My suspicion falls on the size of the 'new' HD's - they may be bigger than
the BIOS of the system can cope with

--
Noel Paton (MS-MVP 2002-2005, Windows)

Nil Carborundum Illegitemi
http://www.btinternet.com/~winnoel/millsrpch.htm

http://tinyurl.com/6oztj

Please read http://dts-l.org/goodpost.htm on how to post messages to NG's

"Mart" wrote in message
...
Well Nigel, you certainly seem to have proved that WinMe isn't the cause!!

Under the circumstances - and that may depend both on how urgently you
want/need to replace your D: with a 'good' one and how full your wallet
feels - you could cut your losses and buy a new HDD.

However, if you want to 'see it through' then examine each of your 'old'
drives in turn - by temporarily throwing-off your existing 'good' C:
drive. Keep things simple!

Make each of your old drives (individually) the C: (master) and FDSK
/STATUS each one to ascertain their state - Fdisking and re-formatting if
necessary - followed by a Real Mode DOS Scandisk. Then, when you've proved
that they are still serviceable - and all is back to normal with your
'original' C: back in place - re-introduce them, one at a time as the D:

BTW - Auto *may* not be enough - You *might* have to re-detect them first
in the BIOS (there should be 'detect' option available - refer to the User
Manual (if you have one!!)

Is this showing that they are faulty or is it the format on the disks
themselves which is causing the boot problems?

Depends upon the results from above tests, but they sure sound
'suspicious'

Mart


"Nigel Andrews" wrote in message
...
Mart,

Thanks for the quick response.

I have the slave set to Auto in the BIOS (and of course the jumpers set
to
Slave on both the replacement)

But booting with the ME start-up disk, with one of my replacement old
disks
installed, it doesn't finish booting (or boots to an A: prompt but says
C:,
D: etc don't exists!). With the other connected I get to a Minimal Boot,
and
can start FDISK but it says it can't access disk 2!.
I thought both these were working, tho' years ago, and they are similar
drives tho' much lower capacity than what they are replacing. Both the
drives 'come alive' during the boot sequences (spinning up and heads
chattering).

Is this showing that they are faulty or is it the format on the disks
themselves which is causing the boot problems?

Thanks again

Nigel

"Mart" wrote in message
...
First, you need to ascertain whether this is a WinMe issue or - more
likely - a hardware issue.

Confirm that you can 'see' both physical HDD's in your BIOS. If not,
check
cabling AND Master/Slave links correctly set. Have you acknowledged
(detected and set) a second drive in the BIOS?

If OK in BIOS, boot with your WinMe Startup (floppy) disk and confirm
that
you can 'see' both disks AND their partitions in Real Mode DOS.

If so, can you read AND write (in DOS) to all partitions.

Confirm the above then worry about WinMe.

BTW - What letter(s) is/are assigned to your CD-ROM(s) - if fitted?

Mart



"Nigel Andrews" wrote in message
...
I am having problems with Windows ME when adding in a working old hard
disk.

After going into 'safe mode' (because I switched off the PC) I get a
blue
screen 'Windows protection error'.
This happens whenever a replacement second harddisk is connected. If
I
remove it then Windows starts cleanly.
I have checked that the cable is connected correctly (any other
connection
gets a worse result i.e., No O/S!)

I have treid this with two old harddisks that should be OK. I also had
it
with the orginal harddisk which is why I am trying to replace it.

Any ideas please?
Thanks

Nigel