Running Windows On IDE Hard Drive / Changing Boot Drives
Sep 5, 2009
I was running windows on an IDE hard drive and bought a new SATA and installed a fresh copy of windows on it, now having a dual boot with the old installation on the IDE. I've been running on the SATA drive for a few months now and I want to remove the IDE drive from my system but when I disconnect it and reboot I get a message that tells me NTLDR is missing so I am assuming that the boot record is on the IDE drive. How can I make the SATA drive my main boot drive?
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Jul 22, 2008
i have 2 sata hard drives and i need to know how to duel boot windows xp home with windows server 2003?
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Jun 19, 2005
What is the best way to get more space on my C drive? Merge C & D drives to optomize space? and how can that be done
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May 19, 2007
The Dell 8250 Pentium IV computer will not recognize the new master 160 GHZ or the origional, now slave, 40 GHZ, Hard drives. All the connections and jumpers are installed correctly. I tried a new motherboard and a new cable, both did not resolve this problem. Even ran a diagnostic program called "Tuff Test", running at boot up and the RAM and all other items checked OK, showing all working properly. The BIOS, now set to boot up correctly, off the proper drive, seems to recognize both removable drives and the floppy, but not the hard drives.
When I received the computer it was password protected. after asking and waiting for a week, with no response, I therefore, in safe mode,entered the BIOS and chose for it to boot off of the CD Rw that I thought was the proper and shut the Hard Drive off. Here the CD RW was a slave and not the master. No luck in installing the OS. I bought a new 160 GHZ HD with the thought that I could load the OS, again no luck. I replaced the battery and tried again with no luck.
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Jan 1, 2008
I want to install a new primary hard drive and reinstall windows xp from scratch on the new c: drive. For the moment I would also like to retain the old disc contents and the xp operating system. To try to do this I installed a second hard drive and cloned the old drive c: to the new drive f:. I created a dual boot computer by editing my boot.ini file so I could boot from either the c: or f: drive. I replaced my primary hard drive with a new drive and booted up in the f: drive. Then I cloned the f: drive back to the new c: drive creating a dual boot system. My concern now is that if I reinstall windows xp on the newly installed hard drive, the Dell installation disk will wipe out the operating system and the contents on the f: drive. Is there any way to retain the old system? I'd appreciate any help with this.
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Nov 22, 2006
I went home at lunch time and went to use my computer.The screen saver was on but not moving. I moved the mouse, still did nothing.I had to turn the computer off with the powerbutton.It is a HP Pavilion A1310N
I turned it back on and it gets to the HP Blue Screen. About 3 seconds after startup.Does nothing else.
When I turn the comptuer on i see the 3 lights on the Keyboard but then goes away.And any option at this screen like the F2 F10 or the ESC do not work.Sounds like the Harddrive is running fine.But just sits on that screen.Reboot and same thing.I did reseat the SATA and power cables on the Drive just to make sure.
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Sep 1, 2005
Can anyone recommend software that will allow me to copy my Windows onto another hard drive and beable to boot up from there? I appreciate any help you can give me.
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Jan 31, 2007
So I just ran into a problem with my External Western Digital Hard Drive. Previously, my drive was mapped as the E Drive (I believe) and after taking it down and setting it up again (when i moved back to college), my external hard drive switched drive names on me. This really sucks, as my external drive stores all of my iTunes music and now when i run iTunes, it tries to find the music from the E Drive location and not the G Drive location. Is there an easy way I can change the letter drives so that I don't have to reimport all of my music?
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Mar 26, 2007
I am running XP Pro on a rebuilt Dell PIII. The original hard drive is 7G, so I added a 300G slave for storage. My plan now was to change the 300G drive to the Master drive. I reformatted, booted from my XP disc & installed the OS on the "new" 300G drive. Then I switched the jumper & cable so it was in the master position.and nothing.
It starts up, tells me to hit F2 for setup or F1 to continue. When I hit F1, it goes to a blank screen with flashing cursor, but no command line
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Nov 9, 2006
I have been using a Compaq Deskpro with Windows XP SP2. And then I sold that computer and bought a Compaq Evo. I then inserted the same harddrive but it is failing to boot. When I insert the installation disc it says "Press any key to boot from CD". Pressing keys does not activate anything and it stays on the same screen. I then created 6 set up disks and they all work perfectly loading drivers etc. The problem starts when I reach the stage where it says "insert Win XP SP2 installation disc and press any key when ready". Pressing the keyboard keys produces no response
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Sep 28, 2005
computer's running a lil bit slow and wont allow me to install my new mobile phone software as c drive memory is full, i've tried my best to move things to the d drive hard disk but its still really full.is there any safe way of transferring most of the programs and files over to the second hard drive?
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Jul 23, 2003
Is it possible to dual boot between to different hard drives both running Windows XP? I just bought a new hard drive and I want to install it on the same machine and have a drive just for me and my wife and the kids can have their own. They down load so much stuff and cause the system to boot and run so slow. I'm tired of restoring it just to find 2 weeks later it's like it was.
