Problem with swapping hard drives - formatting old (formerly C dri

[Guest]

The problem concerns formating a second (now called D) hard drive. This used
to be my master hard drive and until recently I booted from this. Despite
booting from the new master hard drive (now called C) I am unable to format
this older drive (D). When I look in disk management it says that that disk 0
(the newer one, now called C) is 160G (as expected) and is healthy (system).
For disk 0 (now called D) it says it is 40G (as expected) but that this is
healthy (boot). That seems wrong.
I'm a bit cautious about simply doing Fdisk or formatting D through DOS
because I'm afreaid that there is something important running from this drive.
When I try formatting D through windows I get the message
"Windows cannot format this drive. Quit any disk utilities or other
utilities that are using this drive and make sure that no window is
displaying the contents of the drive. Then try formatting again."

Your guidance on solving this would be very appreciated. It has taken me
three days to get this far, I used Norton save and recover, which has proved
little help. The copying process was fine but when I physically swapped the
drives into new slave/master position found that the new master was still
called D and all the short cuts were directed to C. I've successfully (I
think) used rededt32 to change the names of the drives and everything seems
to work fine. Except for this. Shouldn't the disk management utility
recognise the new C drive as the boot?
Thanks

Joathan

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

The problem concerns formating a second (now called D) hard drive. This used
to be my master hard drive and until recently I booted from this. Despite
booting from the new master hard drive (now called C) I am unable to format
this older drive (D). When I look in disk management it says that that disk 0
(the newer one, now called C) is 160G (as expected) and is healthy (system).
For disk 0 (now called D) it says it is 40G (as expected) but that this is
healthy (boot). That seems wrong.
I'm a bit cautious about simply doing Fdisk or formatting D through DOS
because I'm afreaid that there is something important running from this drive.
When I try formatting D through windows I get the message
"Windows cannot format this drive. Quit any disk utilities or other
utilities that are using this drive and make sure that no window is
displaying the contents of the drive. Then try formatting again."

Your guidance on solving this would be very appreciated. It has taken me
three days to get this far, I used Norton save and recover, which has proved
little help. The copying process was fine but when I physically swapped the
drives into new slave/master position found that the new master was still
called D and all the short cuts were directed to C. I've successfully (I
think) used rededt32 to change the names of the drives and everything seems
to work fine. Except for this. Shouldn't the disk management utility
recognise the new C drive as the boot?
Thanks

Joathan

You need to supply more information:
- What is your old drive - primary slave or secondary master/slave?
- What happens when you disconnect the old disk and boot the machine?
- Which is your active partition?
- Where do your hidden boot files ntdetect.com and ntldr reside?
- What is the contents of the hidden file c:\boot.ini?
- What is the contents of the hidden file d:\boot.ini (if it exists)?

 

[NewScience]

You state that Disk Management shows Disk 0 (now called C), and then shows
Disk 0 (now called D).

No. You cannot have two drive 0's. Did you set the dip switches correctly
on each hard drive prior to installing?

Either forceably set C to be Master, and D to be Slave, or use Cable Select
and connect the cable correctly.

 

[Guest]

My apologies, that was a silly typo, disk 1 is now the D drive, it is the
smaller of the two.

 

[Guest]

I am very grateful for your help. I've responded to your questions below

You need to supply more information:
- What is your old drive - primary slave or secondary master/slave?

The old drive is the primary slave drive.

- What happens when you disconnect the old disk and boot the machine?

It fails to boot saying "Windows could not start due to a disk configuration
error"

- Which is your active partition? sorry I don't understand this.
- Where do your hidden boot files ntdetect.com and ntldr reside?

I did a search and found copies of ntdetect.com and ntldr in service pack
folders on both c and d drives.

- What is the contents of the hidden file c:\boot.ini?

I copied this from boot.ini by going through sontrol panel/system and the
contents are:
[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(2)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(2)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Home
Edition" /fastdetect

- What is the contents of the hidden file d:\boot.ini (if it exists)?

I don't know if this exists, I tried searching (including hidden files) and
found only boot.ini.backup in folders called C:\windows\pss and d:\windows\pss

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

I am very grateful for your help. I've responded to your questions below

This
used this
drive. swapped
the

You need to supply more information:
- What is your old drive - primary slave or secondary master/slave?

The old drive is the primary slave drive.

- What happens when you disconnect the old disk and boot the machine?

It fails to boot saying "Windows could not start due to a disk configuration

error"

- Which is your active partition? sorry I don't understand this.
- Where do your hidden boot files ntdetect.com and ntldr reside?

