Windows installed on SATA, won't work w/o IDE

[mikeusru]

Hey all,
So i've got the following problem.
I recently built an entirely new system, and tried using my old IDE hard drive. windows crashed when I tried to boot it up, so I just installed a new SATA drive and put a clean copy of XP on it. I kept the other (IDE) drive attached so I could throw all my data over from it. Every time I'd start the computer, it would ask me to choose between two different versions of Windows to run (the one on the SATA, and the disfunctional one on the IDE. Today I unattached the IDE and couldn't get windows to start up again, it said something about some sort of failure and told me to insert the system disk. when I put the IDE back in and set it to be first in the boot order, it again asked me which windows I'd like to run, and I chose the one on the SATA, which then worked.
It seems I need to have my old IDE installed to be able to choose to run Windows which is located on another drive. What gives? I don't want to keep having to do this. Please help.

 

[AlbertLionheart]

I read the other thread and I had seen this one too but felt that this is so unusual I wanted other gurus to see it as well.
My thoughts are that you should be able to remove the option to boot from the second hard drive by editing the system startup values in Control Panel > System > Advanced > System startup - but am not exactly sure what it is you need to do to stop the option. If you simply delete the line referring to the second HDD it may not boot at all!

 

[mailpup]

Why not just reformat the IDE drive to get rid of the old XP? Is there a reason you want to keep a second copy of XP on it?

 

[heavyhebrew]

I had a similar problem when I used to do a clean install of Windows XP w/o service packs on an IDE drive then copy the install onto the new SATA drive.
(This was before I learned how to make a new windows disc with the original installation cd and then merge the service packs in).

I had to go into DOS and fix the MBR and then edit the boot.ini
If the data is critical then you should have it all booted up and check the boot.ini. Just an idea.

 

[mikeusru]

there is a way to make a new disk from the original and merge in the service packs?? Please do tell! I have a disk from 2001 and a crappy internet connection so updating isn't always fun, considering I might need to reformat the SATA drive again.

 

[iss]

mikeusru

Check your bios settings, when you hooked up the IDE drive your bios probably set it as the boot drive. Make sure that sata is enabled in the bios and the sata drive is the boot drive.

mikeusru

You can slipstream SP2 and hotfixes into your old copy of XP and create a new install disk using Nlite.

http://www.nliteos.com/