Why does Vista insist on putting the MBR on IDE drive instead of SATA?

[02ranger]

I've already got this resolved, so I'm not sure that this belongs in Computer Help, but I don't know where else to put it.

I had a dual boot setup between Linux and Vista on my desktop, which I decided to change to just Vista, but after dumping Linux I started getting the "BOOTMGR is missing" error. I have a SATA drive setup as Master and my OS partition, and an IDE drive set up as slave with just data. I tried repeatedly to fix the problem through the VRE, but I could only ever get it to boot if the Vista CD was in the drive and it was set to boot from CD first, even though I DID NOT boot from the CD.

Anyway, I decided when I couldn't get it to work like I wanted to wipe out both drives and start over, installing Vista on the SATA drive again. It still would not boot unless the Vista CD was in, but I got the "INSERT SYSTEM DISK" error instead of "BOOTMGR is missing". I finally changed the boot order to boot from the IDE drive first, then SATA, and it boots perfectly everytime now. I realize now that this is because Vista put the boot information on the IDE Slave drive, but the OS on the SATA Master drive.

My question is, why does Vista do this? I know that's a lot of background for one simple question, but I figured I might as well explain why I'm asking. I'm not looking to fix anything, it's working OK now, I'm just wondering why. Is it just a bug or something they overlooked?

Thanks!

 

[Steltek]

Vista does this because the Windows installer has apparently been designed by drooling idiots.

It is always best to install Windows with only the boot drive plugged in to ensure it doesn't put critical files on another drive. Once Windows is up and running, plug in all of your other drives to the system and everything should be cool.

 

[02ranger]

Vista does this because the Windows installer has apparently been designed by drooling idiots.

It is always best to install Windows with only the boot drive plugged in to ensure it doesn't put critical files on another drive. Once Windows is up and running, plug in all of your other drives to the system and everything should be cool.

That's kinda what I was expecting to hear, but I didn't know if there was a true purpose for it or not. I got so aggravated trying to fix it that I just left it for the time being once it booted, but when I get time I do plan to wipe it and reinstall Windows the way you said. Will it boot correctly, with the boot order set to SATA first and IDE second, if I install Windows with IDE disconnected then reconnect it when finished?

 

[Ketchup]

Unless 8 has changed this, Windows will always put the MRB on a different drive than the OS, if one is available. It isn't an oops, it is how it was designed.

Why they decided to do this? I have never found an answer.

 

[02ranger]

Unless 8 has changed this, Windows will always put the MRB on a different drive than the OS, if one is available. It isn't an oops, it is how it was designed.

Why they decided to do this? I have never found an answer.

I've never noticed that before. Are you saying it does that even if both drives are IDE or only with a SATA/IDE combination?

 

[Ketchup]

I've never noticed that before. Are you saying it does that even if both drives are IDE or only with a SATA/IDE combination?

I believe so, but I will admit my experience on a multiple interface install (SATA and IDE) is getting a bit fuzzy. Do you know if the SATA and IDE controller is the same chip on your board? I know when SATA was first introduced they were not. Similar when SATA 3 came out and extra chips were used before the major chipsets offered it.

 

[C1]

VISTA was an upgrade from WIN XP and XP never natively supported AHCI. The understanding is that the initial VISTA release did not support AHCI natively until after the first update release (with service pack).

So a guess is that trying to install an initial VISTA release with a SATA (AHCI enabled) HDD as master and IDE HDD as slave, the VISTA will necessarily default to the IDE HDD.

 

[Steltek]

That's kinda what I was expecting to hear, but I didn't know if there was a true purpose for it or not. I got so aggravated trying to fix it that I just left it for the time being once it booted, but when I get time I do plan to wipe it and reinstall Windows the way you said. Will it boot correctly, with the boot order set to SATA first and IDE second, if I install Windows with IDE disconnected then reconnect it when finished?

The boot order is set in the BIOS. If you have your boot drive attached to SATA port 0 it should always boot first by default unless you change this. Otherwise, you'll need to adjust the boot order in the BIOS but it still otherwise shouldn't be a problem.

 

[02ranger]

I believe so, but I will admit my experience on a multiple interface install (SATA and IDE) is getting a bit fuzzy. Do you know if the SATA and IDE controller is the same chip on your board? I know when SATA was first introduced they were not. Similar when SATA 3 came out and extra chips were used before the major chipsets offered it.

I'm really not sure. Its an old board so it's very possible they're the same controller.

VISTA was an upgrade from WIN XP and XP never natively supported AHCI. The understanding is that the initial VISTA release did not support AHCI natively until after the first update release (with service pack).

So a guess is that trying to install an initial VISTA release with a SATA (AHCI enabled) HDD as master and IDE HDD as slave, the VISTA will necessarily default to the IDE HDD.

Do you know if I would I be able to get it to work with the SATA drive the way it's supposed to if I slipstreamed the latest service packs and updates into a new Vista install disk? I did not have to load drivers for the SATA drive like I would in XP when I installed it, does that mean the support is native in my edition of Vista?

The boot order is set in the BIOS. If you have your boot drive attached to SATA port 0 it should always boot first by default unless you change this. Otherwise, you'll need to adjust the boot order in the BIOS but it still otherwise shouldn't be a problem.

That's where I had to adjust it to boot from IDE first so it would find the MBR and boot, so if I can get it to work correctly I'll change it back to SATA first.

I appreicate all the help, I'm getting a better understanding of what happened..........

 

[MerlinRML]

Windows puts the MBR on the first hard drive device it sees from the BIOS. The "rest" of the OS can be installed to whichever hard drive you select. When Windows was installed, you likely didn't pick the first device to install the OS to so you ended up with a situation where your MBR was on a different physical drive than your OS was. Clearly, this is confusing. It's this split scenario that all the advice you received is trying to help you avoid, by ending up with a scenario where the MBR and OS are on the same device.

One could argue that Windows shouldn't silently modify a device by updating its MBR without notifying the user (especially since it clobbers whatever MBR is already there, which is why you always install multiple versions of Windows from oldest version to newest version, and you dual-boot with Linux by installing it after you install Windows). However, this becomes an impossible problem to overcome. You'll have one person argue that Windows must notify the user whenever it modifies the MBR and the next person argue that no one will understand what that even means.