I did a search and found copies of ntdetect.com and ntldr in service pack
folders on both c and d drives.

- What is the contents of the hidden file c:\boot.ini?

I copied this from boot.ini by going through sontrol panel/system and the
contents are:
[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(2)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(2)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Home
Edition" /fastdetect

- What is the contents of the hidden file d:\boot.ini (if it exists)?

I don't know if this exists, I tried searching (including hidden files) and
found only boot.ini.backup in folders called C:\windows\pss and d:\windows\pss

There are other things not working correctly, Word 2003 for instance

closes down as soon as I start typing, I couldn't use that machine to reply
to your post, ie just didnt respond, and on start up I've been occassionally
getting an error message about window generic 32 (sorry I can't recall
exactly)
What happens when you disconnect the old disk and boot the machine?
================================================
You report that the machine will not boot successfully. This means
that you cannot yet format the old disk.

Which is your active partition?
====================
Run diskmgmt.msc (via Start / Run) and check it out.

What is the contents of the hidden file c:\boot.ini?
=================================
The line
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(2)\WINDOWS
Tells me that Windows is looking for its boot files on the
old disk in the second partition. This is obviously wrong.
To see the contents of this file, just do this:
- Click Start / Run / cmd {OK}
- Type this command:
type c:\boot.ini {Enter}

Conclusion
========
Your system appears to be in a confused state. Some
references point to the old disk and some probably to
the new disk. You also report some strange problems
with MS Word. I do not yet know enough to conclude
if the installation can be salvaged. Unless you want to
do a new installation, here is what you need to report:
- Which is the active partition on each disk?
- How exactly did you create the installation on the
new disk?
- Which is the system drive? To find out, do this:
* Click Start / Run / cmd {OK}
* Type this command: set system {Enter}
* Report the result.

 

[John]

The problem concerns formating a second (now called D) hard drive. This used
to be my master hard drive and until recently I booted from this. Despite
booting from the new master hard drive (now called C) I am unable to format
this older drive (D). When I look in disk management it says that that disk 0
(the newer one, now called C) is 160G (as expected) and is healthy (system).
For disk 0 (now called D) it says it is 40G (as expected) but that this is
healthy (boot). That seems wrong.
I'm a bit cautious about simply doing Fdisk or formatting D through DOS
because I'm afreaid that there is something important running from this drive.
When I try formatting D through windows I get the message
"Windows cannot format this drive. Quit any disk utilities or other
utilities that are using this drive and make sure that no window is
displaying the contents of the drive. Then try formatting again."

Your guidance on solving this would be very appreciated. It has taken me
three days to get this far, I used Norton save and recover, which has proved
little help. The copying process was fine but when I physically swapped the
drives into new slave/master position found that the new master was still
called D and all the short cuts were directed to C. I've successfully (I
think) used rededt32 to change the names of the drives and everything seems
to work fine. Except for this. Shouldn't the disk management utility
recognise the new C drive as the boot?
Thanks

Joathan

Now you know that you should have disconnected the old drive before
installing XP to the new drive.

XP is designed to use existing Windows boot strap files if they are the
same vintage of Windows or replace existing bootstrap files but in the
*same partition* if the existing Windows is an older release. This will
always be the active partition because that is where X86 computers
normally boot from. In your case that partition already existed on the
old drive and so the old bootstrap files and active partition got
reused. If the old drive wasn't present at install time all would have
gone according to plan and the XP installer would have made the C:
partition of the new drive active or used any other partition on the new
drive that was prearranged to be active. There normally isn't any
partitions on a brand new unformatted drive so there couldn't be an
active partition and the XP installer would want to format first then
make the first partition of the new drive active.

To correct your problem you need to copy three files boot.ini, ntdlr and
NTDETECT.COM from the old comp to the C: drive of the new comp. Next you
will need a third party app like Partition Magic to set the C: drive
active on the *new* drive. You will also need to install MBR code onto
the new drive.

If you can't do the above then disconnect the old drive and go through a
list of repairs on the new drive that I'm sure the MVP's here will be
happy to guide you through.

Of course your easiest path is just to reinstall XP on the new drive
with the old drive dis-connected. The XP installer should find the
existing install and offer to add the missing parts.

In either event you need to go into your BIOS and make sure that the new
drive is listed in the boot order *before* the old drive or if your boot
device selections are limited just remove the old drive from the boot
order entirely.

John

 

[Guest]

Thank you, I did give up and am now performing a clean install. I think
norton save and recover does not give sufficient guidance,