WinXP and SATA and EIDE HDD's

[Jim Tinney]

My latest computer (one year old) came with Windows XP Pro on a single
partition 120 GB SATA drive, which I repartitioned into 10 partitions, C:\
through L:\, and reinstalled WinXP on D:\. No problem.

Then later I got a 120 GB EIDE drive which I partitioned into three
partitions, M:\ through O:\. But apparently an EIDE HD installed in the same
system with a SATA drive will assume Disk 0, and reassign Disk 1 to the SATA
drive, even though the bootable drive with the OS is on the SATA. Still no
problem however. Everything ran smoothly, so I left it.

Then I attempted to do my yearly reinstall of WinXP over itself, and couldn't
get it to complete the reinstall.

I figured it must have something to do with the Disk 0, Disk 1 thing. So I
made a Drive Image of C:\ and D:\ on a RHD, and copied the contents of the
remaining partitions to the RHD for backup.

I formatted both the EIDE and the SATA drives, wiping them clean.

After that I partitioned the EIDE drive into the same size 10 partitions that
were on the SATA, and formatted the SATA drive into the same size 3
partitions that were on the EIDE drive.

I installed WinXP clean on the D:\ partition of the EIDE drive, then ran
Drive Image to restore C:\ and D:\ from the RHD, with MBR checked.

I copied the contents of E:\ through L:\ to the EIDE drive partitions.

Now everything that was on the SATA is on the EIDE, and vice versa.

Having done all that, I attempted to reinstall WinXP as before. Only now
WinXP setup is identifying M:\ N:\ and O:\ on the SATA as C:\ D:\ and E:\,
and the D:\ drive on the EIDE that Drive Image restored as G:\.

The drives are all listed correctly in WinXP Disk Management...

As a last resort I ran FIXMBR from the Recovery Console. No change.

I have no more hair left to pull out.

Can someone please help?

Thanks.

JT

 

[Guest]

Why do you install xp on D: partition when the default should always be ran
on C:.Youre creating a drive image of more than 1 partition ??How do you
figure the IDE drive was/gets installed to/with another drive,whats getting
installed.You can go to run,type:diskmgmt.msc L.click on the
drive,action,all,
if its not mounted in xp partition (usually the WUTemp folder) its not
installed
with it.Sounds like you create(d) alot of unneeded conflicts for nothing.

 

[Jim Tinney]

Why do you install xp on D: partition when the default should always be ran
on C:

Nonsense.

JT

 

[Jetro]

Make PATA disk the first one in the BIOS settings (read m/b manual) and
disconnect SATA disk. Restore C: and D: drives only and ensure Windows boots
up. Ensure setup do can recognize these partitions as C: and D:. Return SATA
disk online and again check boot and setup thing, then create a partition on
SATA drive etc.

Just curious what the purpose of yearly reinstall of Windows over itself can
be.

 

[Not Me]

AND the obvious question is: WHY on earth do you have the need for 13
different partitions (10 on one drive & 3 on the other)? Confusion is
bound to occur!!!
Gene K

 

[Jim Tinney]

AND the obvious question is: WHY on earth do you have the need for 13
different partitions (10 on one drive & 3 on the other)? Confusion is
bound to occur!!!
Gene K

Smaller cluster size.

JT

 

[Jim Tinney]

Make PATA disk the first one in the BIOS settings (read m/b manual) and
disconnect SATA disk. Restore C: and D: drives only and ensure Windows boots
up. Ensure setup do can recognize these partitions as C: and D:. Return SATA
disk online and again check boot and setup thing, then create a partition on
SATA drive etc.

Thanks. This sounds like a good suggestion. I'll try it.

Just curious what the purpose of yearly reinstall of Windows over itself can
be.

This comes from way back when WinXP first came out, and I was lurking in the
MS WinXP ng's building a database I could search for solutions to future
problems. Some MS-MVP suggested that it cleans out some of the bad versions
of files that multiple shareware installations use to replace the originals.
I don't know whether this is true or not; but like the old Jewish woman who
suggested the EMR give her dead husband an enema, "What harm can it do?"

Thanks again.

JT

 

[Jetro]

Yidishe Mame is always right but she wouldn't say that about computers.
Unless you turn off SFP the system files shouldn't bother you and SFC would
suffice. Moreover, if the system got broken the reinstall over itself aka
in-place upgrade may worsen the things.