Swap old hard drive with new...

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hurricane_number_one

I just installed a new hard drive in my PC. I want to use the new hard
drive as the boot disk and the old hard drive as the secondary disk. I
installed Windows on the new disk then when I reboot I can boot of the
new disk just fine. But if I unplug the old disk I get a message
saying NTLDR Missing.
How do I make my new disk the boot disk and not have it able to boot
off the old disk anymore? Also, when I boot under the old disk, the new
disk is F:, which needs to be C:, how do I fix that too? I thought
this would be a pretty easy task, but haven't been able to figure it
out yet.
These are both SATA drives.
 
I just installed a new hard drive in my PC. I want to use the new hard
drive as the boot disk and the old hard drive as the secondary disk. I
installed Windows on the new disk then when I reboot I can boot of the
new disk just fine. But if I unplug the old disk I get a message
saying NTLDR Missing.
How do I make my new disk the boot disk and not have it able to boot
off the old disk anymore? Also, when I boot under the old disk, the new
disk is F:, which needs to be C:, how do I fix that too? I thought
this would be a pretty easy task, but haven't been able to figure it
out yet.
These are both SATA drives.
Click to expand...

I am a little rusty on this one so bear with me...

First of all how exactly did you install XP to the second drive?

Here is a scenario...

You make an initial installation on a hard drive... the master boot
record will get placed on that hard drive and that partition will be
named C.

You boot into your new installation and then install XP again from
within Windows, but you choose to install on a second drive.

You are now able to boot into both installations, but here are a few
items you will have to consider...

*In this scenario the master boot record which contains the info needed
to boot the computer is located on the C: drive. If you unplug this
drive you will get the error you ran into. You can write a new master
boot record on the second drive, but then you will get the same problem
booting off the drive that is currently C:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MBR

*The initial installation of C: cannot be changed because it is a boot
volume. If you were to change it, the computer would not be able to
boot. Again this is because of information in the master boot record.

Some of this may be wrong, but it is generally correct.

If you want to keep your system as is, just keep using the initial
installation and move personal files to the second drive to free up
space on the first. If you want to wipe out the initial installation I
would format one of the drives, move all personal data to that drive,
then run a fresh XP install on the other drive doing a format in the
process, but that is just me.
 
I just installed a new hard drive in my PC. I want to use the new hard
drive as the boot disk and the old hard drive as the secondary disk. I
installed Windows on the new disk then when I reboot I can boot of the
new disk just fine. But if I unplug the old disk I get a message
saying NTLDR Missing.
How do I make my new disk the boot disk and not have it able to boot
off the old disk anymore? Also, when I boot under the old disk, the new
disk is F:, which needs to be C:, how do I fix that too? I thought
this would be a pretty easy task, but haven't been able to figure it
out yet.
These are both SATA drives.
Click to expand...

What you want to do is indeed pretty easy, if you follow these
rules:
1. Remove the old disk.
2. Install the new disk.
3. Make sure it's the primary master disk.
4. Install WinXP.
5. Install the old disk as the primary slave disk.

You will now see both disks at the same time, and the new
installation of WinXP will be on drive C:.

It is not possible to change the drive letter F: of your new
installation to C:. I recommend that you redo the installation.
 
FWIW,

All these problems stem from limitations of the Windows boot loader. Get
yourself a good boot manager like BootIt NG, XOSL, whatever, almost ANYTHING
is better than the Windows boot loader. Even if you survive the process
today, just wait until you decide you want to remove a Windows OS or HD
someday in the future. You're problems are only beginning.

Jim
 
I only want to boot off the new disk and make the old disk my slave
drive. I tried to originally disconnect the old drive and install the
new one with XP. The problem is that the OS restore disk that came with
my computer is a DVD and I can't boot off it. Therefore I had to boot
off my old drive, run the XP installer, then select the new drive as
the destination. Is there anyway I can boot off my DVD? Otherwise how
would I do this?
 
I think Americane_number_one hit this right on the nail. You must have the
the original drive in order to boot to the new one. You could make a bootable
floppy that would let you get around this but thats kind of a pain.

If I was in your postion I would see if my XP version was OEM or retale.
Then see if a friend had the bootable version of the CD. That way you could
just do a repair over the top of the new install.

The Woodpile
 
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