New Sata Drive Wont Boot

[Brayden]

I have purchased a new sata drive, and i have it running windows 7. My old hard dive has windows vista. Both are plugged in, however i want to take out the vista one, however every time i do, the windows 7 hard drive says "plase insert proper boot and hit any key". What can i do?

 

[foscooter]

Is the Windows 7 drive your FIRST/PRIMARY/BOOT drive?

Did you install Windows 7 on that drive, when it is plugged in a second, third or whatever port on your motherboard?

If so, the "System Reserved" files, or primary boot files for Windows 7 are on the Vista drive. Sound like that is what is is, per the message.


Sounds like you'll have to set up your drive connections to the motherboard correctly (OS drive always port 0 or 1, which ever is first).

You can pull the Vista drive then, or use it as a data/media or backup drive. (You'll have to format it, put you can do that after the OS install.)

Set up you BIOS to boot from that drive.

Then reinstall Windows 7 to the "primary or first boot" drive.

Note: upon primary installation of Windows 7, you'd want to set up your BIOS to boot from the DVD drive. You can change this after the OS is all installed.

Let us know.

 

[Brayden]

Yeah i thik i installed it when it was plugged into the second or third port, im guessing as a slave drive?
Is there anyway i can change this, and get my vista drive out of there and have just 7 running, without reinstalling OS?

 

[foscooter]

NOPE!

The "root" drive is already set (deep within the Windows registry). Even if you (could) copy the system files from one drive to another, I don't know if Windows would accept it. Most of these files are "hidden" on the root drive, even though it's only a few.

SATA drives aren't really Master or Slave. One drive to one port. But which port you plug them into can determine what the drive is used for. The OS will always install to the drives in the first port.

On my motherboard (Asus P6T), I can't tell it to boot from a different port, just whether to boot form SATA, DVD, USB, or Floppy (Floppy, who uses those anymore?

Sorry, but a OS re-install is in your future.

 

[Brayden]

So if my vista drive were to fail, essentially i couldnt use my windows 7 drive?

 

[foscooter]

Without a Windows 7 reinstall, NOPE!

What are the drives? Size? Interface?

Drive failure is rare. (I have a total of 13 drives, none have failed in over 14 years, I just kept upgrading for more room/size. My first drive was a 2.5GB, then 30GB, up to 40, 60, 120, now 2-500GB & 1 TB. I currently have 5 drives in my machne, see my signature below. I should never run out of room now.)

BTW: What would you do with the Vista drive?

 

[Brayden]

They are sata drives both 500gb, 7200 rpm.
I want use it for backups.
Haha nice system you have there!

 

[foscooter]

Well, like I said before: Looks like a Windows 7 re-install is in your future.

All probably for the best. Then you can confire it as you really want it.

Thank You, and Good Luck!

Well, no luck should be involved. As OS reinstall shouldn't take very long. I did mine in one evening, and that included all my programs and applications.

 

[Brayden]

Do you think an OS repiar would do the trick?

 

[foscooter]

Now that might work! I forgot about that! Try it!

 

[Brayden]

I will try that and let you know how that works out.
By the way, how do you like the p6t? im trying to decide between the p6t and the evga x58.

 

[foscooter]

No problems! In over a year!

I'm a Asus mobo fan. I have had the BH6 & P4P800-E Deluxe. I WAS thinking of getting a Rampage II Extreme, but $$$! Only for the fan connectors (it has 8, I have 3). Was part of an extreme build I was gonna do. (A whole other topic!)

I haven't overclocked it (yet), but I know it is SO easy. Only thing I have done is set memory to 1600, which is what memory I have. Default was 1333.

If I had a gripe, it would be that the floppy connector is on the bottom of the board, so you need a LONG cable to install a floppy. But I don't have a floppy. I can boot from a USB Flash Drive if I want.

As for your OP, you may want to disconnect the Vista drive, and boot from the DVD to do the repair function.

 

[Brayden]

I have an asus P5W board, and i have enjoyed it, the layout for the evga boards just look so much nicer. However the p6t is just so popular it must be a good board. Yeah i wouldnt be using a floppy, so that wouldnt be the problem, my main goal is sata ports, overclocking of course, and pci express ports for possible crossfire or sli. Is the p6t xfire or sli? or both? because that would help narrow down my decision based of the video card i upgrade too. Yeah im going to disconnect the vista drive and do and repair see how that works!

 

[Brayden]

Lets move this topic to here.
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/273688-30-1366-1156

 

[Brayden]

I tried to do an OS repair on my 7 hard drive. However, when i put in the disc and went to repair, it does not show my hard disk as an operating system. Therefor i cannot click on it to repair it, my only option is to load files. Any suggestions?

 

[foscooter]

I guess repair won't work, because the "root" files are not on that drive, they are on the "Vista drive".

I think your only option is to do a full re-install of Windows 7, onto the new drive. This will leave no confusion. I do not think it'll matter if the Vista drive is plugged in or not, for the install.

Make sure you change the ports the drives are plugged into, and make the WIndows 7 drive on the lowest port number (0 or 1), Vista next, etc.

You are just gonna use the 2nd drive for backups, right? Gonna delete Vista off it?

 

[aford10]

Just do a custom install on the new drive. It will save all your user files into C:\windows.old. All you will lose are 3rd party programs and updates.