Windows XP Making dual boot XP into single

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edembers

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Forgive me if this has been asked before and I couldn't find the thread!

I am trying to sort a PC for a friend, it is a Fujitsu P4HT and has problems galore, esp with drivers. I installed a new Seagate Barracuda which it couldn't see, and wouldn't boot from CD so installed XP fresh with the new drive as a slave - I let XP do a full format. It now dual boots but I would like to make the slave drive the master - is it possible, do I just need to copy a few files? I would then like the main drive as a slave. I tried just swapping and no go.

Edward
 
Thanks for the suggestion but they are correct. I now have it set to Cable Select.

When starting up it gives the error of No Operating System found so guess that when XP did the new install on the slave drive it put whatever files are used for booting on the main drive. If I know what these files are then I could copy them across.

Edward
 
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Errr... u can but it's alot of work.
You have to adjust the partitions and swap over any references to drive letters.
You also have to edit the boot.ini and the registry.
The drive may not have been preped to boot from either as you installed to it as a slave.

My advice... start again.... but when it asks if your using a third party ide/scsi controller say yes and give it the driver it asks for.
It will then recognise the drive and let you install directly to it.
 
Aye, as JaLing said, the mbr (master boot record) will be configured to dual boot with the drives arranged as they are.

Good news is is that the new drive is now formatted and so will be recognised by XP on install.

When installing, only connect the new drive and connect it as master, this will prevent XP maybe getting confused seeing two HDD's both with OS's on them.
 
That's what I normally do but it won't boot from CD! Anyhow, I have now installed a new motherboard and it still won't boot from CD but the new MB has Boot from USB so that is what I have done and all is working fine now.
 
Did you change the setting from cable select to master for one of the drives when starting a fresh and slave for the other?
 
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