Moving the Master Boot Record

[Guest]

My friend installed Vista on a seperate HDD in his computer, and now he has
two installations - the XP on and the Vista one. He wants to remove the XP
HDD - but can't because the boot records are on that disk.

He asked me how to put the boot information onto the newer HDD (the Vista
one) but I don't know the answer.

Hoping someone could shed some light here! Thanks.

 

[Don]

My friend installed Vista on a seperate HDD in his computer, and now he has
two installations - the XP on and the Vista one. He wants to remove the XP
HDD - but can't because the boot records are on that disk.

He asked me how to put the boot information onto the newer HDD...

Warning: I've never actually done this, so use caution!

On the install CD there is a repair facility. One of the repair tools
is called fixmbr (or maybe fixboot, I'm not sure which). I would remove
or unplug the XP drive and then try the fixboot utility -- which will
only see the newer drive and install the bootblock for you (I think ;o)

I don't know how well Vista deals with removing non-removable drives.
It may get confused when the partitions on that disk disappear. Dunno.

 

[Don]

My friend installed Vista on a seperate HDD in his computer, and now he has
two installations - the XP on and the Vista one. He wants to remove the XP
HDD - but can't because the boot records are on that disk.

Might be helpful to read this also:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/919529/