by jephree

You did make that clear. So if you had no "other problems" with hd3 you would be all set. No?



You cannot install operating systems on hard drives that are not connected to the computer in question. In other words you cannot move hard drives from computer to computer and expect a Windows OS to boot. The licenses as well as the drivers are tied to the motherboard.



I am no expert but have some experience.

eMachine uses Norton Ghost on a D: partition of their main (single) hard drive for System Recovery. This is the option that does not destroy your data.

eMachine uses the Restore CD for Destructive Recovery which deletes all your data and returns the computer to factory status.

Having been able to do this to your drive #3 I don't see why you cannot repeat this on a working hard drive.

If you are confident that the drives are good (no reason not to test them) then run KillDisk on them first to remove any possible corruption.

http://www.killdisk.com/

If hd3 wasnt 1/5th the size and didnt have these other problems I would have chunked the other hd's awhile ago and called it a day.

That makes sense. Boggles my mind as well why it wont let me complete the recovery.

Will try killdisk and report back tomorrow.

Thank you Jephree...

what the heck....

Alright so KillDisk worked on HD#1, then it let me reinstall xp with the emachine cd. Thought it was smooth sailing from there so I turned the PC off, and connected HD#2 as a slave like it used to be. Cranked up the PC this morning to get all the stuff loaded back on, and IT WONT RECOGNIZE THE HD's!

Ive been playing around with the configuration for MANY hours now. Heres the outcomes of the HD's being recognized in BIOS:

HD1 mast- no
HD1 slave- no
HD2 mast- no
HD2 slave- no
HD3 mast- yes
HD3 slave- yes

HD1-HD2 mast/slave- no/yes
HD2-HD1 mast/slave- no/no
HD1-HD3 mast/slave- no/yes
HD3-HD2 mast/slave- yes/no

So, I managed to reinstall the OS on HD1 (yesterday) and HD2 and HD3 seperately (today).

EDIT: EDIT: (ive edited like 5 times now) Ok after another 8 hours of working on this, I got HD3 as master up and running like it should, everything is working. Heres the weird part though- if I slave HD1 it wont showup in BIOS or windows, like it isnt there. If I slave HD2, it doesnt show in BIOS, but its available in windows. So Ill just stick to this configuration and not question it so I still have some disk space.

I can't thank you enough mate!

No problem. Glad it is working.

I'd consider a new motherboard and or computer for the future.

Also editing posts gives no one notice of editing.
New info should go in a new post so others are aware that there is new info.