Going from 2 bootable HDD's to 1

Laztlain

Member
Jan 26, 2005
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Hello All,

I have determined that I have a faulty harddrive in my computer. I found another spare harddrive that I used to replace the faulty one. Unfortunately, I do not have an original bootable Windows XP CD, but I was able to hook up both HDD's and install a clean copy of Windows on the spare drive by starting the install from within Windows (on the faulty drive). All seemed to be going well so I removed the faulty drive.... that's when the problems began. I can no longer boot with the "new" spare drive which now has a clean copy of Windows on it. The error I get is "NTLDR is missing" :

Screenshot of NTLDR is missing

When I examined further I noticed one of the 40 pins on my "new" spare dive had broken so I am trying to replace the pin today and will try agin tonight. It must have broke when I removed the faulty drive from the Master position and moved this spare drive from the Slave to the Master postion on the cable.

My question is - is the above error most likely related to the broken pin or is it becuase I originally had this spare drive hooked up as the Slave along with another bootable drive and have since removed the other bootable drive and switched the spare from Slave to Master? I have never used 2 bootable drives before so I am unsure if 1 can be removed, switched, etc. Any help is appreciated.

Thanks!
 

corkyg

Elite Member | Peripherals
Super Moderator
Mar 4, 2000
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Why not just clone the old drive to the new drive? Why not use CS instead of MS and SL?
 

Laztlain

Member
Jan 26, 2005
150
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0
I do have both drives set to CS.

As for cloning.... can this be done without loading new software on the original (faulty) drive?