How Do I Make New SATA drive the boot and system drive.

[nasttcar]

This is a new build with ASUS MB and the system has 3 HD's. C: 150gb SATA Raptor, F: 500gb SATA Maxtor, M: Old 40gb IDE Hitachi

I have the Raptor split into 2 drives: Systmem and Programs. I did a disk copy using WDC's drive utility and made C: a boot drive.

However, all my programs seem to be linked somehow between the old M drive and the new C drive. The boot up sequence in BIOS does not show any of SATA drives available as the boot or system drive, only the 40gb M drive.

I do want to keep the M drive so I can pull things off of it and move things as needed, but I do not want it to be in the boot or system sequence.

How do I get things set up so that my system info is strictly on C, my programs on D (which is the Raptor), and I am clearly booting and having everything point to the Raptor.

Please help.

 

[lookin4dlz]

Partition Map has drive mapper which will do this for you. It's been on sale for free AR at times. Maybe the trial download version includes this as well.

 

[nasttcar]

It just turned out to be too big a mess. The drive with the system on it was 40gb and slow. Since I had already copied it over to one of the other drives I just decided I will chunk it, or stick it in another computer and just format it for data.

I have spent the day reloading a clean WinXP Pro and downloading Service Packs and then reinstalling Apps. Only part way through with that.

Just a very time consuming process, but the computer runs so much faster and better and no more nasty pops ups from windows with error messages.

It is just really hard keeping programs off of that C: drive. Some installs give me no chance of selecting to put it on the d: drive.

 

[AstroDogg]

Ok first thing I want to know is why are you partitioning the drive and splittting up windows?

You will get no performance gain from doing that. Niether will you get a benifit in defragmentation. The only thing that would really be worth it is buy a 36GB Raptor drive format 2069MB of it and dedicate that drive to the page file system(virtual memory). Yes completly wasting about 30GB of the drive. I suggest for the best performance you just let windows chose the best set-up. I hope you are using XP Pro if you have dual core or hyperthreading. XP Home does not support multiple processors nor does XP Media.
You will more than likely have to reinstall Windows because of the different configuration of hardware depending on exactly what you had and what the new system is.
I also see no need for your 40GB drive I'm positive that is isn't any better than ata100
with a 2mb cache If it had a 8MB cache I'd say try it for the page file. After some bench marking that I'm sure would show no benifit(not compared to a Raptor) then use it, But a 2MB cache drive will under perform leaving the page file on the Raptor with the rest of the Windows Operating System. Schedual a Weekly defrag once a week while your sleeping and you'll be in perfect shape. As for your 500GB only use that to store media on, and a second operating system such as Linux if you want to learn it then its as simple as entering the bios and selecting the boot drive to change from one OS to the other. If I havent made myself clear on any of this reply back with as much detail as you can provide.

After hitting F8 for the License Agreement during the installation of Windows XP you'll need to start tapping F6 I think it is to install third party boot software. If it isn't F6 then it's F2 watch the bottom of the screen it will very briefly flash the instuction. YaYa ok just remembered F2 is oh no I forgot already oh ther we Damn 70MPH windshild never put your head thru one going that fast while walking across the street. Ok anyway back on track F2 is Automated System Recovery, F6 is for third party controllers. If your Sata is controlled by the southbridge you may not need to worry about this just install normally(I honestly cant remember the last time I ran the I5r chip always used the onboard promise chip) And at the time I dont think Windows supported it and had to install the drivers anyway. After hitting F6 have your drivers ready on a floppy or a cd. A dvd will not work as the drivers have not been installed at this point. Follow the onscreen instructions. Pretty simple really.

 

[nasttcar]

AstroDogg,
Lot's of good comments and I thinik I have done most of what you have said already.

I split my 150gb Raptor to have WinXP Pro, in its own partition and the first part of the drive. The other part of the partition gets the program files, and some other things such as renderings that will need faster drive access.

I have a second new 500 gb hard drive where I formatte it into mulitiple partitions, for songs, pictures, downloaded stuff, work, and personal files. At the very begginning of that hard drive is another partition specifically for a 2nd paging file.

Things are working quite sweetly right now. Internet pages open quickly, apps open quickly.

The 40gb drive is just resting nicely, unhooked in the computer case for safe keeping and as a backup in case the Raptor drive fails.

Only pesky thing is that I did make a copy of the 40 gb drive onto the D partition of my Raptor. Now during boot up I get asked which one XP Pro I want to run.

I guess I will just delete the XP Pro from the D drive.

 

[jiffylube1024]

You can keep the XP install on the 40 gig drive. Just go to Control Panel > System > Advanced (tab) and click Settings under Startup and Recovery. Choose your current XP install on your C drive and uncheck "time to display list of operating systems" .

Your PC will now automatically boot to the selected Windows install.

Also, some tips:

How many partitions do you have, total? It sounds like you're obsessively afraid of fragmentation or something, because if you have separate partitions for just songs, pictures, etc - that's overdoing it.

A 150GB Raptor is a very fast drive. There is no need to partition it for Windows and then a separate partition for program files. Put them all on C:\ . I've tried doing what you're doing before, and it's just a mess, and is pointless. If you need to reformat, Windows will lose all the registry info for your programs anyways, and you'll have to reinstall.

