WinXP sp2 booting from second IDE Port

[Dragomir Kollaric]

OK not really a problem just curios about this:

The PC is a rather old one, Intel Celeron running at 434 MHZ
and has 512 MB RAM. One CD and one DVD drive, DVD is slave
with the HDD as master. Win XP Home SP2 installed.

It couldn't boot, so I disconnected a few things (floppy,
zip, drive and the only HDD) reseated the RAM it would boot
and allow me to get into the BIOS. I could start a Live-CD I
use for such tests, as soon as I hooked up the HDD it didn't
boot.

Next I swapped IDE-1 cables to IDE-2-slot and then it
booted, WinXP came and didn't throw any errors, even though
it said new CD-Drive found. (Maybe the drive letters
changed)

I put IDE-1 back into the IDE-1 slot and IDE-2 into IDE-2,
it booted fine, so I suspect that the connectors of the
cables got corroded over time and didn't allow the PC to
boot. BIOS didn't see the drive at all.

I run a RAM-test for 12 hours just to be sure, and it didn't
report any errors. PC is running now for a few hours idle, I
haven't used it much, as it seems to be OK.

Why did Windows boot from the 2nd IDE-Slot? Wouldn't the HDD
have another "letter" instead of "C"?



Dragomir Kollaric

 

[Ghostrider]

OK not really a problem just curios about this:

The PC is a rather old one, Intel Celeron running at 434 MHZ
and has 512 MB RAM. One CD and one DVD drive, DVD is slave
with the HDD as master. Win XP Home SP2 installed.

It couldn't boot, so I disconnected a few things (floppy,
zip, drive and the only HDD) reseated the RAM it would boot
and allow me to get into the BIOS. I could start a Live-CD I
use for such tests, as soon as I hooked up the HDD it didn't
boot.

Next I swapped IDE-1 cables to IDE-2-slot and then it
booted, WinXP came and didn't throw any errors, even though
it said new CD-Drive found. (Maybe the drive letters
changed)

I put IDE-1 back into the IDE-1 slot and IDE-2 into IDE-2,
it booted fine, so I suspect that the connectors of the
cables got corroded over time and didn't allow the PC to
boot. BIOS didn't see the drive at all.

I run a RAM-test for 12 hours just to be sure, and it didn't
report any errors. PC is running now for a few hours idle, I
haven't used it much, as it seems to be OK.

Why did Windows boot from the 2nd IDE-Slot? Wouldn't the HDD
have another "letter" instead of "C"?



Dragomir Kollaric

Short answer. The computer will boot from the first hard drive it
finds as a MASTER with a primary (or boot) partition of any working
IDE connector present, starting with IDE-1, IDE-2, etc. The IDE slot
number does not necessarily dictate the drive letter. This was the
original Drive C and it kept its drive letter as the boot drive.