H: Drive Labled and C: Drive Backwards

[lawtyger]

I was thinking about tackling this annoyance this weekend if I could safely comprehend the method of doing so.

My Gateway Desktop's (running XP service pack 2) C: harddrive crashed. The internal slave H: drive (Seagate 200 GB) was fine. I purchased an internal Seagate 160 GB to replace the crashed C: drive. I installed the new drive and after reinstalling XP, XP is now on my H: (slave).

I just double checked and my serial cable's master (black) is definitely plugged into my new 160 GB drive that is labled as H: and my serial cable's slave (gray) is definitely plugged into the drive that was the slave before (the 200 GB) but is now listed as C:.

In any event, I know I can't just swap these drive letters via the control panel (I was able to swap my DVD drive and DVD/CD writer drive which after my reinstall had changed from their normal D: and E: respectively).

So I'm just looking for a little guideance as I don't want to accidently delete any data in trying to fix this issue which really is liveable, just annoying and confusing my wife. My question is, what is the easiest way to fix this. I now have True Image 8 so I'm thinking that may make this process simpler.

I was thinking that "Transferring the system to a new disk" (page 38 of the manual) may be the method to use. I figured in order to do this it would be wise to take everything off the C: drive (currently it has two backups of my pictures, music, etc. and a True Image image of my H: drive that has XP on it). BUT when I go to my computer and try to manually delete the folders containing my backup information (I'm not referring to the True Image image here - I haven't tried to delete that yet) created by Bounce Back Express, it won't delete. With other folders the box pops up saying the delete is to big for the recycle bin, etc. and I usually just hit yes and it deletes it. With this backup folder, I say yes to delete, the box pops up for a couple second and then closes but nothing is gone. I then went to My Computer, right clicked on the C: drive, hit "Format" and tried both a quick and regular format but they both fail. Is there some type of protection that prevent a person from deleting certain stuff from the C: drive since normally the C: is the one with the OS on it?

Anyway, the C: drive has 158 of used space and 27.6 of free space and unless I get rid at least some of this information, I won't have enough room to transfer my system to the C: drive. Obviously, I'd like to get all information off this so the C: would only contain my OS and I can go back to making backups to my H: drive.

Any ideas would be great. Even a different solution to getting the C: and H: swapped back to normal would be welcomed.

Thanks.

 

[lawtyger]

After CAUTIOUSLY looking at the Bios (never explored this, just scared to screw something up) after hitting F2, and looking at my drives I clearly see my two drives:

1st Drive [3S-ST3200822A]
2nd Drive [2M-ST3160815A]

Can someone verify that all that has happened is that I accidently installed XP on the slave H: drive and that the computer is booting from there?

If that is the case, I presume I would:
(1) Use True Image 8 to transfer the image of the H: drive to the C: drive; and
(2) Start the computer, hit F2, and set the computer to boot from C: instead of H: and the problem will be fixed.

You know, that sounds to simple. And of course, there is the problem of getting the information currently on C: off C:. I didn't see a reformat harddrive in the BIOS. Since formatting the drive from My Computer didn't work, is there a F? command that will get me somewhere in order to just reformat C: and have it clean for the image transfer of H:?

 

[lawtyger]

Well, so much for trying it myself. Somehow the new OS got deleted instead of the stuff on my slave hard drive and when I tried to restore the True Image I have made, XP would start to open up but would essentially freeze right before the screen where you can select "owner" and load all of your settings and go to XP.

A complete clean installation of XP later and finally I have XP back on the C: drive, my DVD drive is D:, my DVD/CD writer is E: and my slave drive is F:.

However, I still cannot get the data off the slave drive. As I mentioned above, there are two Bounce Back Express "my backup" folders on the slave drive and a True Image image. Now that I have XP back on C: and everything reinstall, I want to get rid of the old bounce back and True Image backups and make a brand new True Image backup and have that ONLY on the slave F: drive.

Here's the steps I've tried:

First, I again tried to just manually delete the bounce back folders via Window Explorer but after it asks me if I'm sure I want to send the information to the recycle bin and I say "yes" the box saying deleting files opens up for 2 seconds and then closes. Both are in excess of 30 GB so I would expect the message "the contents are two big for the recycle bin" to come up but it does not.

Second, I again tried to go to my computer and right click on the F: drive and hit format but neither the quick format or normal format was successful.

Lastly, I tried to use the Seagate Disk Wizard (which came with my new Seagate hard drive) and click "Add new Disc" thinking I could reformat the F: slave from there. It clearly shows the two hard drives:

Disk 1, C:, 149.1, Primary Master; and
Disk 2, F:, 186.3, Primary Slave

But, only Disk 1 is selectible and I do NOT want to touch that since XP is on it. Disk 2 is listed, but has the light shawdow look and unselectible.

Can anyone please explain to me how to reformat my F: slave drive???, as now that my computer is back up and running from scratch I'd like to only have on the slave drive a new True Image image of my C: drive (I no longer want or need the Bounce Back Express "my backup" data).

Really, thanks for any help. I'm really stumped as to why I can't just delete this information and I can't bare screwing something up again and doing yet another complete XP install and reinstall of drivers and programs. Unless I remove the current date from F: there will be no room for a new True Image backup of C:.

 

[rf6647]

It appears that both HD's are Seagate. It concerns me that the Seagate Disk utility blocks actions against the Slave drive.

The Disk Management display may show that the Slave is Disk 1 AND it carries a descriptor such as "Boot". 'Active' is expected.

A "solo" configuration could test out that theory. Specifically, disconnect the slave and restart. If OS cannot be found, then the Master needs a MBR. This involves the Recovery Console (XP CD) and the 'fixmbr' command.

I'll be honest with you - fixmbr & fixboot confuse the h311 out of me.

True Image may hold even a better solution to make the master bootable - but I have not used that utility.

Bounce Back Express sounds like a program. I suggest that you use the program to disable the function or that you un-install the program. This should either remove the folders or turn them into ordinary folders.

I believe that once the primary drive is confirmed to be bootable, the slave can be formatted.

[edit] True Image may have utilities to back up track 0 for the hard drive. 'fixmbr' writes data to track 0. Of course, the limitation comes into this if there is no write utility or if a floppy is needed. [/edit]