philheckler

A question about hard drives and multiple o/s..

I currently have three hard drives in my system 1 x 250gb / 2 x 80gb.

the first older 80gb drive is my original which contains windows xp - xp install is hardly used these days(first o/s installed)
the 250gb drive has vista ultimate and is currently the main drive/ o/s that i use
the 2nd 80gb drive is mainly for data storage / picture / video backup , but also has an install of windows 7 beta.

In effect my system is tri boot!

I'm pretty happy with vista now and would like to get rid of the oldest 'xp' disk - which incidentally makes clunking noise every so often which is worrying me!

My problem is that the xp disk is the primary 'boot' disk - without it my system does not boot - how do i remove the xp disk and make the vista 250gb disk bootable ?

ahmorrow

Have you tried booting without the hard drive physically being in the case? If you haven't it's always worth a shot.

philheckler

Yes - unplugged the xp disk just now - no boot - the primary xp disk has the only boot partition unfortunately..

philheckler

I've got a copy of easy bcd and i think i found what i am looking for in the overview section..

see below - i'm going to give this a try tomorrow..


----------------------------------------------------

On most PCs, the boot drive picked during Windows Vista setup will be the first NTFS partition on the first drive.
Why Would I Change Want a Different Boot Partition?

Imagine your PC has two hard drives, one with Windows XP and the other with Windows Vista. Since XP was installed first, the boot partition is the partition Windows XP is on.

You want to remove that hard drive from your PC, leaving just Windows Vista.. But if you did that, you wouldn't be able to boot into Windows Vista anymore! The Windows XP drive - since it contains the boot partition - has the files Windows Vista needs to turn on.

This guide will help you change your boot drive so that you can remove drives as you like.
Changing the Boot Partition

1. While in Windows, launch EasyBCD, and select "EasyBCD Power Console" from the "Utilities" page.
2. Type the following at the command prompt window, replacing "D:\" with the letter of the drive or partition you want to become the new boot drive. Replace "/drive 0" in the second line with the number of the drive with the new boot partition. If you're not sure of the number, repeat that line each time using a new number from 0 to 5 (it won't hurt anything if you run it for the wrong drive).

bootsect.exe /nt60 all /force
mbrfix.exe /drive 0 fixmbr /vista /yes
xcopy %systemroot%\Boot\PCAT\* D:\Boot\ /K /Y /R /H /E /I
move D:\Boot\bootmgr D:\bootmgr
bcdedit /set {bootmgr} device boot
bcdedit /export D:\Boot\BCD
exit

3. Open the Control Panel -> Administrative Tools -> Computer Management
4. Click on "Disk Management" in the sidebar on the left.
5. Right click on drive D:\ (or whichever drive it is you want to become the new boot drive) and choose "Mark Partition As Active". If this option is grayed out, don't worry - that means its already active and you can skip on ahead to the next step.
6. Close EasyBCD & restart your computer.
7. If the new boot partition is on a different physical drive, enter your BIOS setup and change the "first boot device" to the hard disk the new boot partition is on. If you want to remove the old drive, you may do so now.[/b]

philheckler

I've got a copy of easy bcd and i think i found what i am looking for in the overview section..

see below - i'm going to give this a try tomorrow..


----------------------------------------------------

On most PCs, the boot drive picked during Windows Vista setup will be the first NTFS partition on the first drive.
Why Would I Change Want a Different Boot Partition?

Imagine your PC has two hard drives, one with Windows XP and the other with Windows Vista. Since XP was installed first, the boot partition is the partition Windows XP is on.

You want to remove that hard drive from your PC, leaving just Windows Vista.. But if you did that, you wouldn't be able to boot into Windows Vista anymore! The Windows XP drive - since it contains the boot partition - has the files Windows Vista needs to turn on.

This guide will help you change your boot drive so that you can remove drives as you like.
Changing the Boot Partition

1. While in Windows, launch EasyBCD, and select "EasyBCD Power Console" from the "Utilities" page.
2. Type the following at the command prompt window, replacing "D:\" with the letter of the drive or partition you want to become the new boot drive. Replace "/drive 0" in the second line with the number of the drive with the new boot partition. If you're not sure of the number, repeat that line each time using a new number from 0 to 5 (it won't hurt anything if you run it for the wrong drive).

bootsect.exe /nt60 all /force
mbrfix.exe /drive 0 fixmbr /vista /yes
xcopy %systemroot%\Boot\PCAT\* D:\Boot\ /K /Y /R /H /E /I
move D:\Boot\bootmgr D:\bootmgr
bcdedit /set {bootmgr} device boot
bcdedit /export D:\Boot\BCD
exit

3. Open the Control Panel -> Administrative Tools -> Computer Management
4. Click on "Disk Management" in the sidebar on the left.
5. Right click on drive D:\ (or whichever drive it is you want to become the new boot drive) and choose "Mark Partition As Active". If this option is grayed out, don't worry - that means its already active and you can skip on ahead to the next step.
6. Close EasyBCD & restart your computer.
7. If the new boot partition is on a different physical drive, enter your BIOS setup and change the "first boot device" to the hard disk the new boot partition is on. If you want to remove the old drive, you may do so now.[/b]

ahmorrow

If that doesn't work, download the free version of xxclone, install it on any of your hard drives that supports msi--any windows version will--and whatever you do, DO NOT copy the drive. Instead go to the cool tools tab or whatever it was called and make [whichever drive] bootable. Then try booting without that first hard drive in it.