Disk Boot Error after installing second harddrive improperly

[Anonymous]

Well, I just keep on getting a "BOOT DISK ERROR" When the machine boots up.

Well, my original drive was set to be Cable Select...
The new drive I was adding was set to be a Slave...
Problem was, I (Not realising what I was doing) hooked the slave up to the first connector on my IDE cable, and my original drive to the second connector on my IDE cable. The machine only picked up the newly added drive, which made me realise my grievous error. I quickly switched the cables around, and recieved a "BOOT DISK ERROR". Throw in a Windows XP CD and everything works fine, leave it out, and the BOOT DISK ERROR returns. I'm pretty sure that a reformat and a clean install would fix the problem, but is there some other way around this?

[Penguin]

You shouldn't have to reformat just because the cables were switched.

Try this first. Disconnect both drives. Connect the orginal drive and set it for Cable select and do not attach the other drive. Boot and see what happens.

IF everything is ok, then shut down set original drive to Master and rebbot. Still do not attach the other drive yet.

Now if everything is ok then attach the other drive as a slave and reboot.

Some times the cbale select option causes problems with multiple drives.

Also check to make sure the master drive is attached to the middle connector on the ribbon cable and the slave is on the end connector.

[Penguin]

Ignore my last statement. I gave the wrong info on the connector placement.

Check this instead.

If it's an 80 wire ribbon,blue goes to mobo,black is master,gray middle is slave,drives set to CS.
If it's a standard 40 wire,doesn't matter,but use master-slave settings on drives.