If you have 40+ GB of games, I can understand putting them on a separate partition but otherwise, if you have the typical 5-10GB of program files, just makes C 30-50GB in size.

IMO it's more important to leave plenty of free space on C (5-10GB) than to worry about making different partitions for programs, page files, etc.

I really don't see the need of you putting the 40GB drive in there unless you have critical files you want to backup onto 2 (or 3) physically separate drives.

I'd just keep the 150GB Raptor and the 500GB SATA drive for data. Any critical data/files, just copy onto both the Raptor and 500GB drive.

 

[nasttcar]

JiffyLube

Lot's of great advice !!! Many Thanks.

Yes, probably did overdo the partitions on the 500gb drive. And on the Raptor, I had read alot about splitting the drive and keeping your operating system always on the first sectors of the hard drive. Also, to put a paging file on the first sectors of the 2nd drive.

Try as you might, nearly impossible to keep programs from automatically installing in the programs folder on the c:\ drive whether you want them there or not. Think I will just keep the Raptor as it is.

For the 500gb drive, I came to this one from a 200gb drive that failed (but backed up) and decided it might be nice to have a partition for songs and one for pictures. This makes it easier for my wife to find stuff. A third partition is really used for where I want things downloaded from the internet and distribute to the correct place.

I have partition magic and can later resize, delete, etc. the partitions pretty easy.

Just lots of wasted space with partitions.

This Raptor really moves along a great clip.

Again, thanks for the advice.

 

[RonAKA]

Have you tried installing the 40 GB drive now that you are booting properly? I would think you could now add it and continue to boot as it is now. Then you could delete the system files off it, and not have it boot ever again. My answer to your original question, would have been to just unplug the 40 GB, and install your system files again. I ran into a similar problem, and brute force was the answer -- unplug the bad actors.

 

[nasttcar]

Nope, have not plugged it back in again. Really no need to until I get all things reloaded.

You know, solve one problem at a time and not add one back.

Honestly, not sure what will happen. The Raptor and 500gb are on the SATA channels and the 40gb on the IDE cable. The computer reports the DVD drive that is still on the IDE, so I guess it might call this one up prior to my SATA drive.

 

[AstroDogg]

Originally posted by: nasttcar
I had read alot about splitting the drive and keeping your operating system always on the first sectors of the hard drive. Also, to put a paging file on the first sectors of the 2nd drive.

I do not agree with this.. 1) Your Raptor and 500GB SATA drives are not of same speed. 2) The Raptor can access the page file faster while accessing other data. 3) Windows XP already puts the page file where it is best. 4) Xp organises the drive for best optimization unlike Win2000/me/98/95 did and moving the page file did increase performance. 5) I think your digging to far back in time for your research(try to stay current). 6)THERE SHOULD ONLY BE ONE PAGE FILE. I donno if you meant what you wrote having one on the main drive and one on the second drive but that is not a good idea actually it's a horrible idea.
I personally like a page file size of 512MB, because I have been running 2GB of ram for 5 years and 4GB for the last year. I do not need a page file hardly at all, BUT, GAME DESIGNERS do not agree with this and give aurgumentation if set lower than 2048MB, and thats it do not go any higher. The larger the page file you have the less XP will use ram instead it reuses the data already written to the page file. Instead of rewriting it to the ram XP will first search the page file if the data is there it will then read from the harddrive instead of writing it to the ram even if there is free space on the ram or old files that could be removed. This action will greatly slow down operations of any application(thats why before you start gaming you should reboot. A fresh restart dumps the data on the ram and the page file Using a ram cleaner is fine if it doesn't use resources by running in the background). Set the page file as small as you can get away with, and unfortunatly that is 2048. That is why I mentioned a partion size of 2069 then set the page file to 2048, but the expense of a $100 Raptor just for the page file is your call(I wouldnt do it and I'm sure everyone here agrees)(I'd take the $100 and put it towards another Raptor of the same size and run Raid0 giving you twice the access speed to the page file and your programs and the OS and twice the drive space) Take it from us we have all went thru this many years ago when XP was new. Let XP manage the optimization of the install.
The Raptor is a beautiful thing let it work for you.

Originally posted by: nasttcar
nearly impossible to keep programs from automatically installing in the programs folder on the c:\ drive whether you want them there or not.

This should not be a problem during the install always select the expert, manual, or advanced install option. Then change the the drive letter at the begining of the install to: /target folder: field box. If your software is 6-10years old I think its time to update.

The 500GB drive is huge I wouldn't want it all in one partion either and three of them is a fine number. I would not want anymore than four.

Originally posted by: nasttcar
This Raptor really moves along a great clip.

Then use it.

 

[RonAKA]

Originally posted by: nasttcar
Nope, have not plugged it back in again. Really no need to until I get all things reloaded.

You know, solve one problem at a time and not add one back.

Honestly, not sure what will happen. The Raptor and 500gb are on the SATA channels and the 40gb on the IDE cable. The computer reports the DVD drive that is still on the IDE, so I guess it might call this one up prior to my SATA drive.

My experience is that any new drive detected will added to the end of the sequence. No harm in trying as all you have to do is unplug it again if unexpected things happen.