Right now my old IDE drive is the boot drive and it still contains my old XP install and it knows about my new XP install on my new SATA drive. When i boot this drive it lets me pick which install to run.

I want to be independant of the old drive though and boot directly to the SATA drive. How can i move or create a new MBR on the SATA drive? whats the best utility to use i guess i'm asking.

8/6/2006 2:43:06 PM

easiest way would be to boot in dos mode, and run fdisk /mbr

I think it's also possible through the Microsoft Management Console.

Solutions depends on whether you want to use the old IDE installation to boot anytime.

8/6/2006 3:06:18 PM

no i dont. the old HD isnt bootable (corrupt windows install and wont load).

8/6/2006 4:14:05 PM

Change the boot order so that the SATA drive is the C Drive and the IDE is the D Drive.

Change the boot.ini file on the SATA drive to point to the SATA drive and load Windows from there.

8/6/2006 6:13:13 PM

why change the order? i dont want to do that because if i do all the programs ive installed will break. right?

the bios can boot to the SATA drive no problem. just now if i do that itll give me the 'error not a bootable disk' or whatever.

8/6/2006 10:17:29 PM

Quote :

"the old HD isnt bootable (corrupt windows install and wont load)."

Quote :

"i dont want to do that because if i do all the programs ive installed will break. right?"

These seem conflicting. If the IDE Windows install isn't booting anyways, it won't matter. If you want to keep your programs from breaking, you'll need to make the SATA drive the "D" drive with Windows and the IDE drive the "C" drive. You can do that, but you would need to specify it as such when you installed Windows on the SATA drive. Then you change the boot.ini on the IDE drive to point to the Windows install on the SATA drive and go from there.

Quote :

"just now if i do that itll give me the 'error not a bootable disk' or whatever."

Vague errors won't help us troubleshoot your problem any faster. Sorry.

8/6/2006 10:24:34 PM

i guess i'm not saying this right.

if i take out my old IDE drive (which i suspect is about to shit its pants), i want everything to work just fine.

Right now, in the bios, the IDE drive is the boot drive. when it boots i get the "Select the windows install you want to load' little menu. i pick the one on the SATA drive and its fine.

I just want to get it booting directly to the SATA drive so when the IDE drive dies, everything is ok.

8/6/2006 10:32:29 PM

The bios is going to pick the IDE drive by default unless you change the boot order/drive letters of the hard drives. If that's the case, you'll need to change the boot.ini file on the IDE drive. I don't remember the exact configuration options at the immediate moment, but I know you have to delete the entry for drive 0 and have drive 1 be the default boot.

Still say changing the boot order/drive letters is your best shot. If it isn't booting to the SATA drive at that point, let us know what the exact error message is.

[Edited on August 7, 2006 at 7:24 AM. Reason : .]

8/7/2006 7:23:47 AM

The bios can boot to the SATA drive no problem. i even verified it. the problem is there is no MBR on the SATA drive so it isnt a bootable drive. I guess i just need to create a MBR on it and i'm good to go.

8/7/2006 9:19:11 AM

While we're loosely on the subject (didn't want to create a whole new thread)...

I've got Windows install media that is missing a controller for the SATA drive and no floppy drive to load them via the "Press F6" option while loading the windows setup CD. I'd like to load the SATA controllers from a USB flash drive instead of the floppy but that seems like it is out of the question.

I've checked the BIOS for settings that let me:
1) Emulate a floppy drive on a USB device
2) Emulate IDE device for the SATA drive

I didn't see any obvious option in the BIOS settings (Phoenix Award bios version 6.00 pg)

I'd like to avoid slipstreaming but it looks like it will come to that.

8/7/2006 10:08:33 AM

Go with what gargs said, or try this:

http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=215902

Quote :

"Recovery Console: http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=314058 Once you're in the RC, use the command FIXMBR, which is the equivalent of fdisk /mbr (it writes a fresh copy of the MBR)."

8/7/2006 10:30:14 AM

^i actually tried that, and the command wasnt found. i looked all over for it and couldnt on the computer. wtf i say. :/ maybe i can find it and put it on a disk or cd

8/7/2006 1:17:02 PM