I have recently installed a clean copy of XP onto a machine with 2 hard
drives, one is the C: drive with 2 other partitons D: & E:

The 2nd hard drive is completly blank and just formatted. The problem is
windows has installed on the C: Drive, but the 2nd hard drive is listed as
the system disk in the device manager and C: is the boot drive.

when I boot with recovery coucel and try to fixmbr it states that windows is
installed on F:\windows (Which is the 2nd hard drive).

Any ideas on how to change the "system drive" to the C:\ (boot) drive?

Disconnect the drive you dont want to use, adjust drive jumpers on the
remaining drive to master, assuming its ide. Clean reinstall winxp, update &
ensure its ok. Shutdown PC, reconnect other drive as slave

"Scott S" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:%(E-Mail Removed)...
> I have recently installed a clean copy of XP onto a machine with 2 hard
> drives, one is the C: drive with 2 other partitons D: & E:
>
> The 2nd hard drive is completly blank and just formatted. The problem is
> windows has installed on the C: Drive, but the 2nd hard drive is listed as
> the system disk in the device manager and C: is the boot drive.
>
> when I boot with recovery coucel and try to fixmbr it states that windows
> is installed on F:\windows (Which is the 2nd hard drive).
>
> Any ideas on how to change the "system drive" to the C:\ (boot) drive?
>

DL wrote:
> Disconnect the drive you dont want to use, adjust drive jumpers on the
> remaining drive to master, assuming its ide. Clean reinstall winxp, update &
> ensure its ok. Shutdown PC, reconnect other drive as slave
>
> "Scott S" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
> news:%(E-Mail Removed)...
>> I have recently installed a clean copy of XP onto a machine with 2 hard
>> drives, one is the C: drive with 2 other partitons D: & E:
>>
>> The 2nd hard drive is completly blank and just formatted. The problem is
>> windows has installed on the C: Drive, but the 2nd hard drive is listed as
>> the system disk in the device manager and C: is the boot drive.
>>
>> when I boot with recovery coucel and try to fixmbr it states that windows
>> is installed on F:\windows (Which is the 2nd hard drive).
>>
>> Any ideas on how to change the "system drive" to the C:\ (boot) drive?
>>
>
>
And when you start the load make sure it says C: on the XP install
screen. like http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/XPpro5setup.jpg

It's unlikely that the second hard disk is the System disk if you just
formated it, where are the following files:

boot.ini
ntldr
NTDETECT.COM

These files *always* reside in the root folder of the System partition.

John

Scott S wrote:

> I have recently installed a clean copy of XP onto a machine with 2 hard
> drives, one is the C: drive with 2 other partitons D: & E:
>
> The 2nd hard drive is completly blank and just formatted. The problem is
> windows has installed on the C: Drive, but the 2nd hard drive is listed as
> the system disk in the device manager and C: is the boot drive.
>
> when I boot with recovery coucel and try to fixmbr it states that windows is
> installed on F:\windows (Which is the 2nd hard drive).
>
> Any ideas on how to change the "system drive" to the C:\ (boot) drive?
>
>

On Mon, 12 May 2008 16:06:27 -0400, "Scott S" <(E-Mail Removed)>
wrote:

>
> I have recently installed a clean copy of XP onto a machine with 2 hard
>drives, one is the C: drive with 2 other partitons D: & E:
>
>The 2nd hard drive is completly blank and just formatted. The problem is
>windows has installed on the C: Drive, but the 2nd hard drive is listed as
>the system disk in the device manager and C: is the boot drive.
>
>when I boot with recovery coucel and try to fixmbr it states that windows is
>installed on F:\windows (Which is the 2nd hard drive).
>
>Any ideas on how to change the "system drive" to the C:\ (boot) drive?
>
Run Disk Management, and set the C: drive active.
Copy boot.ini, ntldr, and ntdetect.com from the system partition to
C:\.
Reboot, go into BIOS setup and set (Hard Disk Boot Priority) the disk
drive containing partition C: as the boot drive.

They are both SATA drives and I did the clean install on the primary SATA
drive.
The system files are located on both drives. I tried a fixmbr and this did
not solve the problem.

"DL" <address@invalid> wrote in message
news:elw%(E-Mail Removed)...
> Disconnect the drive you dont want to use, adjust drive jumpers on the
> remaining drive to master, assuming its ide. Clean reinstall winxp, update
> & ensure its ok. Shutdown PC, reconnect other drive as slave
>
> "Scott S" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
> news:%(E-Mail Removed)...
>> I have recently installed a clean copy of XP onto a machine with 2 hard
>> drives, one is the C: drive with 2 other partitons D: & E:
>>
>> The 2nd hard drive is completly blank and just formatted. The problem is
>> windows has installed on the C: Drive, but the 2nd hard drive is listed
>> as the system disk in the device manager and C: is the boot drive.
>>
>> when I boot with recovery coucel and try to fixmbr it states that windows
>> is installed on F:\windows (Which is the 2nd hard drive).
>>
>> Any ideas on how to change the "system drive" to the C:\ (boot) drive?
>>
>
>

