New install of XP on a SATA card

Had a disk going bad and went and purchased new one and clone failed
and I had the OS split between the C: and D: drives and limping along
with many functions and programs unavailable. It was usable though for
my most important daily use.

I installed a new drive on a SATA card and installed XP on there. It
is designated G: and has now given me 2 boot choices. The old XP with
issues and the new clean one.

I want to pull the 2 old drives from the machine.

Will XP then make the new XP on G: my C: drive automatically and rid
the dual boot choice?

Any advice or help appreciated.


Roscoe




Knowledge is like money, the less you talk about it
the more people assume you have.

Roscoe P Pendoscoe wrote:
Had a disk going bad and went and purchased new one and clone failed
and I had the OS split between the C: and D: drives and limping along
with many functions and programs unavailable. It was usable though for
my most important daily use.

I installed a new drive on a SATA card and installed XP on there. It
is designated G: and has now given me 2 boot choices. The old XP with
issues and the new clean one.

I want to pull the 2 old drives from the machine.

Will XP then make the new XP on G: my C: drive automatically and rid
the dual boot choice?

No, the Windows XP installation on G:\ will not boot at all after you
remove the old System Drive. You would have to change your G:\ drive so
that it is also the System partition, as it is now it is only the Boot
partition. The drive letter of the Windows installation will not and
*must not* change, it must always retain the drive letter assigned to it
when it was installed. If you want to change the G:\ designation to C:\
you must reinstall Windows, remove the old disk(s) and reinstall Windows
on the SATA drive. If you want to keep the Windows installation on G:\
and make it the System partition post again and let us know of your
intentions, also tell us if the computer has a floppy diskette.

We should make sure that we are on the same page and that we use
the same terms else we will all be hopelessly confused! The Microsoft
nomenclature defines the following:

*Boot Partition*
The boot partition contains the Windows operating system and its support
files. By default, the Windows operating system files are in the WINDOWS
folder, and the supporting files are in the WINDOWS\System32 folder.
The boot partition can be, but does not have to be, the same as the
system partition. There will be one, and only one, system partition, but
there will be one boot partition for each operating system in a
multi-boot system.

(This is your current G:\ drive)

*System Partition*
The system partition refers to the disk volume that contains the
hardware-specific files that are needed to start Windows, such as Ntldr,
Boot.ini, and Ntdetect.com. The system partition can be, but does not
have to be, the same volume as the boot partition.

(This is most likely your C:\ drive)

John

On Fri, 30 May 2008 10:09:01 -0300, "John John (MVP)"
wrote:

Roscoe P Pendoscoe wrote:
Had a disk going bad and went and purchased new one and clone failed
and I had the OS split between the C: and D: drives and limping along
with many functions and programs unavailable. It was usable though for
my most important daily use.

I installed a new drive on a SATA card and installed XP on there. It
is designated G: and has now given me 2 boot choices. The old XP with
issues and the new clean one.

I want to pull the 2 old drives from the machine.

Will XP then make the new XP on G: my C: drive automatically and rid
the dual boot choice?

No, the Windows XP installation on G:\ will not boot at all after you
remove the old System Drive. You would have to change your G:\ drive so
that it is also the System partition, as it is now it is only the Boot
partition. The drive letter of the Windows installation will not and
*must not* change, it must always retain the drive letter assigned to it
when it was installed. If you want to change the G:\ designation to C:\
you must reinstall Windows, remove the old disk(s) and reinstall Windows
on the SATA drive. If you want to keep the Windows installation on G:\
and make it the System partition post again and let us know of your
intentions, also tell us if the computer has a floppy diskette.

We should make sure that we are on the same page and that we use
the same terms else we will all be hopelessly confused! The Microsoft
nomenclature defines the following:

*Boot Partition*
The boot partition contains the Windows operating system and its support
files. By default, the Windows operating system files are in the WINDOWS
folder, and the supporting files are in the WINDOWS\System32 folder.
The boot partition can be, but does not have to be, the same as the
system partition. There will be one, and only one, system partition, but
there will be one boot partition for each operating system in a
multi-boot system.

(This is your current G:\ drive)

*System Partition*
The system partition refers to the disk volume that contains the
hardware-specific files that are needed to start Windows, such as Ntldr,
Boot.ini, and Ntdetect.com. The system partition can be, but does not
have to be, the same volume as the boot partition.

(This is most likely your C:\ drive)

John


Well thanks John.

I had looked in disk management and saw that the new drive G: was in
fact the "boot" drive.

I was trying to cut a few corners and ended up with a mess that needs
to be fixed yet again. All the programs I have installed on the new
drive are also in G:/Program Files. Would it not be easy to assume
even if the new G; became C: in name, none of the programs wouldn't
work either?

Yes, I have a floppy as I needed to install it to copy the SATA
drivers so it would work.

Let me ask you this question. What if I just left it as it is? I guess
it would be a bigger mess later on.

I copied all my files and such to an external 500gb Seagate Free Agent
Pro. I do not have a lot of faith in this piece of hardware and
probably would be wise to do it sooner than later. All I have seen,
read, and experienced tell me this external could croak at any time.

