Dual hard drive boot problem

[sirjrock]

ok, heres my problem. I have two hard drives installed on my computer. I cannot get it to boot with only one hard drive. Even though xp is fully functionaly on drive d it somehow needs drive c to boot. Is ti posiible for the operating sytem to boot from c and run on d? I have tried every combination of jumpers .. When i enter the bios it only has one option of booting from drive c.. Do i need to change the drive letters? Also i cannot format drice c.. Once again drive d is the primary drive which has the operating sytem that works. All i want to do is uninstall the second hard drive .. how do i fix this??

 

[CCT]

Would help a LOT if you said what TYPE of DRIVES hooked up HOW to What!

 

[sirjrock]

dual hard drives

i have a 80gb maxtor and a 80 gb wh. On the same cable set to the cable select position. The maxor, which is location 1 is labeled as the d drive and has the fully functional operating system on it. When i disconnect the c drive which i dont want installed, and set d drive to master it wont boot. I actually need both to run computer.. strange??

 

[CCT]

What cable on where? 80 wire 40 pin on IDE Primary?


http://www.mikeshardware.com/howtos/howto_connect_ide_hd.html

 

[sirjrock]

it is a dell dimension 2400 .. it came with 40 pin so that whats im using a dual connector 40 ide

 

[sirjrock]

yes ide primary

 

[CCT]

They are ALL 40 pin - the difference is 80 wire versus 40 wire - they hook up differently - read the article.

 

[sirjrock]

it is not 80 wire..

 

[sirjrock]

wow, i didnt know about the 80vs40 slot on the motherboard,, i guess i have some more options now...

 

[gguerra]

You need to tell XP which partition you want as active..

Control Panel, Administrative Tools, Computer Management, Disk Mangement, Right Click on Partition you want to boot from, select Mark Partition as Active, shut down computer, remove the drive you dont want, restart computer. You can also use the DISKPART command from the command window