changing system partition?

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Guest

Ok im not sure if this is the right area for this...but here goes.

I recently brought a new case for my pc and after moving everything from one
to the other it wouldent boot because a system file was missing...luckily
enough id also just brought a new hard drive so i installed windows there and
didnt lose anything.

The problem is, i have 3 hard drives, 2 are 300gb one is 120gb, the 120gb is
an old one, the other 2 are to make reformatting easy so i dont lose any data.

Anyway after trying to reformat my smaller drive it wouldent let me, so i
did what i was told by someone to do before, booted from the xp disk, deleted
the partition on there and then go to disk management to format it.

But when i went to boot it wouldent let me, so i had to install windows
again(on the smaller drive) transfer files temporarily to install windows
again and put everything back on the drive i want windows on.

But now i need to format the smaller drive, but i dont want the same to
happen again, Can anyone help?

The one thing i do know is they both have windows installed on because when
i boot i have the option of which to choose. Also in disk management, the
smaller drive says system, and the one i want it on says boot.

Hope someone can help me with this will be greatly appriciated
 
In order to understand exaxtly what's going-on here you'd need to find-out
whihc is the active (boot) disk/partition, and then look at the BOOT.INI
file on that partition to see where the system is being loaded from.

You get into this situation through installing Windows with the wrong
partition as the active one. T oprevent it happening, you need to ensure that
the partition you intend to iunstall-to IS the active one (and is on the
first HD in the boot-order) before you run setup.

You may be able to resolve it by changing the active partition (use FDISK)
and then running FIXBOOT from the recovery console.
 
How do i set the active partition with FDISK, can it be done with NTFS,
because what i saw briefly on it was saying about FAT32, and DOS?
 
matt said:
Ok im not sure if this is the right area for this...but here goes.

I recently brought a new case for my pc and after moving everything
from one to the other it wouldent boot because a system file was
missing...luckily enough id also just brought a new hard drive so i
installed windows there and didnt lose anything.

The problem is, i have 3 hard drives, 2 are 300gb one is 120gb, the
120gb is an old one, the other 2 are to make reformatting easy so i
dont lose any data.

Anyway after trying to reformat my smaller drive it wouldent let me,
so i
did what i was told by someone to do before, booted from the xp disk,
deleted the partition on there and then go to disk management to
format it.

But when i went to boot it wouldent let me, so i had to install
windows again(on the smaller drive) transfer files temporarily to
install windows again and put everything back on the drive i want
windows on.

But now i need to format the smaller drive, but i dont want the same
to happen again, Can anyone help?

The one thing i do know is they both have windows installed on
because when i boot i have the option of which to choose. Also in
disk management, the smaller drive says system, and the one i want it
on says boot.

Hope someone can help me with this will be greatly appriciated
Click to expand...

Temporarily remove all drives except the drive you want Windows on. However
you hook this drive up it must be able to be made the boot drive in your
BIOS. Normally it is best to make it the master drive on the Primary IDE
contoller. Make sure their are no card readers, printers with card readers,
USB sticks, USB drives, etc. hooked up. Boot from the Windows CD and install
Windows on this drive. Delete all partitions on this drive and create one
partition of the size you want for the system partition during the Windows
install. Once Windows is finished installing you can re-install the other
drives. You can use diskmgmt.msc to partition and format anything except the
system partition created during the install. NOTE: This procedure will erase
everything on the drive you install Windows on. If you have any data you
need on this drive back it up before starting.
 
is there no way to format the drive without having to install windows again?
I've just got done getting everything back in place and really dont want to
have to do it again if possible
 
If the drive is your system or boot drive then no you can't format it
without reinstalling Windows. From this question I'm confused what you are
trying to do. Please post a more concise description of what you want to do
and maybe you don't have to format. Post how the drives are hooked up, how
they are partitioned, and the contents of boot.ini

e.g.

drive 1 - IDE primary master, two partrtions, boot drive, Windows installed
on first partition. I want Windows to be installed here.

drive 2 - IDE primary slave, one partition

drive 3 - SATA #1, three partitions, old Windows installation on first
partition. I want this Windows gone.

contents of boot.ini

[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP #1"
/fastdetect /NoExecute=OptOut
multi(0)disk()rdisk(2)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP #2"
/fastdetect /NoExecute=OptOut

I am sure your description will be different from above. Once we know
exactly how the drives are hooked up and what you want to happen someone
will be able to help you.
 
Drive 1 - IDE Primary Master (i think i dont have any other IDE drives other
than my cd drive, if this doesnt help can you tel lme how to find out ), 1
partition

Drive 2 - SATA#1, 1 partition, system drive, this is the windows i want gone.

Drive 3 - SATA #2, 1 partition, boot drive, I have windows installed here
and is the one i want it on.

Where can i find boot.ini?
 
matt said:
Drive 1 - IDE Primary Master (i think i dont have any other IDE
drives other than my cd drive, if this doesnt help can you tel lme
how to find out ), 1 partition

Drive 2 - SATA#1, 1 partition, system drive, this is the windows i
want gone.

Drive 3 - SATA #2, 1 partition, boot drive, I have windows installed
here and is the one i want it on.

Where can i find boot.ini?
Click to expand...

Boot.ini is a hidden system file in the root directory of the boot drive. As
you have been changing things around there may be duplicates. It may be hard
to figure out which one is the correct one. Which drive is set as the boot
drive in your BIOS? That is probably the drive with the current boot.ini.
Personally with this setup I would probably backup all my data and start
over again from scratch with all the drives. If possible I would set the
SATA drive I want to boot from as SATA#1 and set the BIOS to boot from that
drive. You may have to install drivers for the SATA controller with F6
during the install.
 
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