OS install

[Guest]

When you have a system with SATA hard drives, can you install the OS on any
of those drives or does it have to be on a specific drive, such as the first
one? The reason I ask is because on systems with IDE drives, the OS have to
be installed on the drive that is connected to the primary/master.

 

[Rich Barry]

The OS can be installed on a drive that is connected to either Primary or
Secondary IDE Channel. It can be either master
or slave. The boot drive is determined or set in the Bios. For example,
HDD0 is Primary and HDD1 is Secondary.

 

[Dave B.]

Your info about IDE is incorrect, you can install an OS on any drive, same
with SATA.

 

[Sharon F]

When you have a system with SATA hard drives, can you install the OS on any
of those drives or does it have to be on a specific drive, such as the first
one? The reason I ask is because on systems with IDE drives, the OS have to
be installed on the drive that is connected to the primary/master.

Tigger, XP can go on any internal hard drive partition. It's the XP boot
files that need to go in the first portion of the primary master.

Microsoft uses some confusing terminology here: The drive that holds the
files need to boot and load windows is labeled "system drive" by XP's Disk
Management and the partition holding the operating system files gets
labeled "boot drive." To learn more:

Definition of System Partition and Boot Partition
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314470/