fixboot: cannot find the system drive

[Beemer Biker]

I upgraded from Win2k to XP by adding an SATA drive to a DELL 8300. I
booted the XP-Pro disk, it saw the new SATA and I went and installed XP on
it. After the install the first thing I noticed was the I now had a dual
boot: XP and Win2K. I didnot want that. I also found that XP was now on
the "D" drive. I went and updated to SP2 and all the upgrades and then
pulled the win2k disk.

I cannot boot to XP. I tried therecovery option. Ran fixmbr and fixboot C:
also ran bootcfg and set a default. Cannot seem to boot the drive unless
the originall "C" drive is back in .

Pressing F12 during boot shows boot options including primary SATA, CDROM,
"C drive" as I recall. Anyway, I cant boot my XP disk which is primary
SATA.

I do not mind that is is not named "C:" "D" will do as long as the
"D"ummy can boot XP. If I put the "C" drive back in then I can boot either
XP or Win2k.

I would have though that the fixboot would have solved the problem but it
didnt.

...thanks in advance..

 

[Beemer Biker]

OK: Fixed it: Moved the disk over to another XP system and marked it
"active". Then copied ntldr, ntdetect and boot.ini from that other XP
system to the root. It booted but is is still :"D" even when the "C" drive
has been removed. I guess I will have to live with a "D" drive and no "C"

Anyone have an experience on renaming :"D" to "C" ?

 

[Guest]

Hi Beemer Biker,

Open the run dialog box, type in compmgmt.msc, then select disk management,
right click the partition that you want to change the drive letter, select
change drive letter and path, in the dialog box select change.

 

[DL]

That will cause a whole lot of issues on a boot drive

 

[Guest]

That will cause a whole lot of issues on a boot drive

Agreed, it's functionally equivalent to sawing-off the branch you're sitting
on ;-)

The only proper resolution is a fresh install, 'fraid. In which case, make
absolutely sure the partition you're installing-to is the active one, and it
will be C: