Won't boot from other drive

[cefarix]

I just installed XP x64. I realized that while I was installing it, I had configured the BIOS to boot from another disk. My HD is configuration is such that I have two older drives on the IDE as master/slave, and I have my new HD which has the XP installation on the second SATA channel, and a DVD RW on the third SATA channel (yeah the first & fourth SATA channels aren't used but this shouldn't make any difference).

After I booted into XP the first time I realized that XP had set one of my older drives as C: drive, and installed itself onto K: drive. Later on, when I realized the BIOS was booting from the old drive, I switched to boot from the new one on the SATA channel. When I tried to boot again, it gave me an error that it could not find NTLDR. So I booted into the recovery console and copied ntldr, ntdetect.com and boot.ini into the SATA drive from the C: drive, and marked the SATA drive's partition as active as well.

Now when I try to boot, no errors, but it flashes a blue screen and resets. If I try to boot into safe mode, I can see which files its loading before it resets. It resets right after it says acpitabl.dat on the monitor. However, if I boot by leaving the XP CD in the drive, so that it falls through to booting from the HD, everything boots fine. I think this is because the CD causes the boot process to go through the C: drive. This also works if I choose the boot from hard disk option from a CD that came with my mobo.

In the recovery console, I've run fixmbr and fixboot on the SATA drive, but to no success.

Any ideas why its failing on acpitabl.dat when booting directly from the SATA disk, but boots correctly when going through the C: drive? Also, I checked on my system... there is no acpitabl.dat file.

 

[edklite]

have you tried repair yet?

 

[g-paw]

It really sounds like you should do a clean install of Windows on the SATA drive but remove all the other hdd before you do it. Reinstall them after Windows has been installed. This will make sure that the OS is installed the C drive and the other drives will have other drive letters once re-installed. I'm guessing your machine is going nutz trying to figure out were Windows is.

 

[cefarix]

Yep, that's what I just did - it worked. Stupid Windows :x

 

[g-paw]

Glad you got it worked out. I made the mistake of keeping drives in a computer when installing Windows on a new hdd and ran into the same thing, which is how I learned to always take out the other drives. Given how stupid Windows can be, have to keep it simple and not let it make decisions

 

[edklite]

well in his case it was not working because he did not take the proper steps it takes to take an old hdd to a new one so thats not windows fault

 

[cefarix]

Nope, its a brand new system. The old HDs just contain some data I need.

 

[edklite]

that is what I said, new system, old hdd, you could have just moved everything over to the new system os and all

 

[g-paw]

well in his case it was not working because he did not take the proper steps it takes to take an old hdd to a new one so thats not windows fault

To me, Microsoft is like the government, you can blame them for almost anything and people will buy it.

 

[edklite]

we all have our perceptions but reality is reality

BTW I'm no ms fan either but fair is fair and in this case its not m$

 

[cefarix]

that is what I said, new system, old hdd, you could have just moved everything over to the new system os and all

Basically what I wanted to do was use my old HDDs as data disks, no OS. I've installed XP 64-bit on my new HDD, and will install Vista 64-bit as well as Linux later.

I don't quite understand what you're saying - could you please clarify?

 

[edklite]

yes and all you had to do was clone the old that had your os to the new one and then format the old one and use as data disk, you would then also have your os drive ready to go at the same time, no install needed

 

[g-paw]

we all have our perceptions but reality is reality

BTW I'm no ms fan either but fair is fair and in this case its not m$

I was thinking about asking, what is reality? But then I realized this is a question better discussed in a bar with massive quantities of beer rather than on a forum, so I won't ask.

 

[edklite]

or maybe better discussed over a phaty

 

[g-paw]

or maybe better discussed over a phaty

phaty? I'm probably dating myself

 

[edklite]

not that kind

 

[g-paw]

Unless I hear otherwise, I'll take it to mean discussing reality with an illegal smile

 

[edklite]

you would be taking it right

 

[cefarix]

yes and all you had to do was clone the old that had your os to the new one and then format the old one and use as data disk, you would then also have your os drive ready to go at the same time, no install needed

I did not want to use the OS present on the old HDD. I wanted to install a fresh copy of XP 64-bit to use. The old one didn't have the 64-bit version anyways.

 

[g-paw]

yes and all you had to do was clone the old that had your os to the new one and then format the old one and use as data disk, you would then also have your os drive ready to go at the same time, no install needed

I did not want to use the OS present on the old HDD. I wanted to install a fresh copy of XP 64-bit to use. The old one didn't have the 64-bit version anyways.

Not sure if your problem has been solved or now you are faced with copying you data to the new drive so you can format the old one to use as storage. If the latter, install the old one as a second drive and just copy the files to the new one. If your data files are scattered, i.e., you're not sure where they all are, Acronis True Imaage 9 for Windows says it can find all data files of a particular type, e.g., doc, mp3, or jpeg, and make a back up copy. Haven't tried it but I'm going to a friend's house tomorrow to help him install a new hdd drive and clone the old one to it using this program so I'll know better tomorrow.

edklite
PostPosted: Fri Jun 01, 2007 10:07 pm Post subject:
"you would be taking it right"

A scientist after my own heart. Test different realities while trying to answer the question of what is reality

 

[edklite]

reality is what has always been, perception is what we think it is.

example:

cure for all cancer is there (reality)

we can't find it (our perception)

or

sun revolves around the earth (perception)

earth revolves around the sun (reality)

@cefarix, if you did not want to move your os then why did you install the old drive with windows on it?

 

[cefarix]

@cefarix, if you did not want to move your os then why did you install the old drive with windows on it?

Simply because I had data on it I still wanted to use. Incidentally, the drive that Windows would set as C: drive and install its boot files there was not the on that had the old installation of Windows on it. That was the second old HDD which was being detected as drive D:

 

[edklite]

well why didn't you move the data first then install the old drive, that is what made it confusing, the way you did it was much harder then it needed to be, next time stay away from installing 2 OS on one pc if you just gonna use one, it creates steps that otherwise don't need to be there.

anyways you got it sorted and thats all that matters, just trying to help save time I guess

 

[cefarix]

well why didn't you move the data first then install the old drive, that is what made it confusing, the way you did it was much harder then it needed to be, next time stay away from installing 2 OS on one pc if you just gonna use one, it creates steps that otherwise don't need to be there.

anyways you got it sorted and thats all that matters, just trying to help save time I guess

I wasn't installing two OSs, just one. What could be simpler than attaching all your HDs, then installing an OS on the brand new one?

It should be:
1. Attach all your HD.
2. Boot from OS CD and select HD to install new OS on.
3. Go.

Atleast, that's what it would have been had I installed Linux. Now I wonder if I'll have to disconnect the two old HDs temporarily to install Vista as well....

 

[edklite]

I'm confused again, I thought you said that the PC saw another drive as your OS drive and not the one you installed on.

if that was the case then you need to have 2 OS for the PC to make that mistake

also you don't need to uninstall any drives to install an OS as long as none of the drives have an OS on them during install you should get an option on which of the drives/partitions you like to install on.