Booting

[pyro786]

So we have two harddrives. About a year ago, our C drive was a 30 gb hadrdrive, which funtioned fine. Somehow, it because corrupted. We eventually ended up transfering all of our data on to our D drive, which is 60 gigs. We want to format the C drive. Unfortunately, all of our boot directories are on there. We have a version of windows on the C drives, and on the D drive. We use the version on the D drive. If we disconnect the C drive, it won't boot up. We tried fooling with bios boot options, and just about everything else we could think of. We even called microsoft, in india. They were no help, they simply told us to go to a tech shop. Any help would be GREATLY appreciated. Thanks alot.

 

[pyro786]

Any help?

 

[essasin]

your post is a little confusing. Let me get this right
1. Windows is booting from your C drive and not your D drive. D drive is used for storage.
2. What you need to do is backup any data to your D drive
3. Do a fresh install or repair the C drive. Set your CDROM to be the first boot device to initate windows install or repair.

 

[pyro786]

Sorta. I want the D drive to be my primary drive. Everything i need is on the D drive. Even the version of windows that i use. Unfortunately, if i try to disconnect my C drive, it wont boot up. How can i get a boot directory on my D drive? I want to format the C drive.

 

[Dmachine]

You mean that if you disconnect the C drive then you can't boot from D? Did you install Windows on the D drive? Is it the same version as the C drive? Do you have the drives hooked up as master and slave or are they connected as primary and secondary masters? Try making the D drive the primary master without the other drive on the cable. Even better, use a single connection cable if you have one. I assume the computer will POST. If so you will need to go into the BIOS and make sure that the drive is recognized as the primary master. If it is recognized the drive will become C. Try setting the BIOS to defaults and then attempt to boot into Windows. If it won't boot because of some missing files you can try booting from the Windows CD and see if you can repair the installation. But pay attention to any prompts because you don't want to overwrite your files, just repair Windows.

 

[essasin]

Originally posted by: pyro786
Sorta. I want the D drive to be my primary drive. Everything i need is on the D drive. Even the version of windows that i use. Unfortunately, if i try to disconnect my C drive, it wont boot up. How can i get a boot directory on my D drive? I want to format the C drive.

But you just said that your directories are on the C drive so that is the drive Windows is installed in. Your D drive is a secondary slave drive and your computer is not booting windows from it. THius is proven because your computer is not booting into windows anymore.

You need to backup your data on your 60 gig D drive
Change the jumper settings to master on your 60 gig hd which is your current D drive
Change the jumper settings to slave on your 30 gig drive
Install a fresh copy of windows on your D drive
Once you are in Windows XP format your new D drive

 

[pyro786]

Thanks, that helped alot. But i need some clarification on that last one.
You need to backup your data on your 60 gig D drive
Do you mean back up the data FROM the 60 gig, or back up the data from c TO the D drive.

Change the jumper settings to master on your 60 gig hd which is your current D drive
I'm clear with this one.

Change the jumper settings to slave on your 30 gig drive
Okay.

Install a fresh copy of windows on your D drive
The 60 gig one, right?

Once you are in Windows XP format your new D drive
My new D drive. That would be the 30 gig, right?

Also, we have two copies of windows, one on each drive. THe copy on the C drive doesnt work correctly. We use the copy on the D drive. In all actuality, i have no idea where the directory is. Alll i know is that if i disconnect the 30 gig drive, the copy of windows on my 60 gig drive doesnt boot.

 

[Dmachine]

Re-reading this it appears that when your C drive went hinky you installed Windows on D and transferred files to it. But now when you try to boot from D without C connected it's a no go, correct? I think this is a Master/Slave issue and that you should try to make your current D drive the Master on the primary channel and try to boot into Windows.

 

[pyro786]

Yeah, you got all the facts straight Dmachine. I fooled around with master earlier. When i disconnected c and left d as master, it didnt boot at ALL! Actually, the computer turned on, but nothing happened on the moniter. It wasnt even recieving a signal. This has happened to me in the past. I guess i can try again though. So when i put the D drive on master, should i disconnect C too?

 

[essasin]

Originally posted by: pyro786
Thanks, that helped alot. But i need some clarification on that last one.
You need to backup your data on your 60 gig D drive
Do you mean back up the data FROM the 60 gig, or back up the data from c TO the D drive.

