hi all this might sound like a bit of a funny question but here goes. over the years i have had quite a few installs of windows, but a couple of months ago i decided to buy 2 500 gig hds and raid them and dual boot xp/vista, anyway had loads of problems so i decided to install xp on the raid array instead, but still had an old xp install on the old 200 gig hd, was ok for a while but started to give me problems again, now ive tried to reinstall a few times without the old hd in just the raid array and the system wont boot at all without the old hd connected, i dont want format the old drive cos it has important stuff i need i was simply going to reconnect it later and drag what i need over, but all the old install are still present when booting as i have a choice of 3 installs, only 1 of which works, so all i want is to start over make the system forget there was ever any install put on 1 raid array with no other hds in there and not to have to choose which install to boot up, any help would be appreciated.
get rid of previous windows installs
- Thread starter nalla
- Start date
2 things spring to my mind :-
1 - Is your RAID array set to boot in the BIOS? ( Usually it might show as SCSI )
2 - Have you set the array up as BOOTABLE? - This is done in the controler options
and of course
3 - Are you using the correct RAID Drivers that allow you to use the Array to boot?
1 - Is your RAID array set to boot in the BIOS? ( Usually it might show as SCSI )
2 - Have you set the array up as BOOTABLE? - This is done in the controler options
and of course
3 - Are you using the correct RAID Drivers that allow you to use the Array to boot?
If it only boots if the old disc is in, then it's booting off the old disc. The motherboard has no idea what windows is, it just does what it's told. The install of windows might well be on the RAID array, but I would bet that the bootloader is on the old disc.
You didn't install windows on the RAID with the old hard drive attached did you? The old drive isn't an IDE is it?
Windows has an annoying habit of sometimes placing the install and bootloader on different drives when the above is true. Why does it do this? It places the bootloader on the first drive it sees, then obviously when you select the drive to install windows on, it may not necessarily be the right one.
Always leave only the windows drive in when installing, then connect the others after, as a matter of rule. I'm sure you can fix this though, it is just a matter of loading the boot files onto the RAID.
Might be worth a try disconnecting the old drive, loading the windows CD and going into recovery console and running the fixmbr and fixboot commands. Not sure if it will work though... I think I just reinstalled when I did this last (several years ago now).
...or have I misread?
If one install works, make a note of which it is and edit the boot.ini to only show this installation. It then won't ask you which to boot from and will just boot whichever is listed. Make sure you get this right though or it won't boot at all (though the commands listed above should correct that).
Windows has an annoying habit of sometimes placing the install and bootloader on different drives when the above is true. Why does it do this? It places the bootloader on the first drive it sees, then obviously when you select the drive to install windows on, it may not necessarily be the right one.
Always leave only the windows drive in when installing, then connect the others after, as a matter of rule. I'm sure you can fix this though, it is just a matter of loading the boot files onto the RAID.
Might be worth a try disconnecting the old drive, loading the windows CD and going into recovery console and running the fixmbr and fixboot commands. Not sure if it will work though... I think I just reinstalled when I did this last (several years ago now).
...or have I misread?
If one install works, make a note of which it is and edit the boot.ini to only show this installation. It then won't ask you which to boot from and will just boot whichever is listed. Make sure you get this right though or it won't boot at all (though the commands listed above should correct that).
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cheers for that will give it a go, was hoping to simply have the motherboard to forget there was ever a hd in there the have the raid in on its own and install to that with a fresh install, cos im having a few dll files go missing and long pauses in windows where i cant do anything at all,