This motherboard does not natively have support for SATA hence the
card. It does have a 40gb, Primary master a 250gb ATA Secondary
master and 2 160gb on the m-board ATA RAID array as JBOD.

When I was going to dump the original 40 that was making sounds I
wasn't comfortable with that had the OS on it and the failed clone to
the 250gb it seemed the System was "split" between both the 2 of them
and as I said kind of limped along and I got it to work somewhat.

I had put off doing the reinstall for months as I was so busy and I
happen to be King of Procrastinators.

So, with all that info, what do you suggest and in what order? I am
ordering another Seagate 250GB SATA drive to install on the SATA
add-in card and create a mirror set-up this time so it will happen
after that arrives. I do not plan on doing this again for awhile.

What would you do with this mess?

Thanks for your help.

Roscoe




Knowledge is like money, the less you talk about it
the more people assume you have.

Roscoe P Pendoscoe wrote:

I had looked in disk management and saw that the new drive G: was in
fact the "boot" drive.

I was trying to cut a few corners and ended up with a mess that needs
to be fixed yet again. All the programs I have installed on the new
drive are also in G:/Program Files. Would it not be easy to assume
even if the new G; became C: in name, none of the programs wouldn't
work either?

If you change the Boot drive letter you will compromise the Windows
installation and almost nothing will work properly. The Mount Manager
persistently assigns drive letters, so you can make G: the System *and*
boot drive and the Boot volume will maintain its assigned G: drive
letter, your system will not have a C: drive and that won't bother
Windows at all.


Yes, I have a floppy as I needed to install it to copy the SATA
drivers so it would work.

Indeed. You can also create a floppy boot diskette which can be used to
boot the Windows installation. This diskette can be helpful when you
move the System partition, it can be used to boot Windows if you make
mistakes or run into problems when you do the changes.


Let me ask you this question. What if I just left it as it is? I guess
it would be a bigger mess later on.

You can leave it as it is but you say that the present System partition
is on a hard disk that is failing, if that disk fails you will not be
able to boot Windows. You should at the very least prepare for this
eventuality and create and test a boot floppy while you can. The floppy
boot diskette contains the boot environment for your Windows XP
installation and will come in handy if the System drive fails or if the
boot environment is lost of corrupted. As for leaving Windows on G:\ it
hurts nothing, Windows couldn't care less on which drive letter it is
installed. If it doesn't bother you having Windows on G:\ leave it like
that. With the failing condition of your older drive I do think however
that you should address that issue and "move" the System partition to
the G:\ drive.


When I was going to dump the original 40 that was making sounds I
wasn't comfortable with that had the OS on it and the failed clone to
the 250gb it seemed the System was "split" between both the 2 of them
and as I said kind of limped along and I got it to work somewhat.

The original 40GB drive is home to the system partition. Noisy disks
are an omen of bad things to come, you will have to retire this disk or
get ready to deal with the eventuality of a non booting system.


So, with all that info, what do you suggest and in what order? I am
ordering another Seagate 250GB SATA drive to install on the SATA
add-in card and create a mirror set-up this time so it will happen
after that arrives. I do not plan on doing this again for awhile.

Create a boot floppy and test it. It only take a minute to create a
floppy boot disk, here are the steps to make the diskette:

1- Format a floppy disk using a Windows NT/2000/XP/Server 2003 machine,
do not format the diskette with a W9x machine, if you do it will fail to
boot your XP installation.

2- Copy the files Boot.ini, NTDETECT.COM and NTLDR from the root of
your C: drive onto the floppy disk. These are hidden system files, you
may have to change the Folder Options View settings to see the files.

3- Go in the BIOS and set your computer to boot to the diskette first
and test the boot diskette to see if it can boot the Windows installation.


What would you do with this mess?

It's up to you to decide. If you want to keep the G: installation post
again and we can go through the steps of making G: the System partition,
it isn't hard to do. If you want to do that post the contents of your
boot.ini file with your reply, the file will have to be adjusted to
reflect the changes in your hard disk arrangement.

If you prefer or want to have Windows installed on C: remove the
unwanted hard disk(s) and reinstall Windows from scratch.


Thanks for your help.

You're welcome.

John

On Sat, 31 May 2008 22:25:49 -0300, "John John (MVP)"
wrote:

Roscoe P Pendoscoe wrote:
snipped

John,

I want to thank you for all the time you took to answer all my
questions. Very helpful I have to say and will help me greatly when I
fix this system.

Best regards,

Roscoe




Knowledge is like money, the less you talk about it
the more people assume you have.

Roscoe P Pendoscoe wrote:

On Sat, 31 May 2008 22:25:49 -0300, "John John (MVP)"
wrote:


Roscoe P Pendoscoe wrote:
snipped


John,

I want to thank you for all the time you took to answer all my
questions. Very helpful I have to say and will help me greatly when I
fix this system.

Best regards,

Roscoe

You're welcome.

John