Boot drive weirdness!

[Brian W]

I have 3 HDDs in my PC (don't ask why!). The boot/system drive is connected
to SATA port 0 and is set in the BIOS as the first boot device.

When I run the Windows Vista install DVD, I get a different HDD as 'Drive
0', the device I want as the Boot/system drive is set as 'Drive 2'. The only
way I can install to Drive 0 is to disconnect the other two drives prior to
installing.

This wasn't a problem with Vista RTM disc, but since SP1 I've had this
problem. And the same now with Windows 7!

Strange problem, any ideas? It's not the end of the world but a weird
problem all the same.

 

[Rick Rogers]

Hi,

Just curious, but perhaps it's possible that the unwanted drive was once
designated as a [system] drive and still contains this information in its
boot sector. When loading, the system may be detecting this and selecting
it.

--
Best of Luck,

Rick Rogers, aka "Nutcase" - Microsoft MVP

Windows help - www.rickrogers.org
Vote for my shoe: http://rick-mvp.blogspot.com

 

[nomore]

Vista installs to the drive you designate and it does not reset the drive
numbers or boot order in the system bios.
If you are installing only one OS then I would recheck your BIOS settings.
In most BIOSes you have to separately designate both the device order
(Floppy, CD, hard drive etc) and which hard drive will be the first hard
drive to look to for the boot info.
The lowest numbered hard drive port is not automatically the first hard
drive the BIOS looks to for boot info.

 

[Tae Song]

I have 3 HDDs in my PC (don't ask why!). The boot/system drive is
connected to SATA port 0 and is set in the BIOS as the first boot device.

When I run the Windows Vista install DVD, I get a different HDD as 'Drive
0', the device I want as the Boot/system drive is set as 'Drive 2'. The
only way I can install to Drive 0 is to disconnect the other two drives
prior to installing.

This wasn't a problem with Vista RTM disc, but since SP1 I've had this
problem. And the same now with Windows 7!

Strange problem, any ideas? It's not the end of the world but a weird
problem all the same.

I think it's some kind of attempt at making Windows setup easier. Drive
order seems to have changed from first device found to first eligible drive
without Windows installed on it. This maybe why the drive with Windows
installed on it moved to last on the list rather than first. It only causes
confusion for people experienced with multi-boot who can deal with it, where
as it makes it simpler for users new to multi-boot install. Which is simply
install on the first drive listed by setup.

I think you can ignore the drive numbering system setup uses. It's
primarily just to identify which drive you want to install Windows on.

 

[Brian W]

I think it's some kind of attempt at making Windows setup easier. Drive
order seems to have changed from first device found to first eligible
drive without Windows installed on it. This maybe why the drive with
Windows installed on it moved to last on the list rather than first. It
only causes confusion for people experienced with multi-boot who can deal
with it, where as it makes it simpler for users new to multi-boot install.
Which is simply install on the first drive listed by setup.

This makes perfect sense! When I installed Vista RTM I had no other OS on
any drive, now I have Vista on drive 0 and my data files on drive 1 (with
system restore turned on). I'll just unplug the other drives and force
installation to the Vista partition when I get Win 7.

 

[Brian W]

This sounds like something I came across when we started using Vista. It
has to do with a change in the way Windows handles drive numbers for plug
n play devices. Essentially, you can't rely on the drive number that
Windows assigns being the same as the BIOS drive number for SATA drives
(IDE drives are unaffected). See http://support.microsoft.com/kb/937251

That is exactly the problem!