Formatting a hard drive (system on HDD1, boot on HDD2)

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Dead1nside · #1 Post by **Dead1nside** » Wed Jan 31, 2007 8:41 am

On my desktop system I did an install of Windows onto my new hard drive with XP PRO. I also installed into the system my old drive which has Windows XP home on.

Now, on boot if i don't set the old drive as first boot hard drive I get a SYSTEM FAILURE notice.

My new hard drive is my main system, and because of the peculiar setup it has labelled my default drive as E: as C: is my old XP Home drive.

I've backed up all my stuff off C: and now I want to wipe and get rid of it, but 1: Right clicking and attempting to format won't let me. 2: I'm scared I won't be able to boot.

Any ideas? Thanks.

EDIT: In 'Computer Management' C: (XP Home) is labelled as System and E: (XP Pro) is labelled as Boot. If that helps.

agarza · #2 Post by **agarza** » Thu Feb 01, 2007 1:25 am

so what do you want to do? swap the E and C letters so that C is your primary boot Windows drive, or what?

Dead1nside · #3 Post by **Dead1nside** » Thu Feb 01, 2007 1:52 pm

I basically want E: to do everything, have Windows, Program Files. And C: to be just a blank NTFS storage drive.

However, as I have experienced I think that my Windows installation is dependent somehow on the old drive. Possibly due to having it been present at the time of Windows installation. That's my problem. I t won't allow me to format it, as something is apparently using it. Nothing is using it. So I guess it's some important system thing.

I don't want to format it and then boot up to find a black screen with "DISK BOOT FAILURE. PLEASE INSERT SYSTEM DISK"... that message scares me.

Dead1nside · #4 Post by **Dead1nside** » Wed Feb 07, 2007 8:39 am

leoblob · #5 Post by **leoblob** » Wed Feb 07, 2007 11:21 am

I think the boot drive has to be "C" I don't think there's any way around that.

smugiri · #6 Post by **smugiri** » Wed Feb 07, 2007 12:46 pm

Try changing the drive IDE cables so that they (the drives) exchange controllers. Drive 'E' is probably on the secondary controller and it might need to come to the primary for what you are trying to work.

The drive on the first IDE cable (currently labelled as 'C') would go on the cable going to the second drive (labelled as 'E')

Drive lettering should fix itself (although the letter should switch) since you have 2 copies of the OS.

Post results to let us know if that worked.

Dead1nside · #7 Post by **Dead1nside** » Wed Feb 07, 2007 3:04 pm

Thanks for the help. The C: drive is currently on IDE1 whereas E: is a SATA drive.

Formatting a hard drive (system on HDD1, boot on HDD2)

Formatting a hard drive (system on HDD1, boot on HDD2)

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