Need to change disk number

[Guest]

Hello,

I have 4 hard disks in my system 2 are running from motherboard IDE and the
other two are running from an add on SCSI PCI card.

Windows XP assigned drive numbers to the drives as follow:

DISK 0 - SCSI
DISK 1 - SCSI
DISK2 - IDE
DISK3 - IDE

I want IDE disks to be 0 and 1 and SCSI 2 and 3.

How do I change that?

Thanks.

 

[JS]

Which disk is Windows installed on?

JS

 

[Guest]

Disk 3. I'm aware that I need to change boot.ini.

 

[Guest]

I also have four HDs. I remember submitting the same question and I believe
the answer was it cannot be done. I could be wrong.

 

[DL]

If the card is a bootable card then its possible this is by default

If you disconnect ide2 reboot then add it back in this may change these two,
but I'm unsure whether this would 'upset' your win installation, I think it
probably will.

 

[Bill Blanton]

I have 4 hard disks in my system 2 are running from motherboard IDE and the
other two are running from an add on SCSI PCI card.

Windows XP assigned drive numbers to the drives as follow:

DISK 0 - SCSI
DISK 1 - SCSI
DISK2 - IDE
DISK3 - IDE

I want IDE disks to be 0 and 1 and SCSI 2 and 3.

How do I change that?

Windows takes the disk enumeration order partially from the BIOS, and uses
its own internal logic as how to order the "class" of device. I don't think you
can control it, though you might be able to effect it through BIOS settings.

 

[Guest]

I tried removing SCSI controller and installing it back. Windows "rememberd"
the SCSI and restored the drive numbers. I also played with BIOS settings.
There must be a registry setting some were...

 

[Bill Blanton]

I'm almost sure there is no registry setting for the HDD# order. Only for drive letters.
Why do you need change the order?

If the IDE disks are S-ATA you might effect the order by applying legacy mode
to the drives via the BIOS. (If your BIOS has that feature.)

 

[Squire]

You can start over, if you have a retail copy of XP.
Remove all the disks except IDE Hard Disk O. (master)
Boot with your XP CD and delete all partitions.
Create new partitions and format using NTFS.
Install XP.
Shut down.
Install second IDE Hard Disk 1. (slave)
(leave the XP CD installed and Reboot, delete partitions.)
Create partitions and format disk 1 using NTFS.
Shut down and install one Scsi drive, (master)
(leave the XP CD installed, Reboot and delete partitions).
Create partitions and format using NTFS.
Shut down and install last Scsi drive (slave) using same method.

 

[Bill Blanton]

That won't change the HDD enumeration order. Partitions and
the file system used doesn't have anything to do with it.

 

[Guest]

The reason I want to re assign drive number is boot issues. When I set boot
order:

1. cd-rom 2. HDD 3. floppy I get the hal.dll error since in this sequence
BIOS thinks that the system disk on number 1.

I have a very limited BIOS options on my Gigabyte motherboard (GA-K8U-939)
that causes a lot of issues when using a SCSI card.

Appreciate your help.

 

[Guest]

WOW, that is exactly what I'm trying not to do... Besides, I'll get the same
thing after Windows will be re installed.

 

[DL]

Can you change it to HD-CD-Floppy?
Is your scsi card the type that has its own bootable bios?

 

[Bill Blanton]

The reason I want to re assign drive number is boot issues. When I set boot
order:

1. cd-rom 2. HDD 3. floppy I get the hal.dll error since in this sequence
BIOS thinks that the system disk on number 1.

You said that Windows was installed to "DISK3". Is that a slave to "DISK2"
or is it on the secondary channel as master? (or something else?) That could
be an issue. I.e. the "DISK3" is enumerated as drive 80h when set as the boot
device, but is 81h when not.

How is boot.ini configured?

 

[Michael W. Ryder]

Hello,

I have 4 hard disks in my system 2 are running from motherboard IDE and the
other two are running from an add on SCSI PCI card.

Windows XP assigned drive numbers to the drives as follow:

DISK 0 - SCSI
DISK 1 - SCSI
DISK2 - IDE
DISK3 - IDE

I want IDE disks to be 0 and 1 and SCSI 2 and 3.

How do I change that?

Thanks.

If the SCSI card has an option where you can specify whether a disk is
bootable or not you could try setting the SCSI disks to not bootable and
this may fix your problems.

 

[Andy]

The following BIOS setup feature allows you to set which disk to boot
from. Just move the IDE drive to the top of the list.

Advanced BIOS Features
Hard Disk Boot Priority
Select boot sequence for onboard(or add-on cards) SCSI, RAID, etc.
Use < > or < > to select a device, then press<+> to move it up, or <->
to move it down the list. Press
<ESC> to exit this menu.

 

[Uwe Sieber]

I have 4 hard disks in my system 2 are running from motherboard IDE and the
other two are running from an add on SCSI PCI card.

Windows XP assigned drive numbers to the drives as follow:

DISK 0 - SCSI
DISK 1 - SCSI
DISK2 - IDE
DISK3 - IDE

I want IDE disks to be 0 and 1 and SCSI 2 and 3.

How do I change that?

I would expect that changing the 'Hard Disk Boot Priority'
setting in the BIOS setup would change the disk numbers.

Have you tried that?


Uwe