How To Remove-secondary Hard Drive And Still Be Able To Boot Windows 7
Jun 3, 2012
I installed windows 7 on my computer that has two hard drives and I tried to remove the secondary drive ( it was used as storage) when I removed the second drive I was then unable to restart my computer. I tried to repair start up from the install disk (3 times) it did not work. when I plug the second drive I am able to start up again. I would like to remove the storage drive and replace with a larger. I bought a wireless seagate 2tb free agent goflex hard drive and wanted to put the 2 tb hard drive into the computer and take my 1 tb drive from the computer and use it in the wireless system.
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Nov 25, 2011
I've recently uninstalled itunes. When i restarted my PC i noticed that my internal secondary drive was missing. Reboot and still nothing. Powerdown wait 30 sec and swjtch back on: still missing. I finally opened it up unplugged it and replugged it and it found it again.
I then rebooted again and again it was missing repeated steps above same result.
Dont know what to do ant its a hassle to open it up every time. Windows 7 ultimate. Sata Seagate barracuda 2tb
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Nov 5, 2009
I have a bit of a strange question about installing the Windows 7 upgrade. I'll try to keep it as simple as I can. Firstly
1: I currently have Windows XP SP3 Home Edition installed (and activated) on my 160GB WD Caviar Blue hard drive, which has 8MB cache. It's getting a bit full now.
2. This hard drive is one of the few remnants of a Dell machine I bought a few years ago.
Surprisingly, the restore disk still works and activates, even though I've changed the motherboard and a number of other things over the years. My last reinstall was about a year ago, and I had no problems reactivating whatsoever - I didn't even need to phone Microsoft.
However I doubt it'll install and activate on a new hard drive - particularly as I've also changed the DVD drive since my last activation (as the old one broke), literally the only things remaining from the old system would be the RAM and the processor.
2: I have purchased a 500GB WD Caviar Blue with 16MB Cache
3: I intend to buy Windows 7 Pro Upgrade from TheUltimateSteal for £30. I'm a student, but will be graduating soon, so it seems sensible to take advantage of this offer while I can.
4. Clearly I can install Windows 7 in the normal way onto my current drive and use the 500GB drive for backing up my files, which I'll do if that's the only option.
5. However, if I did that I would not be taking full advantage of the extra cache of the new drive. It would be nice if I could use that for my primary installation to speed things up a bit.
So here's my question:
If I start the upgrade process having booted from the 160GB drive, but during installation select my 500GB drive as the target for the installation, will Windows 7 install and activate correctly? Will it recognise the pre-existing installation, even though it was on a different drive?
If not, then:
If I install my Dell restore disk on the new drive, and don't activate Windows (which presumably I won't be able to), and then run the Windows 7 upgrade on THAT drive, will Windows 7 install and activate correctly?
Basically, is there a legitimate way of installing a Windows 7 Upgrade onto the 500GB drive, on the basis of there currently being a valid XP installation on the 160GB drive?
I have no intention of continuing to use XP after the upgrade, if I am able to install and activate Windows 7 to the new drive, then this will serve only as a backup for my files.
Has anybody tried something similar and succeeded/failed?
I've already read the tutorials on here about doing a clean install of Windows 7. I'd like to avoid dodgy workarounds, as I'd rather not run into problems further down the line when it comes to updates and that sort of thing.
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Feb 2, 2011
I'm using Windows 7 and I have four hard drives in my computer labeled C, E, F and G. A few days ago I got a BSOD and my computer wouldn't start up after that. I've been having a few problems with the C drive lately so I bought a replacement and restored from my Acronis TrueImage 2010 backup. That went fine and my computer now works as it did before with my F and G drives connected, but not my E drive. If I try to start up with my E drive connected my computer just gets stuck on the "Starting Windows" screen. If I look at my BIOS settings with it connected it is not listed. It's a pretty new drive and I've never had any problems with it before. Please can someone tell me how I can start using it again?
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Feb 2, 2011
I'm using Windows 7 and I have four hard drives in my computer labeled C, E, F and G. A few days ago I got a BSOD and my computer wouldn't start up after that. I've been having a few problems with the C drive lately so I bought a replacement and restored from my Acronis TrueImage 2010 backup. That went fine and my computer now works as it did before with my F and G drives connected, but not my E drive. If I try to start up with my E drive connected my computer just gets stuck on the "Starting Windows" screen. If I look at my BIOS settings with it connected it is not listed.
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Jan 25, 2012
Check my Hardware specs for full information
Current setup:
C: Boot, Corsair SSD
D: Files, samsung HDD
D:/boot files/user/(all user account directories moved here, when possible) I'm wondering if it's possible to install games such as Assasins' Creed or Skrym, but install all game data to this folder?D:/boot files/programs/* Many installers allow you to define a custom installation path, But I am unsure if these games would ask for one or force me to install to the default directory?
