System volume/boot volume

  • Thread starter Thread starter Ray
  • Start date Start date
R

Ray

Hi, I have recently installed a second hard drive, wiped
my computer out, and re-installed windows on the new
drive. It turns out for some reason my system volume
ended up on the old hard drive rather than the one I
installed windows on, so now I can't reformat it. Is
there a way to move the system volume down to my windows
boot volume so I can reassign and format the drive? It is
a huge waste of a drive because the entire hard drive is
empty besides those couple of files. I am a little new to
doing some of these things so I am starting to wonder if
it is the pysical placement of the drives inside the
computer and something to do with BIOS. Any help or hints
are well needed... Thanx
 
Ray said:
Hi, I have recently installed a second hard drive, wiped
my computer out, and re-installed windows on the new
drive. It turns out for some reason my system volume
ended up on the old hard drive rather than the one I
installed windows on, so now I can't reformat it. Is
there a way to move the system volume down to my windows
boot volume so I can reassign and format the drive? It is
a huge waste of a drive because the entire hard drive is
empty besides those couple of files. I am a little new to
doing some of these things so I am starting to wonder if
it is the pysical placement of the drives inside the
computer and something to do with BIOS. Any help or hints
are well needed... Thanx
Click to expand...

Which drive letter does your system appear on?
 
It's difficult to tell what you've got going here. Be aware that Microsoft
use the term boot partition for the partition where the operating system is
installed, while the system partition is the first primary active partition
(where the boot sector and files required to start the operating system
reside) The system and boot partition can be one-and-the-same.

--
Regards,

Dave Patrick ....Please no email replies - reply in newsgroup.
Microsoft Certified Professional
Microsoft MVP [Windows]
http://www.microsoft.com/protect

:
| Hi, I have recently installed a second hard drive, wiped
| my computer out, and re-installed windows on the new
| drive. It turns out for some reason my system volume
| ended up on the old hard drive rather than the one I
| installed windows on, so now I can't reformat it. Is
| there a way to move the system volume down to my windows
| boot volume so I can reassign and format the drive? It is
| a huge waste of a drive because the entire hard drive is
| empty besides those couple of files. I am a little new to
| doing some of these things so I am starting to wonder if
| it is the pysical placement of the drives inside the
| computer and something to do with BIOS. Any help or hints
| are well needed... Thanx
 
I assume that the following describes your situation:
Drive C: - boot volume, containing c:\ntldr, c:\ntdetect.com, c:\boot.ini
Drive D: - drive that contains \WinNT.

Since your system is now on drive D:, it must always run off
drive D:. You have several options to liberate your current
drive C: -
a) Buy a very small hard disk (540 MBytes is plenty!), then
transfer the boot files to it and restore the boot environment.
b) Use a partitioning tool to create a 10 MByte partition on
the disk where WinNT resides, then place your boot files
there.
c) Re-install Win2000

Post again if you require more details.
 
I kinda thought it might have started as a physical
problem, and from what your saying is that if the direct
path from the mother board to the first hard drive(0 HHD)
versus my second hard drive (1 HHD) I should have made
sure that I had windows put on HDD0 so that the new hard
drive would have been a total shell... if that isn't what
you are saying please steer me away from doing something
dumb:)

once again thanx
 
Actually all I was trying to do was get us on the same page as far as
definitions go. At this point I've really no idea what you've got going.

--
Regards,

Dave Patrick ....Please no email replies - reply in newsgroup.
Microsoft Certified Professional
Microsoft MVP [Windows]
http://www.microsoft.com/protect

| I kinda thought it might have started as a physical
| problem, and from what your saying is that if the direct
| path from the mother board to the first hard drive(0 HHD)
| versus my second hard drive (1 HHD) I should have made
| sure that I had windows put on HDD0 so that the new hard
| drive would have been a total shell... if that isn't what
| you are saying please steer me away from doing something
| dumb:)
|
| once again thanx
 
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