Switching Boot Drives

N

newbie225

Geek Trainee
I currently revamped my computer completly, accept for the old hard drive(C:\) on the old computer, so I could boot windows from it. I wanted to change the boot drive to my new one(D:\), so I put in my setup disk for windows xp pro and checked new installation. I deleted the old partition on D:\ and installed a fresh copy of windows on it. The problem is that I removed my old hardrive(C:\) in the hope that D:\ would boot up my windows. Well it did not work so I am now stuck with 2 drives with windows xp pro on both. My computer works fine but, is it possible to boot windows xp pro from D:\?

Thanks for any help given!
 
Ok, lets clear couple of things first..........
Have you got 2 HD or 2drives on 1HD?
Can you use both the windows or you are just getting a selection in the beginig for two winXP?
 
newbie225 said:
please, can anyone help?!
Click to expand...

yes newbie225, what you need to do is change the boot order in the BIOS from C: to D: or from IDE0 to IDE1 (you can only have 4 IDE devices, on primery IDE channel IDE0 & IDE1, and on the secondary IDE channel IDE2 & IDE3)
 
I have 2 hard drives, 1 old and 1 new. On my new computer I use the old drive to boot windows. This old hard drive only has 10gb of space and uses a different windows xp pro that I do not like, so I wanted to get rid of it. I used the option "New Installation" instead of "Upgrade" on the new windows xp cd that I bought. With this I basically installed the new windows xp pro onto my new hard drive which has more space(160gb). Once I finished all this installing, I assumed I could take out the old hard drive with the old windows on it out of my computer once and for all. I was thinking of just using my new hard drive with the new windows on it, leaving my computer with only 1 hard drive to deal with. Once I removed my old hard drive and set up bios to boot windows off the new and now only hard drive, I got some really weird error on boot up. It said something that presented itself to me as if I needed the older hard drive with older windows on it, inorder to boot up my new hard drive with new windows on it. So basically now when I start my computer there is a menu asking me which windows I want to use. I want to have 1 hard drive with the new windows, WITHOUT the old hard drive and old windows. That is basically the entire situation I am in. Is it possible to use the new harddrive with the new windows to work my computer without the original old hard drive? Hope this helps somewhat..



I see in disk management my old hard drive is set to Status: Healthy(system) and my new one with newer windows that I want to use is set to Status: Healthy(active) and sometimes Healthy(boot). Do I have to change the newer hard drive to Healthy(system) or something in order for it to work without the older hard drive with older windows on it? How would I do this??
 
When I switched boot order in BIOS to put the newer hard drive with newer windows to boot first followed by the old hard drive with older windows, I got this error: "NTLDR is missing-Ctrl Alt Delete to restart". So I had to switch back to older hard drive again.
 
I would say the easiest way to handle this situation is just pull out the old HDD from your system. Insert the XPP CD, set the first boot device to CD Drive and install windows again on the new drive with a complete format. One more thing, when you partition you HDD then partition it accordingly...
(15GB)C:/ - for windows and other program files
(15GB)D:/ - for your personal doccuments
(Rest of it)E:/ - for all the audio, video files....

If you play lots of games then increase the size of C drive accordingly....
The main reason behind this is when you want to reinstall windows again, you can format the C drive only and can install on it again. You dont have to format the whole 160GB. Which will save your time and space. You dont have to make copies for the backup of your data aswell.
 
Karanislove said:
I would say the easiest way to handle this situation is just pull out the old HDD from your system. Insert the XPP CD, set the first boot device to CD Drive and install windows again on the new drive with a complete format. One more thing, when you partition you HDD then partition it accordingly...
(15GB)C:/ - for windows and other program files
(15GB)D:/ - for your personal doccuments
(Rest of it)E:/ - for all the audio, video files....

If you play lots of games then increase the size of C drive accordingly....
The main reason behind this is when you want to reinstall windows again, you can format the C drive only and can install on it again. You dont have to format the whole 160GB. Which will save your time and space. You dont have to make copies for the backup of your data aswell.
Click to expand...


thats exactly wat i was thinkin of. lol
 
[ot]
izzy said:
thats exactly wat i was thinkin of.
Click to expand...
I've learned this from HWF nd you also stay here...so I think thats why, our thoughts are getting simillar. lol :beer:[/ot]
 
Okay, I see what you have done:

  1. Remove the old drive C:\ from your computer
  2. Insert the Windows XP CD
  3. Select the first Repair Option
  4. Choose Manual Repair
  5. You are taken to the Recovery Console
  6. Type:

Code: 
fixmbr

Restart the computer and remove the CD
 
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