No boot from SATA with after parallel IDE removed

After installing XP to boot from a SATA disk (C on a new build PC, I then
installed a parallell IDE drive into the PC, so as to transfer a large data
file (actually a Ghost image of the old PC as an emergency backup, in case
the Files and Settings Transfer Wizard had missed copying anything). The
parallell IDE was seen as the D: drive and I successfully transfered the
Ghost image file from D: to C:. Everthing worked fine, so far.

Then I removed the parallell IDE drive and the PC failed to boot from the
SATA disk. It even failed to boot again when I put the parallell IDE drive
back into the computer. Attempts to repair XP from the Windows CD failed.

Could anybody explain what happened? I had to reinstall XP on a newly
formatted disk, which was very time consuming. Would like to avoid the same
problem in the future.

Peter

It's only a guess but I'll bet the Ghost image you copied from the parallel
to the SATA overrode the existing XP you had installed and that then screwed
everything up.

"Peter Maughan" wrote in message
...
After installing XP to boot from a SATA disk (C on a new build PC, I
then installed a parallell IDE drive into the PC, so as to transfer a
large data file (actually a Ghost image of the old PC as an emergency
backup, in case the Files and Settings Transfer Wizard had missed copying
anything). The parallell IDE was seen as the D: drive and I successfully
transfered the Ghost image file from D: to C:. Everthing worked fine, so
far.

Then I removed the parallell IDE drive and the PC failed to boot from the
SATA disk. It even failed to boot again when I put the parallell IDE
drive back into the computer. Attempts to repair XP from the Windows CD
failed.

Could anybody explain what happened? I had to reinstall XP on a newly
formatted disk, which was very time consuming. Would like to avoid the
same problem in the future.

Peter

Hi, no sata drivers, if your parallel drive has XP you'll need to install
those onto the drive before ghosting across....
Chris C
"Jerry" wrote in message
...
It's only a guess but I'll bet the Ghost image you copied from the
parallel to the SATA overrode the existing XP you had installed and that
then screwed everything up.

"Peter Maughan" wrote in message
...
After installing XP to boot from a SATA disk (C on a new build PC, I
then installed a parallell IDE drive into the PC, so as to transfer a
large data file (actually a Ghost image of the old PC as an emergency
backup, in case the Files and Settings Transfer Wizard had missed copying
anything). The parallell IDE was seen as the D: drive and I successfully
transfered the Ghost image file from D: to C:. Everthing worked fine,
so far.

Then I removed the parallell IDE drive and the PC failed to boot from the
SATA disk. It even failed to boot again when I put the parallell IDE
drive back into the computer. Attempts to repair XP from the Windows CD
failed.

Could anybody explain what happened? I had to reinstall XP on a newly
formatted disk, which was very time consuming. Would like to avoid the
same problem in the future.

Peter

Windows may be expecting to boot from the SATA controller and that
controller's driver as previously mentioned. You will then have to run the
recovery console and use FIXMBR and FIXBOOT to allow booting into the system.
Besides loading the required boot files it will set the active partition and
allow you to boot. Put in the Windows install CD and reboot to that and
choose recovery console then type these commands after logging in... FIXMBR
then FIXBOOT, in that order (doesn't have to be upper case when you type),
then type EXIT. It should then reboot and get you into Windows.

"Peter Maughan" wrote:

After installing XP to boot from a SATA disk (C on a new build PC, I then
installed a parallell IDE drive into the PC, so as to transfer a large data
file (actually a Ghost image of the old PC as an emergency backup, in case
the Files and Settings Transfer Wizard had missed copying anything). The
parallell IDE was seen as the D: drive and I successfully transfered the
Ghost image file from D: to C:. Everthing worked fine, so far.

Then I removed the parallell IDE drive and the PC failed to boot from the
SATA disk. It even failed to boot again when I put the parallell IDE drive
back into the computer. Attempts to repair XP from the Windows CD failed.

Could anybody explain what happened? I had to reinstall XP on a newly
formatted disk, which was very time consuming. Would like to avoid the same
problem in the future.

Peter

Hi, Thanks to both for your replies.

Actually, I didn't use the Ghost image file in any way. I just put it onto
the SATA drive, in case it was needed later. I suppose it was a bit
misleading of me to mention to you that it was a Ghost image file; it might
have been any other data file that I wanted to save.

What I thought might have happened was this:

Windows XP booted from the SATA drive, as set up in the original
installation. Then when it found the new parallel drive it decided that it
preferred to boot from a parallel drive, now present, and changed the
boot.ini (or another) file in some way to note the parallel drives' presence
in future. Then I removed the parallel drive, because I had only installed
it temporarily to copy over the large data (Ghost) file, and next time
Windows tried to boot it couldn't.

I only wish I could understand what happened a bit better.

Peter

"Chris Catt" wrote in message
...
Hi, no sata drivers, if your parallel drive has XP you'll need to install
those onto the drive before ghosting across....
Chris C
"Jerry" wrote in message
...
It's only a guess but I'll bet the Ghost image you copied from the
parallel to the SATA overrode the existing XP you had installed and that
then screwed everything up.

"Peter Maughan" wrote in message
...
After installing XP to boot from a SATA disk (C on a new build PC, I
then installed a parallell IDE drive into the PC, so as to transfer a
large data file (actually a Ghost image of the old PC as an emergency
backup, in case the Files and Settings Transfer Wizard had missed
copying anything). The parallell IDE was seen as the D: drive and I
successfully transfered the Ghost image file from D: to C:. Everthing
worked fine, so far.

Then I removed the parallell IDE drive and the PC failed to boot from
the SATA disk. It even failed to boot again when I put the parallell
IDE drive back into the computer. Attempts to repair XP from the
Windows CD failed.

Could anybody explain what happened? I had to reinstall XP on a newly
formatted disk, which was very time consuming. Would like to avoid the
same problem in the future.

Peter