How to Switch Hard Boot Sisk Under WinXP Pro

[\ AA Smith\]

I have 2 hard drives in a computer. Both have Windows XP Pro installed.
The computer currently boots from the wrong hard drive. How can I make it
boot from the other hard disk?

This system has an ASUS P3B-F Motherboard.

 

[Lee Chapelle]

I have 2 hard drives in a computer. Both have Windows XP Pro installed.
The computer currently boots from the wrong hard drive. How can I make it
boot from the other hard disk?

This system has an ASUS P3B-F Motherboard.
--
With kindest regards,

Dick Smith
(e-mail address removed)

It depends on how they were installed, where the boot files for each
installation reside. Describe how this state came to exist.

 

[Abhilash Tibrewal\(MCSA\)]

By hard disk, I assume you have different physical disks, not different
partitions. You need to change the boot order in the CMOS setup. You can
enter CMOS setup using Del/F2 key(depends on mainboard) when system boots.
Check your mainboard manual, this is very easy to do.

My motherboard has an extra feature; when it starts up, I can press F8 to
bring up a boot menu. It lists different bootable devices like two of my
hard disks, a CD writer and my USB thumbdrive(if that is connected).

 

[Bob Harris]

I have 2 hard drives in a computer. Both have Windows XP Pro installed.
The computer currently boots from the wrong hard drive. How can I make it
boot from the other hard disk?

This system has an ASUS P3B-F Motherboard.
--
With kindest regards,

Dick Smith
(e-mail address removed)

 

[Bob Harris]

If you are happy with both disks and both XP installation, but merely want
to change the default boot to the other XP installation, use the XP recovery
console and the command BOOTCFG. This command can detect all windows
installations on a PC and make a BOOT.INI file that points to all of them
and it can also let you specify the one to boot from by default. Once in
the recovery console, type BOOTCFG /? to get a list of options.

For more info on the recovery console, see these links:

http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com/win_xp_rec.htm



http://www.wown.com/j_helmig/wxprcons.htm



http://www.xxcopy.com/xxcopy33.htm

 

[\ AA Smith\]

Hi Abhilash;

I did mean different physical hard disks.

One of these hard disks is an ATA100 that is connected to a Promise card
instead of an IDE socket in the MB. The other disk drive is an older 10gb
disk drive that is probably ATA33 at best. So that drive IS plugged into
EIDE1 on the MB. For reasons I can't explain, the ASUS P3B-F MB does not
offer me the opportunity to set the 10gb hard drive's boot sequence. In
fact, it does not appear in the list of devices under Boot and IDE when I go
into the MB's CMOS.

Is there another way to force the system to boot from that drive rather than
the ATA100 drive?

 

[Lee Chapelle]

Hi Abhilash;

I did mean different physical hard disks.

One of these hard disks is an ATA100 that is connected to a Promise card
instead of an IDE socket in the MB. The other disk drive is an older 10gb
disk drive that is probably ATA33 at best. So that drive IS plugged into
EIDE1 on the MB. For reasons I can't explain, the ASUS P3B-F MB does not
offer me the opportunity to set the 10gb hard drive's boot sequence. In
fact, it does not appear in the list of devices under Boot and IDE when I
go into the MB's CMOS.

Is there another way to force the system to boot from that drive rather
than the ATA100 drive?

Has the main EIDE controller failed? Can you see the old drive from Windows
while booting from the other disk? You could try unplugging the Promise
drive.

Lee

--

 

[\ AA Smith\]

Hi, Lee;

No, the main EIDE has not failed. The computer can see and access both
drives. I simply want to make the D: Drive the computer's System Disk (Boot
Disk) instead of the C: Drive. But I find no way to do that in the ASUS
CMOS. Isn't there some other way to accomplish the switch?

 

[Lee Chapelle]

Hi, Lee;

No, the main EIDE has not failed. The computer can see and access both
drives. I simply want to make the D: Drive the computer's System Disk
(Boot Disk) instead of the C: Drive. But I find no way to do that in the
ASUS CMOS. Isn't there some other way to accomplish the switch?

It's very odd that the primary master HDD is recognized in the BIOS but not
listed under boot choices, it would appear that the Promise controller has
taken over it's position in the boot menu. You could try a boot manager like
BootItNG, www.bootitng.com. It will probably allow you to boot either drive.
I assume that both drives contain complete Windows installations, including
boot files..

Lee

 

[Mikhail Zhilin]

Can't say the details (I worked with P3B-F + Promice IDE controller
several years ago), but if you set in BIOS of P3B-F boot sequence:
SCSI first
-- then your system will boot from the drive attached to Promice IDE
controller.

If you set it as IDE first -- it will boot from the drive attached to
the IDE connector of motherboard.

--
Mikhail Zhilin
http://www.aha.ru/~mwz
Sorry, no technical support by e-mail.
Please reply to the newsgroups only.
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