Tom's Hardware: Topic How do I make a drive bootable
Tom's Hardware > Forum > Windows XP > Windows XP General Discussion > How do I make a drive bootable
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I used to have a 20gig HD as my C: drive running Win98, then I bought a 40gig HD and installed Win XP on it (drive D
as a second OS and I get the screen to choose which OS to load when I boot. Now I am ready to get rid of the old C: drive and perhaps add a new larger drive. I don't need any of the info on C:. However when I took out the C: drive and put the D: drive with WinXP on it, it won't boot up. What do I need to do to make it bootable without the old C: drive there.
As an after thought, if I am able to make it bootable can I still keep the drive as letter D: so it won't screw-up all my shortcuts, etc. Please help.
All the files that needed to boot WinXP are in your old 20G drive (NTdetect.com, NTLDR and Boot.ini) as well as XP's bootloader.
You need to copy all these files to your 40G HD's root sector (eg. D:\). Edit the lines
<b>default=multi(0)disk(0)<font color=red>rdisk(1)</font color=red>partition(1)\WINDOWS</b> to <b>default=multi(0)disk(0)<font color=blue>rdisk(0)</font color=blue>partition(1)\WINDOWS</b> depends on how the drive has been connected and partitioned (rdisk(0) for first boot drive and partition(1) for Primary partition). Also edit the same to another line that is similar to this one). Delete the line that refers to your old Win 98 (<b>C:\ = "Microsoft Windows 98"</b> ).
Boot your comp by WinXP CD, and press <b><font color=red>R</b></font color=red> at the <b>Welcome to Setup</b> menu to start Recovery console. It will show your Windows installation (usually is #1) and ask for administrator password. Press the number corresponding to your OS and supply password.
At command prompt, type <b>fixboot</b> to replace the bootloader. Restart your system after finish. Your WinXP should be able to boot again, and I believe it would still be as D:\ drive.
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