chris_wren
asked on
Windows XP with 2 harddisks, first contains boot sector, second the O/S files, how can I make the second disk the bootable disk?
I have a PC running Win XP Pro with 2 hard disks installed (both on the second IDE bus, the first IDE bus just contains CDROM).
Drive C (first disk): contains the boot sector and data.
Drive D: (second disk): contains the O/S and program files.
How can I make the current D: drive become the C: drive and have both the boot sector and O/S files, and make the C: drive the new D: drive containing just data?
I don't want to have to reinstall Windows if possible, just move the boot sector.
(Both harddisks do not have jumpers plugged in b.t.w..)
Drive C (first disk): contains the boot sector and data.
Drive D: (second disk): contains the O/S and program files.
How can I make the current D: drive become the C: drive and have both the boot sector and O/S files, and make the C: drive the new D: drive containing just data?
I don't want to have to reinstall Windows if possible, just move the boot sector.
(Both harddisks do not have jumpers plugged in b.t.w..)
You can try partition magic to swap the drive letters over or have you tried just booting with drive (D:\) plugged in to seee if windows re-assigns it letter C
ASKER
Drive D: doesn't have a boot partition.........
You are out of luck - the Windows registry is full of references to where the Windows system directory is, including the drive. It would be a mammoth undertaking to change them by hand, and there's always the chance that you missed a critical one. You're better off backing up your data and reinstalling from scratch - the boot directory is not easily changed.
ASKER
Well ok, I can't change the drive letters - that's fair enough. Could I move the boot sector on to drive D: though? The idea is to remove the C: drive because it's gonna go pop soon, and I can't just take it out as it's got the boot sector on it so I'll have a non-bootable XP installation on drive D:.
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ASKER
Thanks, I'll give that a try.
If I take out the C: drive, add a boot sector to the D: drive with a correct boot.ini, what will happen if I plug the C: drive back in (assuming I've got it set to slave)? Will it still be called C: drive in windows?
If I take out the C: drive, add a boot sector to the D: drive with a correct boot.ini, what will happen if I plug the C: drive back in (assuming I've got it set to slave)? Will it still be called C: drive in windows?
Once the WinXP disk has been set to D:, it should remain as D:, so Windows should see C as free and assign it to the next drive that it detects. You can try it before wiping out the old drive.