Adding a second hard drive issue

[DigitalParadox]

Ok, i'm going to be adding a second drive to my system, due to one failing. I always like to have 2 physical drives in my system so i can easily back things up and reinstall my OS if necessary. I want to use the new drive that i'm getting as my primary drive(partition, format, and install OS fresh). The drive i'm using as my primary drive now, i want to switch to my backup drive, so i can pull old files off it as i need them. The problem is whenever i had done this in the past, the new drive always ends up being drive D: and the old drive remains C:, even though its not the primary drive anymore. You can change drive letters through system management tools, but can never change the drive letter of the primary drive. This means my primary drive is stuck as D:. If you completely unplug the older drive before you install the OS onto the new drive, then it will pick the new drive up as C: and force the old drive, after you plug it back in, to be D:.

I want a way to install my OS onto the newer drive(so its C without having to unplug the older drive(which was forcing my newer drive to be D. Also, it has never mattered if it was connected to Primary Or Secondary, Slave or Master, ETC.

Anyone know how to do this?

 

[sjonnie]

I think, but I'm not sure, that when you have an OS installed on a drive, that the boot order will determine which is C:. Whatever your drive setup, Windows will always place ntldr, NTDETECT.COM and boot.ini in the root of C: drive. If your BIOS boot order settings allow "boot from other device" then the system will detect the boot files on the other drive, automatically assign that drive to C: and try to boot from it. Hence moving the drive to hdd1 still leaves the drive as C:. If you mount your new hard drive as hdd0 and disable "boot from other device" then the BIOS should not scan your other hard drives for boot, immeadiately assign hdd0 as C:, try to boot from it and fail. Windows setup should now recognize it as C:.

 

[DigitalParadox]

i'm 99% sure i have already tried in the past, disabling "booting from other deveice" manually... i checked the bios thouroughly for an option that would fix my problem. Setting the bios to have the new drive as the only drive that it boots from (removing all but the new drive as the only drive to scan for boot record), as i recall, does not work. There must be some other way the windows install program recognizes that the old drive was at one point in time C:, besides the BIOS scanning it's root directory for a boot record. I'll try disabling other boot devices again this time(since its been awhile since i tried this kind of upgrade), but i'd hate to go through the whole OS install process again only to find when windows loads that my primary drive is D: again.

 

[pat]

And why it is so hard to unplug one drive while plugging the other on , install windows, connect the old drive back then everything should be fine... That is how I do that.

-Always put the blame on you first, then on the hardware !!!

 

[pat]

sorry, this answer was not for you.. I clicked the wrong reply button!!!


-Always put the blame on you first, then on the hardware !!!

 

[pat]

Sorry again... yes it was for you!! Should got to bed now...

-Always put the blame on you first, then on the hardware !!!

 

[Crashman]

Unplug the old drive, install windows to the new drive (positioned as Primary Master), then when Windows is up and running add the old drive as Primary Slave. BIOS will see two drives with boot files and select the first (Primary Master) as the boot device, from their Windows will assign a new letter to the old drive.

Or, like Pat said, only with a more detailed explaination.

Windows can't lable the old C: drive as drive C: in the new configuration if it doesn't see that drive during the instal.

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[sjonnie]

<i>>i'd hate to go through the whole OS install process again only to find when windows loads that my primary drive is D: again.</i>

You don't have to. In the Windows setup when it asks you which drive you want to install windows on you should be able to tell which drive it recognizes as C: and which as D:.