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Jun 24, 2006
I just upgraded to a 300GB hard drive from a 250, which I will use as a backup drive. However, when I set it up, the primary boot partition got set up as D:. I have 5 partitions on this drive. The others were also mislabeled, but I could change them with the Computer Management tool. There is no C drive on this system. I want to make what is now D become C.The original also had 5 partitions. All I wanted to do is duplicate the old drive to the new one. Somehow, the boot partition became D and I can't change it from within Windows. Is there a way to do that? I have created the UBD for Windows using Bart's PE, so I can boot the machine independently of using the hard drive. If I can use that, is there a tool there or a command line program I can use to change it?
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Jan 8, 2006
I recently purchased a new hard drive and used the software that came with it to set up the new drive as the boot drive and the old drive as the slave. However after installation, it still shows the old drive as the boot drive and the new drive as the slave.I have set the jumpers to "master" on the new drive and slave on the old drive. Is there any way to change this? I dont know what else to do siince the jumpers are set correctly. running winXP home with Dell Pentium 4.
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Mar 19, 2007
I have two hard drives with different speeds the primary is 7200 the slave 5400, but my computer sometimes will not boot first time in the morning. I have to close it down after my screen turns off to power save. Which is the best way round for the drives to be installed or could it possibly be something entirely different that is causing the problem please. I have no virus or malware on my computer and all automatic updates are applied on windows XP SP2.
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Jul 8, 2008
I have a hard drive that comes with my PC and that has a corrupted Windows, but the boot.ini still works fine. So I got a new hard drive and installed a new fresh copy of Windows XP on it. So now I want to format the old hard drive and use the new hard drive as the boot drive. However, if I removed the old hard drive, the new hard drive doesn't boot at all. I've tried using the FIXMBR, FIXBOOT, and BOOTCFG /REBUILD commands, but I think I did it wrong.
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Dec 3, 2006
I was doing a new installation of XP home on a new hard drive, XP formatted the drive as F: and installed the boot sector there because a thumb drive was in the usb port (which it recognized as C:). I wasn't paying that close of attention and I didn't realize XP would see that thumb drive as C:. My question: is there any way to change the boot letter back to C: without reformatting the hard drive?
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Feb 27, 2010
I want to install Windows XP on a new SATA HDD drive. The computer in question came with Windows Vista installed. There is no IDE option in the BIOS. There is no floppy drive on the unit. So it looks like I might have to slipstream all the drivers, etc., on to the unit (which I have no clue how to do). I do not have the motherboard make or model number, nor do I have the motherboard CD. My business partner is trying to take the cover off the laptop as we speak, but we're having trouble getting it off. Thus, as of now, we can't identify the motherboard manufacturer or the serial number.
Can anyone here point us in the right direction? The computer in question is a Compaq Presario c769us (laptop). It was purchased in June 2008. This all started when my business partner decided to use a Vista System Recovery CD to overwrite the existing copy of Vista that he had on the computer. After he ran the disk, the system stopped working. So right now, we have the old hard drive, which contains a non-working copy of Vista on it (which we can 't delete), and we have the new hard drive (a 250 GB Hitachi). So maybe we could just delete the copy of Vista on the old hard drive - the self drive test checked out okay on the old hard drive. So I guess the two options are - figure out a way to put XP on the NEW hard drive, or figure out a way to put XP on the OLD hard drive and delete Vista from it first. If we can put XP on the old hard drive and remove Vista from it, we could take the new hard drive back, and get our money back, too.
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Jun 25, 2010
I recently bought a new HDD because the old one appears ready to crash (clicking sound). My DVD-Rom is also dead, so I booted from the old hard drive & installed a fresh OS (Windows XP) on the new drive. However, I cannot boot from the new drive alone, because the 'system volume' is Drive C: (old drive) & 'boot volume' is Drive G: (new drive). How can I fix this? I don't mind reinstalling the OS, but I cannot boot from a CD & I don't know how long the old drive will last
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Dec 13, 2008
I'm trying to help my friend install XP Home on his Dell Inspiron 1525 laptop. The laptop is currently running Vista, and he wants XP so that he can play KOTOR.The problem is that when I insert the CD and boot from it, the setup loads fine to the point where it gives the option to set up Windows XP, to repair Windows XP, etc. When I press enter to "set up Windows XP", it gives a message:"Setup did not find any hard disk drives installed in your computer. Make sure any hard drsk drives are powered on and properly connected to your computer, and that any disk-related hardware configuration is correct. This may involve running a manufacturer-supplied diagnostic or setup program
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Oct 8, 2008
I recently installed a new hard drive into a friends computer and installed XP Home.
I ran all the updates and service packs.
I left later that day and let him install all his applications.
I got a call tonight from him saying he really screwed up and doesn't know what to do.
I had to follow his thinking over the phone so I hope I get this all correct.
