Trying to format hard drive...but...

[Guest]

So i have two hard drives, and according to Disk Management one is a boot
volume and one is system volume (whatever that means). And i would like to
format the one that is a system volume so it can be just nothing but a blank
hardrive for my video work, but it wont lemme since its a system volume. How
can i make my boot volume both the boot/system volume?

 

[Rick \Nutcase\ Rogers]

Hi,

It means one drive houses the system folders, and the other holds the boot
files. To get them both the same, you need to reinstall the operating system
to the same drive that the boot files (active partition) are on. There is no
simple way of doing this.

--
Best of Luck,

Rick Rogers, aka "Nutcase" - Microsoft MVP

Associate Expert - WindowsXP Expert Zone

Windows help - www.rickrogers.org

 

[Guest]

But see thats where im confuzzled. One of the drives originally had WinXP on
it (we'll call it the 250), and i put another formatted harddrive (the 120)
in and installed XP onto it by switching the BIOS startup to read the WinXP
cd first and choosing the 120, hoping that i could just switch to that one
and format the original 250, and thus ridding of it.
was my theory wrong?

 

[Rick \Nutcase\ Rogers]

Hi,

Yes, partially wrong. The drive housing the installation is not the drive
with the active partition. The active partition is where the system
initially boots from, and that is still the other drive.

--
Best of Luck,

Rick Rogers, aka "Nutcase" - Microsoft MVP

Associate Expert - WindowsXP Expert Zone

Windows help - www.rickrogers.org

 

[Guest]

Ok soooooo how do i go about installing windows on the boot drive so it also
has the system files?

 

[Ron Sommer]

The question should be, which drive do you want to be the boot drive?
The drive with the XP system can be the boot drive and the boot files can be
put on the drive with the system.

 

[Guest]

I would like my smaller 120gb drive to be both boot and system

 

[Rick \Nutcase\ Rogers]

Hi Evan,

The problem then, is that the larger drive contains the boot files. What you
may be able to do is remove it, then set the 120 as master. Boot with the
WinXP CD, load the Recovery Console and run fixboot. As it is the only
drive, it should at this point install the boot code to the sole remaining
drive. Afterwards you can slave the larger drive back in.

--
Best of Luck,

Rick Rogers, aka "Nutcase" - Microsoft MVP

Associate Expert - WindowsXP Expert Zone

Windows help - www.rickrogers.org

 

[Ron Sommer]

Set the 120 as master and active.

The system files on the 120 are probably not installed on the 'C' drive.
If you make the 120 the only drive, then the drive letter will change.
This may require a reinstall of XP.

 

[Alex Nichol]

So i have two hard drives, and according to Disk Management one is a boot
volume and one is system volume (whatever that means). And i would like to
format the one that is a system volume so it can be just nothing but a blank
hardrive for my video work, but it wont lemme since its a system volume.

You have the initial boot and boot files on the one (confusingly called
the System volume), and it immediately passes the buck to load Windows
from its Windows folder on the other (confusingly the boot volume).
This is probably a hangover from a dual boot. It is not easy to change
this and keep the letter assignments right - and they are all through
registry making it difficult to work with them changed. So either be
prepared for a complete reformat and reinstall, or keep it as it is; all
you need retain in that initial volume are
boot.ini
ntldr
ntdetect.com

 

[Guest]

theres nothing confusing about it, its what Disk Management calls it. The
120gb's "status" is "Healthy (Boot)" and the 250gb's "status" is
"Healthy(System)".

 

[Alex Nichol]

theres nothing confusing about it, its what Disk Management calls it. The
120gb's "status" is "Healthy (Boot)" and the 250gb's "status" is
"Healthy(System)".

What is confusing is Microsofts terminology of System for the one you
boot from; but Boot for the one where the system lives in the Windows
folder. Exactly the opposite of logic

 

[Guest]

i know, im fed up with it tho, so ill just save all my stuff on disc and
format both from DOS....if i knew how to do that lol. i can just pop in the
winXP cd and have it run at startup and work it from there right?