OT: Windows techie question

Right then, Not only is one of my CDRom drives exploding my CDs (see earlier thread), but one of my HDDs is failing....so, I bought a new HDD, and I'd like to put all the stuff from my failing one onto it, by temporarily adding the new one, then copying everything from my bad one onto the new one, then removing the failing one. OK, so far so good...I removed the bad CDRom (which was a slave on IDE1) and replaced it with the new HDD. On IDE 2 I have 2 HDDs (C and D, being that it's D that's failing). In Bios I then auto-detected, and sure enough it found the new HDD, but it decided to automatically make this new HDD the C: drive, and so can't find Windows when it loads up. Is there a way to force Bios/Windows/whatever to read the new drive as anything other than C:? Hope I made myself clear (which I doubt...) Thanks! -- Colin ICQ 25485061 FFRL Triv: http://www.chbr18476.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/ FFRL: http://homepage.ntlworld.com/fastfood/ffrl/index.html

Colin Harris wrote:

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> > Right then, > Not only is one of my CDRom drives exploding my CDs (see earlier thread), > but one of my HDDs is failing....so, I bought a new HDD, and I'd like to put > all the stuff from my failing one onto it, by temporarily adding the new > one, then copying everything from my bad one onto the new one, then removing > the failing one. > OK, so far so good...I removed the bad CDRom (which was a slave on IDE1) > and replaced it with the new HDD. On IDE 2 I have 2 HDDs (C and D, being > that it's D that's failing). In Bios I then auto-detected, and sure enough > it found the new HDD, but it decided to automatically make this new HDD the > C: drive, and so can't find Windows when it loads up. Is there a way to > force Bios/Windows/whatever to read the new drive as anything other than C:? > > Hope I made myself clear (which I doubt...)

This depends on your MoBo On ASUS and MicroStar boards, which I'm most familiar with, there's and option in BIOS for which HD to boot from, or even in which sequence you want to boot from different HD's etc On ASUS boards there's a separate option for this in the menu, on Microstar this option is under the regular BIOS settings, ......of course I can't remember the exact place right now and I don't have a computer with a Microstar board handy, but in short, most MoBo's from the past couple of years have some sort of option to set the boot sequence Beers and cheers (uncle) Goy "The Pits" http://www.theuspits.com/ "A man is only as old as the woman he feels" --Groucho Marx--

Collin, Most all computers except some Might now have a way to pick the device you boot from, but still it might not work if the hardware doesnt work exactly right... 95% of all pc's need the boot partitions of the "Master" jumpered drive to be on IDE cable 1 too boot. Like I said new stuff all the time, some boards might but most wont allow ya to change this... So Clone the new drive 1st by connecting it as a slave drive. this is doen with Drive Copy, or Ghost. then you have to, (usually I do anyway) is change the jumpers on the 2 drives and physical location if they are not on the same IDE cable, then boot off the new drive. if you do like I did most of the time, I fdisk the drive (new) and made 2 partitions on it, so now when I changed jumpers, I had to also do this step before the drive was bootable. boot with floppy, run fdisk on new drive and tell it to set active partition... It wouldnt let you do this when the drive was a slave drive trust me. But if you used GHOST or another clone util then this step is not needed or anything, unless the computer says there is no boot device found, then check to see that a active partition has been set. Hope that dont confuse ya, but you can buy Norton Utils 2002 from http://www.eastoutlet.com/ for 9 or 12 dollars (oem) and it has ghost on it, and it IS easy enough to use. of course the site is down at the moment apparently... Good luck \ "Colin Harris" <[email hidden]> wrote in message news:jxqM8.5925$[email hidden]... > Right then, > Not only is one of my CDRom drives exploding my CDs (see earlier thread), > but one of my HDDs is failing....so, I bought a new HDD, and I'd like toput > all the stuff from my failing one onto it, by temporarily adding the new > one, then copying everything from my bad one onto the new one, thenremoving > the failing one. > OK, so far so good...I removed the bad CDRom (which was a slave on IDE1) > and replaced it with the new HDD. On IDE 2 I have 2 HDDs (C and D, being > that it's D that's failing). In Bios I then auto-detected, and sure enough > it found the new HDD, but it decided to automatically make this new HDDthe > C: drive, and so can't find Windows when it loads up. Is there a way to > force Bios/Windows/whatever to read the new drive as anything other thanC:?

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> > Hope I made myself clear (which I doubt...) > > Thanks! > > -- > > > Colin > ICQ 25485061 > FFRL Triv: http://www.chbr18476.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/ > FFRL: http://homepage.ntlworld.com/fastfood/ffrl/index.html > > >

You may want to check that your motherboard is okay. I had these symptoms previously and after replacing a CDROM drive followed by a hard drive two weeks later, the local techies decided that the motherboard was shorting out other components. Fortunately, the system was under warranty and it only cost me down computer time. Dave McLeod "Colin Harris" <[email hidden]> wrote in message news:jxqM8.5925$[email hidden]... > Right then, > Not only is one of my CDRom drives exploding my CDs (see earlier thread), > but one of my HDDs is failing....so, I bought a new HDD, and I'd like toput > all the stuff from my failing one onto it, by temporarily adding the new > one, then copying everything from my bad one onto the new one, thenremoving > the failing one. > OK, so far so good...I removed the bad CDRom (which was a slave on IDE1) > and replaced it with the new HDD. On IDE 2 I have 2 HDDs (C and D, being > that it's D that's failing). In Bios I then auto-detected, and sure enough > it found the new HDD, but it decided to automatically make this new HDDthe > C: drive, and so can't find Windows when it loads up. Is there a way to > force Bios/Windows/whatever to read the new drive as anything other thanC:?

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> > Hope I made myself clear (which I doubt...) > > Thanks! > > -- > > > Colin > ICQ 25485061 > FFRL Triv: http://www.chbr18476.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/ > FFRL: http://homepage.ntlworld.com/fastfood/ffrl/index.html > > >

"Plowboy" <[email hidden]> wrote in message news:aLrM8.44853$[email hidden]... > Collin, > > Most all computers except some Might now have a way to pick the device you > boot from, but still it might not work if the hardware doesnt work exactly > right... Thanks, PB, but listening to Goy's advice I went a-huntin' in cmos, and sure enough my (American Megatrends) BIOS/CMOS had an option to check IDE 2 (not 1) after checking the floppy on startup. I gave it a go and it worked! The new HDD is not C, and I'm now doing the VERY long process of copying all stuff over. Thanks so much for the reply!

Colin Harris wrote:

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> > "Plowboy" <[email hidden]> wrote in message > news:aLrM8.44853$[email hidden]... > > Collin, > > > > Most all computers except some Might now have a way to pick the device you > > boot from, but still it might not work if the hardware doesnt work exactly > > right... > > Thanks, PB, but listening to Goy's advice I went a-huntin' in cmos, and sure > enough my (American Megatrends) BIOS/CMOS had an option to check IDE 2 (not > 1) after checking the floppy on startup. I gave it a go and it worked! The > new HDD is not C, and I'm now doing the VERY long process of copying all > stuff over.

Am I good or what......:-) Btw Colin, forgot to ask, how did you celebrate the 17th ? :-) Beers and cheers (uncle) Goy http://www.theuspits.com "A man is only as old as the woman he feels........" --Groucho Marx--