He had trouble loading the drivers for his HP printer. He would get an error saying that a C: empHP_WebRelease folder was missing. He did manage to figure out that for some reason when I installed XP it called the Boot drive "I" instead of "C"
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Aug 23, 2005
I removed a CD/RW drive and replaced it with a DVD/RW drive. I now have 2 DVD/RW drives. They are NEC-3500 and NEC-3540. The NEC-3400 was in my system before and worked fine. I have tried the registry fix CDGONE, unintalling the IDE controllers, reinstalling the newest Gigabyte board drivers, and removing the high and low filters. None of it has worked. I still can't use either DVD/CD. I have nothing with an alert in the system devices. They are not showing there. Also I tried putting the CD/RW back in and the red light stays lit up as soon as I connect it. It will not recognize that either. Tried system restore to before the change and putting the DVD/RW, DVD player and CD/RW back in I had before and it failed the restore. I also tried re-storing the registry but system restore removed the save I had and it's gone. I also tried hooking up a brand new Seagate IDE 200 GB hard drive I bought for backups and it doesn't recognize it. I have add on SATA card which is where my main Hard drive was before this and it still boots up fine.I just cannot use any CD or DVD in my system which is a major problem. I had DVD easy creator and a DVD copy program, including a DVD for free. I removed them all incase it was causing a problem. Still nothing recognized. When the motherboard boots up it finds nothing under IDE then goes to my SATA board and boots up.The IDE controllers are turned on in BIOS and all IDE's are turned on for auto sense in the BIOS. I had not made any changes in the BIOS before or after this. I need someone with some ideas.
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Jan 9, 2008
I have 2 computers that i need to know what is the max hard drive size. One computer is running winME and the other is running Win2000. As for the win2000 i changed the registry for 48 bit LBA support in order to see my 320gb drive. The reason why I ask is because I'm planning to purchase a 750gb or 1tb external hard drive to backup my system. I don't want to purchase it to find that the system can only see 500gb or something like that. I'm gonna post this same post in the winMe area.
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Oct 11, 2007
I own a Dell GX270 (the one with the bad Motherboards) and would like to take the Hard Drive from this bad bad machine and install it on my other (Similar, but actually working) Dell (OPTIPLEX 160) as a Second Hard Drive. The Hard Drive from the defective PC obviously has all my valuable programs on it, some of which antiques that I love using for work. Both computers have identical Operating systems (XP-Pro)
My questions are:
Will I be able to run programs directly from the old (now second) Hard Drive? If not, what is the safest way to merge the individual program's registry entries with the registry on the drive which actually operates the machine
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Feb 2, 2009
A Dell Inspiron 8600. A couple of days ago, I formatted the hard drive and installed WinXP SP2. It then ran very slow. I then checked System Properties and it said I was only using 251 MHz of 1400 MHz. I then installed the software called Speed Switch XP, and it got it boosted up to 599 MHz when it's on max performance. I'm now stuck there.
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Dec 27, 2007
I recently installed the program registery fix and i believe it has caused my Cd and DVD drives or the paths to these drives to be deleted from windows as they do not show up in my computer. I have tried the options in the following list but none of them have helped me, i'm really stuck but i can't fix the problem.
- I've tried deleting the upper and lower filters but they are not in the selected registery.
- I've tried a system restore but i can't go back to a previous point before the registery fix install.
- I've tried unplugging the leads and restaring but this didn't help.
- I've tried microsoft guided help but it couldn't find the upper and lower filters.
- i beleive they are still listed in my bios but don't know exactly what i'm looking for when in bios.
I don't know where to go from here, i also run alcohol 120% a virtual drive software and the registery fix has had no affected on these drives but i'm wondering if this maybe why the program registery fix deleted my actual drives becasue of the virtual drives and replaced the paths to my actual drives but i'm not sure it's just a guess. I've deleted the virtual drives and tried the steps above but i've had no luck.
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Jan 29, 2008
But I wanted to know how do I install Windows XP operating system on my external hard drive. I am currently running Windows Vista Premium on my desktop. Please advise me regarding this question.
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Oct 5, 2006
My computer os is windows XP the drive is a 30 GB when I installed it I had to format it and now I only see 2.15 gb how do get to use the entire drive I have nothing on it so if it comes to reformating to do it a differnt way I will
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Jul 23, 2005
I have Win XP home installed as OEM software on the C drive of my PC.
I also have this OS as a Norton Ghost file supplied with the PC as a
"Recovery CD".
I have installed a second hard drive designated "D"
This all works fine.
I wish to install Win 2000 (which I have on a Microsoft cd) on the second HD.
I would then hope at boot - up to be given the choice of which OS to load.
Can anyone tell me what is the simplest way to do this?
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Jul 12, 2005
What must be done to a new hard drive and which files must be on the Hard drive before Win XP can be installed?
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Aug 8, 2005
for some reason xp will not load on start up. I'm planning on reformatting the hard drive but i would like to get the files that i need out of there before reformating. How do you get files from a hard drive without windows being activated?
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