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Jan 5, 2013
I have a 120GB SSD for system etc. I have a 1TB HDD for everything else. How do I change the default program files folders (x86 and regular) so that when I am installing a program the first choice is on this second drive instead of C?
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Aug 29, 2012
Using Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit. W/ASUS P7P55D Deluxe board. Very stable and non buggy. Computer was running great with multiple drives. I substituted one of my 1TB drives with a brand new Seagate 3 TB drive. With the new drive hooked up, the computer will not boot and gives a message that there is no hard drive detected, put media in and hit the key. (something to that effect).
If I enter the bios in the condition, it shows all the drives in their correct order and the boot sequence is the first hard drive, CD, etc. It has detected the new drive as drive #3. But it will not boot. But, if I disconnect the new drive (power and SATA connector), the compute will boot up fine. I have checked all the connectors ad they seem fine. Is there something about the sequence in which the SATA connectors have to be connected?
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May 12, 2012
I have a windows 7 Pro OS running which was loaded with one HDD attached. Windows was running fine. I installed a secondary HDD to allow some backup; it was able to be installed, fully formated and was healthy. I tried to backup but was told by windows it was not large enough so I uninstalled by accessing device manager from inside computer management and clicking uninstall and confirming device removal. There was then, no visible indication that the secondary drive was installed. I shut down and physically removed the secondary drive and tried to reboot but all I could get was "A disk read error occurred. Press Ctrl+Alt+Del to restart". So I reconnected the drive and it boots fine. My question is, what do I need to do to be able to disconnect the secondary drive without getting that error?
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Jun 24, 2012
i have two hard drives:A 250gb and a 1TBWhen I installed windows I chose the 1TB, but just left my other in there as it had some files I wanted on it. Now when I try to remove the 250gb drive, windows will not boot up.I tried marking the 250gb drive as inactive, but then during boot up it would say bootmgr is missing, so i had to use the installation disk then mark as active again.
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May 6, 2012
I have a corrupted computer.The first issue is there are 2 hard drives. The second is every time I get on this computer there is a shadow to anything I complete. I attempted to load a program to download files from my camera to this computer. The error: An error occurred during the installation of assembly 'microsoft.msxml2, public key token="6bd6b9abf345378f",version=4.20.9818.0", type="win32", processor Architecture="x86".
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Aug 11, 2011
When i connect a sata hard disk which is loaded with windows 7 as a secondary to another windows 7 system to take the data backup it is not showing the drives but i can see it in the device management in windows 7.
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May 19, 2010
1st. Installed XP on IDE drive, 2nd. installed a Sata drive, installed Windows 7 on that drive, want to remove the IDE drive, is it as simple as disconnecting the XP drive and do a startup repair, or is there going to be an issue with the XP drive being the Active drive, will startup repair make the Sata drive the Active drive?
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Jan 11, 2013
I'm a photographer with 3 old-tower-based PCs that I look after myself, all with Win7 and SATA2 disks. Naturally, I need ever-larger storage space. To that end I moved all the data from a 1Tb disk to a 2Tb disk, then removed the 1Tb disk intending to replace it with a 3Tb disk. However, without the 1Tb disk, this PC would not boot, and the repair disk couldn't locate any Windows OS. But the OS is on another disk entirely (that remained connected throughout all this). I re-connected the 1Tb disk and the PC booted just fine. On inspection I find that this 1Tb disk - that I thought was entirely empty - has on it a 100MB System Reserved Partition that might relate to the MS back-up system that I've never used (as Win7 seems to point to this, although telling me it's not big enough to use for a backup!) By assigning a letter to this 100MB partition, I can see that there's a handful of (normally hidden) files and a directory relating to booting the PC. I therefore conclude that the PC is booting from this partition on the 1Tb disk, even though the OS is on a separate disk. How do I get the PC to boot from the 'OS' disk so that I can exchange the offending 1Tb drive with a 3Tb one? Or is there some other solution? Maybe I just copy this partition to the new disk? (BTW, I've already registered the 3Tb disk on the system.
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Mar 10, 2011
how I can remove the Q hard drive that appears on my computer? it's size is 0! i have no idea how it appeared there...
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Jan 14, 2011
I have a new PC running W7 64bit.When I click the safely remove hardware button to remove a USB flashdrive, listed as well is the option to remove my hard drive. Is this normal? The shop that built the PC for me says it is because my hard drive is SATA, but it is still a bit disconcerting.
