reformatting the system drive

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magnus98

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i have 2 hard drives The c drive(system drive) and the d drive(boot drive) the c drive has the boot info so does the d, but i unplugged the c drive and it wont boot up...

i configured everything in the bios and it wouldnt work after the hardware detection screen it would just reboot and keep going in that cycle (booting>logo screen>hardware detection> then a screen with about 5 lines of text no more than 6 words or so each line>then it reboots)

maybe its because its not detecting the primary drive? i want to reformat the drive but i dont wanna mess anything up...

btw i had a previous post about the ntldr missing but i fixed that, now i just wanna know if there are any steps to doing this correctly or like a guy told me just right click the drive in my computer and reformat it....

thanx in advance
 
anyone wanna help or comment? so many people viewed it but no replies :(
 
i cant tell what it says its like a .3 second flash of it, and where did i mention master drive?
 
i mean the jumper... do u set that d drive hd as master? and btw u can press pause button to see that text... ;)
 
Guess this is a follow up of your thread "2 hard drives 2 windows xp's 1problem" http://www.ntfs.org/forum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=32862

Let's start with definitions
Boot drive or boot volume contains the Windows operating system and its support files.
System drive or system volume contains the hardware-specific files that are needed to load Windows on x86-based computers with a basic input/output system (BIOS).

What have you done in the meanwhile.
Did you follow j79zlr's advice?
Did you set your BIOS settings to boot from HDD 1. If you unplugged one drive the BIOS may only detect HDD0.
 
i think i did...i put the jumper all the way towards the right..i have 2 western digital 60 gig hdd's....i dont wanna take out the hd to look at the jumper settings, its a real hassle im gonna try to find some kind of diagram with pics of the jumper setting, might you know any site like this? im gonna try the manafacturer site first
 
i followed j79's advice and stuff but it still didnt work.. its because i already had a boot.ini, i need the NTLDR file so i searched google for about an hour, did alot of reading and finally figured it out and the last step told me to change the drive to the system drive in disk management, it wouldnt let me do that, im guessing since theres already one
 
Thinking about your answer and what may be the present situation ....

For the jumpers WD drives ::::| would be cable select. Is the drive plugged in at the end or at the middle connector. Should be at the end.

jumpers.gif
 
ok this is the main question i have, if i reformat the system drive with a fresh copy of xp will everything work fine? will those "hardware specific files" files be reinstalled? do they automatically stay there?
 
are you saying that it depends on which of the 40 pin ide cables i have on the hd?
 
well i just made a diagram of that pic and im gonna go try it out... the topic was so alive then people just stopped replying.... anyway im gonna try brb....
 
Ok, don't be impatient it is in the middle of the night, at least here. :eek:

Wondering why the solution posted by j79 in the other thread didn't work and what exactly is the present situation.

First check the hardware. Are all drives plugged in and jumpered correctly. What IDE devices (harddisks and cd drives) do you have and how are they configured?
The system drive is usually the primary master (plugged in at the end of the cable connected to IDE port 1, with the right jumper settings).

Now check if the BIOS settings correspond to your setup.

Next what is on your harddrives? XP is on c: or on d: or still on both? Are there partitions on the drives? Anything you need to keep or could you just format everything?
 
1. xp is on both, i want to erase the whole c drive and use it for storage but thats the system drive.

1a. i have a cd burner and a dvd drive, i dont mean to be rude but why does that matter?

2. the D: drive is my good install of xp all my games, mp3's and movies i wanna delete the c: so i can move all my media files over to it...

2a. but i would also like to make a partition on the c drive to install xp again 10 for xp and the other 45 for the media and leave the D: drive nice and free..
 
Ok from what I've read so far.
You've disconnected a HDD to work with it one at a time. Why?
You have strange terminology for your HDD's a System\Boot are basicly the same, yet your using them as two unique words. Strange! (Boot has the nessary sotware to get into an O/S; System= O/S Operating System) Maybe you mean a Active Partiton/Boot Partition and a Aplication/Storage Drive.

So, you want to make C: your App drive. with a back-up working copy of XP
And D: already is your working XP with games etc.

To reply to your questions on Releavance of CD/DVD drives to put it simply they are slower so if they are on the same wire as your HDD your going to have a slower system.

Here's the simple way to fix it.
1. Put in your WinXP CD
2. Install XP on C: choosing the Format NTFS option.
Now edit your boot.ini to make D: the default. and your done.
Simple! :cool:

Unless of course you've installed all your apps on the D: one then your in for more Joy! Because you have to uninstall them then install them on C:
 
why on C:? i just want my media on c: all my progs i want on the D:
 
OK, then don't worry about it! :p
Just do what I said and you can use your C: as your Media drive.
<Edit>
As to why you'll need to set the D: drive back to default:
It's due to the fact your reformatting and installing a fresh copy of XP so the boot.ini will probably default itself to the "New XP" (not certian if it gives you an option to choose the default)
 
d drive was already the default, im gonna try the jumper and the ide cable thing now brb to tell ya if it worked
 

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