Andy <1@2.3> écrivait news:(E-Mail Removed):

> On Mon, 12 May 2008 16:06:27 -0400, "Scott S" <(E-Mail Removed)>
> wrote:
>
>>
>> I have recently installed a clean copy of XP onto a machine with 2
>> hard
>>drives, one is the C: drive with 2 other partitons D: & E:
>>
>>The 2nd hard drive is completly blank and just formatted. The problem
>>is windows has installed on the C: Drive, but the 2nd hard drive is
>>listed as the system disk in the device manager and C: is the boot
>>drive.
>>
>>when I boot with recovery coucel and try to fixmbr it states that
>>windows is installed on F:\windows (Which is the 2nd hard drive).
>>
>>Any ideas on how to change the "system drive" to the C:\ (boot) drive?
>>
> Run Disk Management, and set the C: drive active.
> Copy boot.ini, ntldr, and ntdetect.com from the system partition to
> C:\.
> Reboot, go into BIOS setup and set (Hard Disk Boot Priority) the disk
> drive containing partition C: as the boot drive.
>

I would reformat, there must be thousands of references to "F:\Windows"
in the OP's XP registry and changing them manually would take days. It's
a lot faster to reinstall everything from scratch.

....Unless there are some kind of third party registry editor that would
include some automatic "search and replace" function, but I didn't search
for that because I thought that could cause more damages.

I had a similar issue and XP was very slow to boot with lots of error
messages caused by the wrong references in the registry.

HTH
Doum

Doum wrote:
> Andy <1@2.3> écrivait news:(E-Mail Removed):
>
>
>>On Mon, 12 May 2008 16:06:27 -0400, "Scott S" <(E-Mail Removed)>
>>wrote:
>>
>>
>>> I have recently installed a clean copy of XP onto a machine with 2
>>> hard
>>>drives, one is the C: drive with 2 other partitons D: & E:
>>>
>>>The 2nd hard drive is completly blank and just formatted. The problem
>>>is windows has installed on the C: Drive, but the 2nd hard drive is
>>>listed as the system disk in the device manager and C: is the boot
>>>drive.
>>>
>>>when I boot with recovery coucel and try to fixmbr it states that
>>>windows is installed on F:\windows (Which is the 2nd hard drive).
>>>
>>>Any ideas on how to change the "system drive" to the C:\ (boot) drive?
>>>
>>
>>Run Disk Management, and set the C: drive active.
>>Copy boot.ini, ntldr, and ntdetect.com from the system partition to
>>C:\.
>>Reboot, go into BIOS setup and set (Hard Disk Boot Priority) the disk
>>drive containing partition C: as the boot drive.
>>
>
>
> I would reformat, there must be thousands of references to "F:\Windows"
> in the OP's XP registry and changing them manually would take days. It's
> a lot faster to reinstall everything from scratch.

There is *absolutely* no need to reformat! You can change the System
partition from one partition to another or from one disk to another and
the Boot Volume will retain its drive letter when Windows is booted,
that also applies if you make the Boot Volume the System drive.

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.

Note On dynamic disks, this is known as the boot volume.

*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.

Note On dynamic disks, this is known as the system volume.

John

"John John (MVP)" <(E-Mail Removed)> écrivait
news:(E-Mail Removed):

> Doum wrote:
>> Andy <1@2.3> écrivait
>> news:(E-Mail Removed):
>>
>>
>>>On Mon, 12 May 2008 16:06:27 -0400, "Scott S" <(E-Mail Removed)>
>>>wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>> I have recently installed a clean copy of XP onto a machine with 2
>>>> hard
>>>>drives, one is the C: drive with 2 other partitons D: & E:
>>>>
>>>>The 2nd hard drive is completly blank and just formatted. The
>>>>problem is windows has installed on the C: Drive, but the 2nd hard
>>>>drive is listed as the system disk in the device manager and C: is
>>>>the boot drive.
>>>>
>>>>when I boot with recovery coucel and try to fixmbr it states that
>>>>windows is installed on F:\windows (Which is the 2nd hard drive).
>>>>
>>>>Any ideas on how to change the "system drive" to the C:\ (boot)
>>>>drive?
>>>>
>>>
>>>Run Disk Management, and set the C: drive active.
>>>Copy boot.ini, ntldr, and ntdetect.com from the system partition to
>>>C:\.
>>>Reboot, go into BIOS setup and set (Hard Disk Boot Priority) the disk
>>>drive containing partition C: as the boot drive.
>>>
>>
>>
>> I would reformat, there must be thousands of references to
>> "F:\Windows" in the OP's XP registry and changing them manually would
>> take days. It's a lot faster to reinstall everything from scratch.
>
> There is *absolutely* no need to reformat! You can change the System
> partition from one partition to another or from one disk to another
> and the Boot Volume will retain its drive letter when Windows is
> booted, that also applies if you make the Boot Volume the System
> drive.
>
> 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.
>
> Note On dynamic disks, this is known as the boot volume.
>
> *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.
>
> Note On dynamic disks, this is known as the system volume.
>
> John
>
>

I didn't want to tell my whole story, I thought it was irrelevant but...