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Aug 29, 2011
I was wondering... If I move my video, music, my documents folders etc. from my boot drive (ie C drive) to say a storage drive (D Drive), is the data completely removed from the boot drive or is it still there waiting to be erased next time a new file is written to it?
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Jan 15, 2012
I'm wanting to format my second hard drive but windows 7 does not see it.It does show up in the BIOS.
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Nov 18, 2011
Im currently using a 32 bit OS and thinking of changing to a 64 bit OS. I currently have 2 1TB HDD. Will it be ok if i install a fresh 64 bit os in my secondary HDD and change it to my boot drive?
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Jan 8, 2013
My Old HDD crashed, it had windows 7 on a D: logical drive with an extended partition (Not sure why/how I ended up with a D: logical drive and an extended partition, it probably happened when I upgraded my windows xp to windows 7 32 bit OR when I upgraded my windows7 from 32 bit to 64 bit, anyways.....). My old HDD also had two other primary partitions which probably had some system files etc,. I do not have a backup of these two primary partitions, however, I do have a paragon backup of my logical drive D: extended partition alongwith a backup of first track (not sure what that means). My old drive is bad. I got me a new HDD, created a new NTFS primary partition with a drive letter C:. I then restoed the paragon backup of my windows D: drive on to this new primary C: partition. Now, I am not able to boot windows 7. Seems like I need to make this new partition bootable and/or make it a system partition. Not sure how to do this. I dont want to install windows 7 from scratch and then load all the software programs.
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Oct 12, 2012
I have an SSD drive mounted as a secondary master on my motherboard that has lost performance. I did have some things on the drive that I ended up deleting because load times were painfully long. I did not format the drive using the format options in Windows as I know this further degrades performance for SSDs, but there is nothing on the drive at all right now.
My question is, is there a way to secure erase the drive while still inside Windows? All the info I've found regarding secure erasing a drive has to to with having to boot the computer with some disc (insert title), unplugging the sata cable to the drive and plugging it back in, running said program, and erasing the drive. I understand this if the drive is the Primary Master and Windows is to be installed on the drive, but this is not the case for me.
Is there a way to do this inside Windows since its a secondary drive, meaning Windows is on a completely different drive, or is there a program or something for SSDs where you can restore performance inside Windows.
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Sep 8, 2011
I am using a few USB sticks for readyboost and always have them in my hub. One of them was temporarily used to create an Ubuntu Live stick, but now that I removed Ubuntu from it about 32Mb remain used and I assume there is some bootable info in it, as Windows 7 is no longer booting with this stick inserted. I have tried formatting but this does not help. Is there a way to wipe the USB stick clean and remove any boot sector info?
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Dec 10, 2011
I recently bought a new hard drive with windows 7 home premium 32 bit installed. When tried to install it in my pc it would not boot up, I am assuming its because everything is new to it. I bought a windows 7 recovery disc but it has not worked. I did not get an install disc with the new hard drive.
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Jan 20, 2013
I have a dell dimension 9100. I have two drives on it, a ~160gb drive that came with it with xp, and a 500gb drive with win7. I put the win7 in myself and had been using that. Finally, I decided to erase the old drive with xp on to install linux on it. After erasing the old drive, my computer won't start up. It says it cant find sata 1 or 3. I've tried switching the cables hooking up to it but that doesn't help. If I push continue after it tells me how it can't find them, it says 'loading pbr for descriptor 2...done' and stays there. I did not erase windows 7,
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Jun 4, 2011
So, I've added a second hard drive to my Windows machine and now it will not boot up. I added the new hard drive on SATA 3. The original is SATA 1, and my DVD is SATA 0. This is how it's always been; I've changed nothing else. I don't have any idea where to start fixing this. I have a dual boot with Ubuntu on the same SATA drive 1, and that boots just fine. I switched on the new hard drive in the BIOS, and flipped a few other options on and off to no avail.When the computer boots I choose the Win7 install. Then it will take me to a screen that asks me if I want to start windows normally, or do a disk repair. Starting normally gets you nowhere, it will just end up resetting the computer. Starting the disk check will do a scan for a few minutes and then ask me if I want to send an error report. Clicking yes or no doesn't seem to matter because after that the only option is to shutdown or reboot.When this first started I at one point had the option to do a system restore, but I didn't think it was necessary so I didn't. I no longer receive that option or I would try it at this point
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Dec 28, 2012
I found another old hard drive, a Seagate 250 GB, and when I plug it to the pc, Windows is stuck at the Windows 7 logo at the boot, and the logo itself lags. the hard drive is detected in the BIOS. (can it be a virus on this old hard drive?)
