Which drive is boot drive?

[baser5nature]

I have recently reinstalled xp to a new partition... now both c:\ and g:\ have boot.ini,

i want to remove c:\ as this is old partition, how do i know that my pc is truly booting from g:\?

 

[LordOfLA]

It's not. Its booting from c:\

 

[Shamus MacNoob]

Unplug one drive and see if it boots then you will know where it is booting from.

 

[baser5nature]

I've been reading paragon partition manager help about using the "make Primary" function. If I make the G:\ partition primary, (and copy all the boot.ini, ntldr, etc files to it will I be able to boot?

Shamus, I've got one hard drive with two partitions, an old install of xp was on c:\, i installed xp on a new partition G:\ and then copied all my files from the old to the new. I want to get rid of the c:\ partition now, but don't want to break my os. Maybe this can't be done?

 

[LordOfLA]

Both of you need to read what I replied with.

Now read and understand the following:

Windows Always Boots From C:\. Without Fail. Without Question. It Does Not Boot from Anywhere Else, Ever, Period.

Do I need to make it any more clear to either of you or anyone else?

 

[Shamus MacNoob]

Yes you do ... go ahead and explain that in detail how you cant have Windows in a partition other then C:


Here is a snipit ... so you can start to explain how you are wrong right after ....





Some versions of Windows, such as Windows 98 or Windows Me, must be at least partially installed on the C: drive in order to function, but newer versions such as Windows XP can be installed on any drive, and on rare occasions, this can cause software conflicts. To avoid this trouble, it is important to understand how drive letters work and why the C: drive is often the best option when installing Windows.

 

[Xie]

If you wanna test if your "G" drive install will boot just unplug the power to the "C" drive and try and boot it, simple as that.

 

[fitz]

If you wanna test if your "G" drive install will boot just unplug the power to the "C" drive and try and boot it, simple as that.

LOL.. hey Xie:

apparently you missed the part where he said he has one physical drive with two partitions.

And as Lord already said, when you install XP, it marks whatever partition you install to (wether it was your first, second, etc) as the logical C: drive. If you want to double check, just drop to a command prompt and type "set" (without the quotes) and check the environment variables such as "windir", "SystemRoot", and "SystemDrive"

 

[LordOfLA]

Yes you do ... go ahead and explain that in detail how you cant have Windows in a partition other then C:

Ah see that's your mistake. I never once said you can't install windows anywhere but drive c:

I said it only ever boots from drive c:

You can install windows on the moon if you want. But if you kill the c: partition - windows is dead as a doornail.

 

[gonaads]

O.K., all this back and forth as to which drive Windows boots from is all good. But did anyone think of asking, Why not just copy all your files to the new partition and then just reinstall XP onto the original C partition? When XP begins it's install it will ask which partition/drive to install to and finding an installation of Windows ask if to overwrite and so on and if to format the partition, etc... This way it's all fresh and new and he still has all his files and stuff.

Just a thought.

And copying the boot.ini to the G drive will not make it the new C drive because the info in the boot.ini file points to C to boot and to G for the Windows installation. Plus a couple of other things that are written to the C partition to make everything boot properly (MBR and something else if I remember correctly).

Another question is why are you getting rid of your C partition? Is there a problem with it? And is the G partition on the same hard drive or on another hard drive? If it's another drive then you have to go through the setting the primary partition and making it bootable, etc...

Anyone correct me if I am wrong on any of this (yeah I know you will ), it's been a while since I had to do anything like this. And I have. Windows 98 SE from one hard drive to another and at the headaches that came with it. :s

 

[Shamus MacNoob]

Ah see that's your mistake. I never once said you can't install windows anywhere but drive c:

I said it only ever boots from drive c:

You can install windows on the moon if you want. But if you kill the c: partition - windows is dead as a doornail.

Ahh I see now you said boot from ... well I need to learn to read .

 

[Xie]

Ahh I see now you said boot from ... well I need to learn to read .

Me too. I missed that whole partition jargon.

Why would you reinstall XP to another partition on the same drive you wanted it to be a fresh install?

 

[baser5nature]

xie, i installed xp to a second partition so that I could use the files and settings transfer wizard... I forgot to mention that my wife and I share this computer, and if I wasn't able to make it look exactly the way it looked before, my wife would have had me by the balls. So I then wiped out the first install of windows (on c but quickly realized the whole booting scenario.. so i just left the c: partition and shrunk it to as small as it could be while still holding all the boot files. I simply want to know if there is a way to delete this old c: partition, while maintaining my pc's bootability, and without another new xp install.

 

[LeeJend]

You were doing fine until you resized C:. The best approach:

1) Make G: and install the clean version.
2) Transfer settings from C: to G: using the wizard or manually. And don't forget any DRM licences!
3) Make sure your wife is ABSOLUTELY satisfied with the results. (Set up boot.ini to let you select which install you boot into.)
4) Image G: to C: using the WD utility or the utility for whatever brand HD it is.

Resizing C: added risk of data loss. Especially if you but the excess from C: onto G: and have to reclaim it now.

Actually the best approach is if you have 2 HD's. Then you can retain the original in as backup.