I have an old motherboard with integrated ATA33 and ATA66 IDE
controllers, I've added a PCI ATA133 controller. There is 1x4.3GB HD
plugged to the ATA33, there was 1x20GB (UDMA4) on the ATA66 and a few
others UDMA5 & 6 on the ATA133.

I installed WinME on the 4.3GB (C, XP Pro on the 20 GB (ATA66) (D.
After I finished the installations, I installed Ghost 2003 (in XP) and
cloned the XP drive on another 20 GB hard drive (UDMA5) plugged on the
PCI controller and removed that drive from the system.

Maybe 10 days later, the XP HD failed (on the ATA66). So I took the
cloned disk and put it back in the system on the ATA133 controller. It
was still the second hard drive that POST showed up.

When XP began to load it took an eternity and when it finally came up,
the drive had become H: (remained H:?), ATI MMC didn't work, AVG didn't
work, Ghost didn't work, etc. I went to the registry and found that all
the references to Windows were to "D:". I tried to change the letter "H"
to "D" in Disk Management but Windows wouldn't let me change the system
drive letter.

I restarded with the XP CD and the installation would see that disk as
D:, so I reformatted and reinstalled XP and everything is OK.

That's why I thought that the OP problem was similar to mine.

My apology if I confused someone.
Doum

Doum wrote:

> "John John (MVP)" <(E-Mail Removed)> écrivait
> news:(E-Mail Removed):
>
>
>>Doum wrote:
>>
>>>Andy <1@2.3> écrivait
>>>news:(E-Mail Removed):
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>>On Mon, 12 May 2008 16:06:27 -0400, "Scott S" <(E-Mail Removed)>
>>>>wrote:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>I have recently installed a clean copy of XP onto a machine with 2
>>>>>hard
>>>>>drives, one is the C: drive with 2 other partitons D: & E:
>>>>>
>>>>>The 2nd hard drive is completly blank and just formatted. The
>>>>>problem is windows has installed on the C: Drive, but the 2nd hard
>>>>>drive is listed as the system disk in the device manager and C: is
>>>>>the boot drive.
>>>>>
>>>>>when I boot with recovery coucel and try to fixmbr it states that
>>>>>windows is installed on F:\windows (Which is the 2nd hard drive).
>>>>>
>>>>>Any ideas on how to change the "system drive" to the C:\ (boot)
>>>>>drive?
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>Run Disk Management, and set the C: drive active.
>>>>Copy boot.ini, ntldr, and ntdetect.com from the system partition to
>>>>C:\.
>>>>Reboot, go into BIOS setup and set (Hard Disk Boot Priority) the disk
>>>>drive containing partition C: as the boot drive.
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>I would reformat, there must be thousands of references to
>>>"F:\Windows" in the OP's XP registry and changing them manually would
>>>take days. It's a lot faster to reinstall everything from scratch.
>>
>>There is *absolutely* no need to reformat! You can change the System
>>partition from one partition to another or from one disk to another
>>and the Boot Volume will retain its drive letter when Windows is
>>booted, that also applies if you make the Boot Volume the System
>>drive.
>>
>>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.
>>
>>Note On dynamic disks, this is known as the boot volume.
>>
>>*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.
>>
>>Note On dynamic disks, this is known as the system volume.
>>
>>John
>
>
> I didn't want to tell my whole story, I thought it was irrelevant but...
>
> [snip...]
>
> I installed WinME on the 4.3GB (C, XP Pro on the 20 GB (ATA66) (D.
> After I finished the installations, I installed Ghost 2003 (in XP) and
> cloned the XP drive on another 20 GB hard drive (UDMA5) plugged on the
> PCI controller and removed that drive from the system.
>
> Maybe 10 days later, the XP HD failed (on the ATA66). So I took the
> cloned disk and put it back in the system on the ATA133 controller. It
> was still the second hard drive that POST showed up.
>
> When XP began to load it took an eternity and when it finally came up,
> the drive had become H: (remained H:?), ATI MMC didn't work, AVG didn't
> work, Ghost didn't work, etc. I went to the registry and found that all
> the references to Windows were to "D:". I tried to change the letter "H"
> to "D" in Disk Management but Windows wouldn't let me change the system
> drive letter.

That is a well known problem that could have easily been fixed by
reassigning the drive letter back to its original designation by editing
the Mount Manager database in the registry.

How to restore the system/boot drive letter in Windows
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/223188/

John