Configuring new HDD to be bootable in XP

[sdarisi]

Folks,

I need some assistance in getting my new hard drive to be bootable in
XP. Here is the background.

I have a Sony desktop (PCVRX572 purchased in Thanksgiving 2001) that
came with a 60Gb hard drive and XP Home. Over the past few years, I
have accumulated programs and data leading to a close to full drive. I
purchased a new Seagate 200Gb HDD with the intent of replacing the
original.

Installed the new HDD as a slave via an add-on controller card (Promise
UTA100TX2 ) that came bundled with another drive (Western Digital 160Gb
HDD). After a bunch of system updates (BIOS, ATAPI.SYS, etc), the
system recognizes the full capacity of 200 Gb in XP as well as during
the boot sequence. I then installed XP Pro onto the new HDD (atleast
that is what I thought). Did not think much when the system showed a
dual boot option (XP Home and XP Pro) after the installation was
complete. Spent the last few days, installing other applns including
Office 2003, IM, Spyware, AV, etc....

Here is the problem - when I disconnected the original (master drive)
and configured the new drive to be the master, I could not get the
system up. Error of 'NOT A SYSTEM DISK'. Reverted back to the original
config of master and slave. Brought the system up and noticed that
there were no boot files on the new HDD! All boot files were on the
original disk.

Short of having to re-do all of the work, can some one please share a
fix to make the new HDD a boot drive?

NO, I do not want to clone the original drive to the new drive. I have
GHOST 2003 but do not want all the Sony junk and other junk from the
old drive.

Your suggestions would be highly appreciated. Thanks.

Cheers
Subbarayudu
(x-posted into ms.public.winxp.(hardware); (setup_deployment);
(help_and_support))

 

[Michael Stevens]

In

Folks,

I need some assistance in getting my new hard drive to be bootable in
XP. Here is the background.

I have a Sony desktop (PCVRX572 purchased in Thanksgiving 2001) that
came with a 60Gb hard drive and XP Home. Over the past few years, I
have accumulated programs and data leading to a close to full drive. I
purchased a new Seagate 200Gb HDD with the intent of replacing the
original.

Installed the new HDD as a slave via an add-on controller card
(Promise UTA100TX2 ) that came bundled with another drive (Western
Digital 160Gb HDD). After a bunch of system updates (BIOS, ATAPI.SYS,
etc), the system recognizes the full capacity of 200 Gb in XP as well
as during the boot sequence. I then installed XP Pro onto the new HDD
(atleast that is what I thought). Did not think much when the system
showed a dual boot option (XP Home and XP Pro) after the installation
was complete. Spent the last few days, installing other applns
including Office 2003, IM, Spyware, AV, etc....

Here is the problem - when I disconnected the original (master drive)
and configured the new drive to be the master, I could not get the
system up. Error of 'NOT A SYSTEM DISK'. Reverted back to the original
config of master and slave. Brought the system up and noticed that
there were no boot files on the new HDD! All boot files were on the
original disk.

Short of having to re-do all of the work, can some one please share a
fix to make the new HDD a boot drive?

NO, I do not want to clone the original drive to the new drive. I have
GHOST 2003 but do not want all the Sony junk and other junk from the
old drive.

Your suggestions would be highly appreciated. Thanks.

Cheers
Subbarayudu
(x-posted into ms.public.winxp.(hardware); (setup_deployment);
(help_and_support))

You should start over and this time set the new drive as the primary master
and disconnect the current drive. Do a clean install and after you have it
setup, you can set the jumpers on the old drive to slave and reconnect it.
Click on the link below, or copy and paste the link into the address box
if using the web based newsgroup.
Remove a dual boot.
#19 on the FAQ list
http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/xpfaq.html
--
Michael Stevens MS-MVP XP
(e-mail address removed)
http://www.michaelstevenstech.com
For a better newsgroup experience. Setup a newsreader.
http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/outlookexpressnewreader.htm

 

[Lee Chapelle]

Folks,

I need some assistance in getting my new hard drive to be bootable in
XP. Here is the background.

I have a Sony desktop (PCVRX572 purchased in Thanksgiving 2001) that
came with a 60Gb hard drive and XP Home. Over the past few years, I
have accumulated programs and data leading to a close to full drive. I
purchased a new Seagate 200Gb HDD with the intent of replacing the
original.

Installed the new HDD as a slave via an add-on controller card (Promise
UTA100TX2 ) that came bundled with another drive (Western Digital 160Gb
HDD). After a bunch of system updates (BIOS, ATAPI.SYS, etc), the
system recognizes the full capacity of 200 Gb in XP as well as during
the boot sequence. I then installed XP Pro onto the new HDD (atleast
that is what I thought). Did not think much when the system showed a
dual boot option (XP Home and XP Pro) after the installation was
complete. Spent the last few days, installing other applns including
Office 2003, IM, Spyware, AV, etc....

Here is the problem - when I disconnected the original (master drive)
and configured the new drive to be the master, I could not get the
system up. Error of 'NOT A SYSTEM DISK'. Reverted back to the original
config of master and slave. Brought the system up and noticed that
there were no boot files on the new HDD! All boot files were on the
original disk.

Short of having to re-do all of the work, can some one please share a
fix to make the new HDD a boot drive?

NO, I do not want to clone the original drive to the new drive. I have
GHOST 2003 but do not want all the Sony junk and other junk from the
old drive.

Your suggestions would be highly appreciated. Thanks.

Cheers
Subbarayudu
(x-posted into ms.public.winxp.(hardware); (setup_deployment);
(help_and_support))

I don't know if this will work, but try coping the bootfiles to the new
disk, then set it as the boot drive and boot the XP cd to Recovery Console
and run fixboot. If fixboot doesn't work you could try a repair install from
the CD.