Change the jumper settings to master on your 60 gig hd which is your current D drive
I'm clear with this one.

Change the jumper settings to slave on your 30 gig drive
Okay.

Install a fresh copy of windows on your D drive
The 60 gig one, right?

Once you are in Windows XP format your new D drive
My new D drive. That would be the 30 gig, right?

Also, we have two copies of windows, one on each drive. THe copy on the C drive doesnt work correctly. We use the copy on the D drive. In all actuality, i have no idea where the directory is. Alll i know is that if i disconnect the 30 gig drive, the copy of windows on my 60 gig drive doesnt boot.

If you do have an install of windows on the D drive just..
60gig drive change the jumper setting on the back of the drive from slave to master
then on the 30 gig drive chage thge jumper setting master to slave.

It will now boot from the 60 gig drive and that will become your new C drive. When you are in windows right click the new D drive which is the 30 gig drive and click format

 

[pyro786]

Ill see if it works. Ill be back a while later.

 

[Dmachine]

Originally posted by: pyro786
Yeah, you got all the facts straight Dmachine. I fooled around with master earlier. When i disconnected c and left d as master, it didnt boot at ALL! Actually, the computer turned on, but nothing happened on the moniter. It wasnt even recieving a signal. This has happened to me in the past. I guess i can try again though. So when i put the D drive on master, should i disconnect C too?

It seems like your main goal at this point is to boot into Windows off of D. So make sure to keep it simple at first. Make sure to set your drive jumper as essasin said. If you don't have a manual there are usually markings on the top of the drive casing that show where the the jumper goes for master, slave or (in some drives) cable select. Set to master and plug the drive into the blue IDE primary motherboard connector. If you can boot into Windows from there you're good to go to hook up and format the other drive.

 

[pyro786]

I tried a bunch of youre suggestions, and i got nowhere. I made the 60 gig Master, and i made the 30 gig slave. It wouldnt let me boot, it couldnt find the directory. Then in the bios, i changed the default booter to IDE-1 instead of IDE-0. So that let me boot up normally. When i got to windows, it didnt switch the C and D labels as i had hoped. With these settings, i tried to do it again with C unplugged. Nada. I then explored with the repair console, but it didnt help. I just want to be able to have the computer start up, with hardrive C (30 gig one) disconnected. I KNOW i have a copy of windows on D. I have no idea why it wont boot without C attached.

 

[pyro786]

Anybody?

 

[Dmachine]

Hate to keep asking questions but here goes. All along you've been booting from D and running your computer from that drive, correct? Ever since C went bad? And you just want to reformat C and use it for storage or whatever. If this is the case and you've been booting into Windows from D, then all the files or directories you need are on the D drive. If the above is true then you have a cabling/configuration issue and we can work that out.

 

[pyro786]

Thats what we tried. You got all the info correct. Atleast, i think we have windows on d. We get to select between two copies of windows. We always choose the working one. We have the windows folder on D. How else can you determine if theres a copy of windows?

 

[pyro786]

do you think that this:
http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/XPrepairinstall.htm#RI
repair install will fix my problem?

 

[Dmachine]

You can try the repair installation from the XP CD as described in the link. If there is a Windows installation selectable then you'll know you have it installed.

 

[pyro786]

Heading out for a tech support shot right now.

 

[MrPickins]

I've had this problem, and this is what worked for me:

When you boot up, note the exact name of the installation you select (should be the one on the d: drive), then right click MyComputer/properties/advanced/startup and recovery(settings)/edit. This will open "boot.ini." (alternately, you can run "msconfig" from a cmd prompt, and click the boot.ini tab) Looks something like this:

boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition" /fastdetect /NoExecute=OptIn /usepmtimer
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Example Edition" /fastdetect /NoExecute=OptIn /usepmtimer

Remove entire line referring to the bad installation of windows. In my case:

multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Example Edition" /fastdetect /NoExecute=OptIn /usepmtimer

If that doesnt fix it, you can try removing the 30gB drive, and then booting from the windows cd. Choose to go to recovery console, and type "fixmbr". That should build a new master boot record on the new drive.