Remove boot record from drive?

[Guest]

Hi -

I'm running XP Pro SP2 with all updates and patches. I just installed a SATA
drive and want to use my old IDE drive as a secondary drive. Also, the
secondary drive was my main Windows drive for 3 years, so there's -tons- of
data and stuff I want to keep. When hooked up as master on an available IDE
bus, I get the XP boot screen, then it hangs. This used to be a problem with
Win98SE (two drives in line with Windows boot records), but the problem went
away under Win2K and XP. Now it's back when using a SATA configuration.

So, questions is, how can I 'remove' Windows from the old drive, or just the
boot record? I will never need to boot this drive again, and I only want the
old files and to use it for backups.

tia -

 

[philo]

Hi -

I'm running XP Pro SP2 with all updates and patches. I just installed a SATA
drive and want to use my old IDE drive as a secondary drive. Also, the
secondary drive was my main Windows drive for 3 years, so there's -tons- of
data and stuff I want to keep. When hooked up as master on an available IDE
bus, I get the XP boot screen, then it hangs. This used to be a problem with
Win98SE (two drives in line with Windows boot records), but the problem went
away under Win2K and XP. Now it's back when using a SATA configuration.

So, questions is, how can I 'remove' Windows from the old drive, or just the
boot record? I will never need to boot this drive again, and I only want the
old files and to use it for backups.

tia -

The best solution would be to set the bios to boot first from SATA rather
than IDE
that said:
you can delete boot.ini ntdetect.com & ntldr and the drive will be
non-bootable

 

[Guest]

The best solution would be to set the bios to boot first from SATA rather
than IDE
that said:
you can delete boot.ini ntdetect.com & ntldr and the drive will be
non-bootable

Thanks for the reply philo -

There is no BIOS option to boot from SATA, only CDROM, HDD etc.. I have HDD
selected as 1st boot device. The BIOS then lets me select which HDD to boot
from (presents a list) and I can select the SATA drive. If the IDE drive is
not inline, then no list is present and the system boots quickly and cleanly
(I am -extremely- happy with the new system btw). If the IDE is inline, then
I can access a list of available HDD's to choose to boot from, but the SATA
disk always appears at the top and is 'selected' by default, so I never
change this option (and yes, I have deselected, then reselected it just for
shiz 'n grins). The system will then go to the black XP loading screen and
get hung up there...

Loading particulars: without the IDE inline, my normal XP animated load
screen does the animated bars across the bottom exactly 3 times, then the
screen goes completely black for about 2 secs, then the blue login screen
appears. It's quick and clean. When the IDE drive is inline, the XP animation
runs 3 times, then the screen -blinks- for just an instant, goes back to the
XP load screen and sits there (animation running). I can see the HDD access
LED pulses slightly about every 5 seconds or so, as if it's 'looking' for
something it never finds.

Even more curious, if the IDE is inline and the load screen hangs up, I can
reset the PC and instead of the XP load screen, I'll get the 'Windows did not
start properly last time' screen and I can boot into Safe Mode quite easily.
When I choose 'Restart' out of Safe Mode, sometimes Windows will boot
normally with the IDE drive still inline and I have no problem whatsoever -
the drive shows up in Windows Explorer, I can move files around, speed is not
an issue, yadda yadda. When I shut the system down overnight and try to boot
it the next morning, I get the stall screen again. Quite frustrating...

tia -