 

[ByTor]

Folks,

I need some assistance in getting my new hard drive to be bootable in
XP. Here is the background.

I have a Sony desktop (PCVRX572 purchased in Thanksgiving 2001) that
came with a 60Gb hard drive and XP Home. Over the past few years, I
have accumulated programs and data leading to a close to full drive. I
purchased a new Seagate 200Gb HDD with the intent of replacing the
original.

Replacing the original?? Are you keeping it? Can it physically fit
somewhere in the computer safely?? How many drives will you be keeping
on the machine....You also mentioned below a 160?? Is that slaved to the
200?? Was the 60 on the MB?

Installed the new HDD as a slave via an add-on controller card (Promise
UTA100TX2 ) that came bundled with another drive (Western Digital 160Gb
HDD). After a bunch of system updates (BIOS, ATAPI.SYS, etc), the
system recognizes the full capacity of 200 Gb in XP as well as during
the boot sequence. I then installed XP Pro onto the new HDD (atleast
that is what I thought). Did not think much when the system showed a
dual boot option (XP Home and XP Pro) after the installation was
complete. Spent the last few days, installing other applns including
Office 2003, IM, Spyware, AV, etc....

Really would have been no need for system updates if you planned on
keeping the drive/s on a controller, it has it's own BIOS to see the
full capacity.....But that's great though for a system to be updated....
Your above steps is where your problem began.....The original OS should
have been removed first, just the drive, and later re-attached to remove
your data....In essence you installed an OS to Disk1, Disk2 if your 160
was the master, while leaving the old drive in the disk0
position......Natively windows installs to disk0 cleanly(unless you tell
it different), this is why it jumped to disk1/2.

Here is the problem - when I disconnected the original (master drive)
and configured the new drive to be the master, I could not get the
system up. Error of 'NOT A SYSTEM DISK'. Reverted back to the original
config of master and slave. Brought the system up and noticed that
there were no boot files on the new HDD! All boot files were on the
original disk.

The boot files were originally maintained on disk0 as is proper for a
dual boot scenario. In essence I highly agree with Michael's suggestion
to start all over again and the remaining suggestions.....But there is
one thing you should be careful of, you have to understand how disk
order assignment is done so as to not repeat a similiar problem......
If you install the OS while the new drive is connected to the controller
as master with the old drive removed this is great your disk will be
"disk0"....You have to remember though if you have "any" drives
connected to your MotherBoard the MB assignes the disk order "FIRST" the
controller, this particular one you have, **DOES** not *Take* over disk
order........So if you re-attach a HD to the MotherBoard after you
install your OS guess what, your OS drive becomes disk1, thereby it will
not boot again......Maybe their is a fix but I highly doubt it...You
will be scratching your head again...........

The reason I asked you the first series of questions is because what I
would do is put everything but exactly the way it was & get your
original OS back, this way your data can be transfered.....
Personally I would use the 60gig drive attached to the Primary
controller on the MotherBoard as master and install the OS there, it's
**useless* to put an OS on an entire 200gig drive...Use that as a
seperate drive for your data storage......At least with your drive
attached to the MB later on if you decide to add drives to the
controller or MB for that matter *YOUR* OS drive will never be bothered.

Short of having to re-do all of the work, can some one please share a
fix to make the new HDD a boot drive?

In short if you need more understanding I will be happy to help as I'm
not afraid to explain more rather than just *THROW* out a quick solution
to you without warning you of other scenarios.........

 

[Lee Chapelle]

(e-mail address removed), says...
[..]

........So if you re-attach a HD to the MotherBoard after you
install your OS guess what, your OS drive becomes disk1, thereby it will
not boot again......Maybe their is a fix but I highly doubt it...You
will be scratching your head again...........

I have installed XP from disk(0)partition(1) to disk(1)partition(1)
(primary) then by copying the bootfiles over, changing the master
assignment, and correcting boot.ini to point to disk(0)partition(1), I was
able to boot the previously secondary disk as master. At the very least a
fixboot should accomplish it.

The boot.ini change was the one detail I omitted to mention to Subb.. oops

The reason I asked you the first series of questions is because what I
would do is put everything but exactly the way it was & get your
original OS back, this way your data can be transfered.....
Personally I would use the 60gig drive attached to the Primary
controller on the MotherBoard as master and install the OS there, it's
**useless* to put an OS on an entire 200gig drive...

Unless it is much faster, i.e. it probably has an 8 meg buffer instead of 1
or 2...

 

[ByTor]

(e-mail address removed), says...
[..]

........So if you re-attach a HD to the MotherBoard after you
install your OS guess what, your OS drive becomes disk1, thereby it will
not boot again......Maybe their is a fix but I highly doubt it...You
will be scratching your head again...........

I have installed XP from disk(0)partition(1) to disk(1)partition(1)
(primary) then by copying the bootfiles over, changing the master
assignment, and correcting boot.ini to point to disk(0)partition(1), I was
able to boot the previously secondary disk as master. At the very least a
fixboot should accomplish it.

The boot.ini change was the one detail I omitted to mention to Subb.. oops

Than I'll stand corrected if it works....My initial point was what you
described, most don't realize the idiosyncracies surrounding controller
cards....I once had a Sil card that *DID* take over the disk assignments
when HD's were attached totally bypassing the MB BIOS assigning, it was
a nightmare in a dual boot scenario....I've since attached 3 burners &
one DVD player to it and it performs **outstandingly**
But thanks for providing the info........

Unless it is much faster, i.e. it probably has an 8 meg buffer instead of 1
or 2...

True........But again, my point was an *entire* 200g, it can be
partitioned for lets say 30g for the OS.......But you are correct in the
"possible" speed difference.....Than again a detail of the 60gig would
be needed to make that assessment........