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Jun 28, 2011
I've recently purchased two 30GB SSDs which I have set up in a RAID 0 array and I have installed Windows onto these drives. I have a second, 2TB Seagate Barracuda Green HDD that I have used to put my user profiles and additional programs/games on as it wouldn't fit on the SSD.Everything was fine for a few days after installation. Then this morning I rebooted the computer and it just stalled on the flashing cursor (underscore) in the top left corner of the screen. I did the basic fixes (Windows repair, checking RAM) and nothing worked.Then I thought that I should try disconnecting all but the SSD with the OS on it. SUCCESS! It booted to Windows but couldn't find any programs/user data so it created a new "profile". I shutdown the computer and tried reconnecting just the data hard drive.I have two additional hard drives (used for backups) that don't affect anything at all when I plug them in.Does anybody know what could be the problem? I'm at a loss and I need the computer
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Dec 12, 2011
I have a computer with two (IDE ribbon cable) hard drives. One had a bad windows XP installation on it. I installed Windows 7 on the other. I formatted the drive before installing Windows 7.Then, I decided I want to use the hard drive with the bad winXP installation on it, in another computer (I will format it). When I opened the computer side panel, I wasn't sure which hard drive was which, so I unplugged the power to one, and started the computer.The thing is, it won't boot Windows 7 with either of those hard drives alone, only when both are plugged in. With HD #1 disconnected, it says "Can't find BOOTMGR, press a key to reboot." With HD #2 connected, I get asked whether I want Windows 7 or an older OS, and when I choose Windows 7, I get an error message, something like "Windows 7 failed to start. To try and repair, insert install disc, or use recovery mode, etc" With both HDs, I get asked the same question, "Windows 7 or an older OS," but when I choose Windows 7, it works. In my computer, I have verified that Windows 7's files are on one disk, and corrupt winXP files on the other.
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Mar 22, 2012
Recently I had a drive failure and I need to have an extra Windows 7 x32. The remaining drive a WD 320gb drive has a dual-boot Windows 7 and XP. How can I triple boot in just one hard drive?
On that particular system I am using Neosmart's iReboot/EasyBCD so when I want to boot to either of the former arrangment I can do that easily and not be bothered by the boot selection.
Now I am using ATI Home 2011 and I was planning to make recover an image from the drive that failed to a 3rd partition on the WD320gb drive. I really need to get this one going in the meantime I do not have the money to buy a new one.
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Nov 11, 2012
My Windows 7 motherboard stopped working so I installed a new motherboard. The SATA hard drive is not recognized by the motherboard software or the Windows 7 installation disc. What the heck?
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Jan 21, 2013
I have a Machine with the Following Config:
Intel E2180 CPU
2GB Ram
Gigabyte GA-G31M-S2C Mainboard
Seagate ST31000340NS SATA Hard Drive Connected on SATA0
Operating Systems:
Windows 7 Ultimate 64Bit on HDD
Windows 7 Ultimate 32Bit Booting from VHD
I Installed Windows 7 Ultimate 64Bit onto Hard Drive as Per Normal Installation Onto the Hard Drive and Installation created 2 Partitions (1 System PArt and Another for C: Drive) Everything Works Great.m I Then Installed Windows 7 Ultimate 32bit Into a VHD. Setup Created a Multiple Boot Entry into the BCD so that when I Boot it Prompt Which OS I Want, I then Used BCDEdit to Change the Descriptions of the Boot Options "Windows 7 Ultimate - 64Bit - HOST" and "Windows 7 Ultimate - 32Bit - VHD" Everything still works Great.. No Problems.. Been Like this for a While Now and Perfect.
Now the Problem is that I Need to get some Data From and Old SATA Drive. I Shutdown .. Plugin the WD1600AAJS (160GB) into Another SATA Port (SATA1).. Turn Machine on and Press Delete to Enter Setup for Bios.. Goto Set Boot Device Priority and Ensure that the ST1000340NS Drive is at the Top (1st Priority).. Exit and Save Settings.. PC Goes through POST and Then Will not Boot.. it Gives "Missing Operating System" Shutdown Remove WD1600AAJS Drive.. Boots Perfect.. Reattach WD 1600AAJS Drive and "Missing Operating System" Tried Using "F12 to Select Boot Option" during POST to Select Boot Device.. Choose ST1000340NS ... and Still same Issue.. Remove the WD1600AAJS and Boots No Prob Off the ST1000340NS.
I thought that maybe it was the WD Drive.. so Tried another Seagate Drive.. and Same Issue..
I have set Every Available Option on The Bios to Choose the Boot Device and NOTHING Works.. I have Even swapped HArd drive SATA Ports .. still no Difference.
I have an Idea there is a problem with the BCD but I Cannot Edit or Add any thing to the BCD as it will not boot with the second drive attached. And When you edit the BCD it need the second drive attached to be able to Add a BCD Entry.
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