Help fixing a computer please

coolguydudeman · 6 Sep 2009 at 17:55

Basically the computer had a numerous ammount of partitions which i deleted, the computer had two hard drives the origional C drive had the operating system on.

I formatted the E drive and reinstalled xp onto this as the C drive had about 20gig and the other hard drive has 160.

Anyway, after many problems. Everytime i try and run the E hard drive, without the other hard drive plugged in. I get numerous errors, NTDLR missing, Media cable errors etc...

But when i run with both hard drives it runs perfectly fine. Although it gives you two options to of which operating system to run. (old C drive and the new installation on the E drive). After playing about with the boot.ini file i have managed to make the e drive the default and have removed the option for the C drive startup, although this works fine now, i still would like the C drive removed. and if possible the E drive changed to the C drive...

I cant run any recoverys etc, or actually boot the xp cd from startup. Ive had to do this whilst in the os. I have tried editing boot options in the BIO's. But it isnt picking anything up on the CD.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Many thanks,
Anthony.

Locke · 6 Sep 2009 at 18:02

I believe you can't change the drive letter of the drive with the operating system on...

The other problem if you can call it that is easily solvable using Disk Management? - just delete the partition, then create new? Not sure of the problem you described..

Also, those errors you was getting without that other hard disk drive plugged in was probably something to do with the boot order in the bios and or your wiring.

coolguydudeman · 6 Sep 2009 at 18:16

thanks for the reply.

i think the wiring is fine. H/D's are being picked up correctly on startup as primary and a slave. disc management will not allow me to delete anything or format either drives.

the new error i am receiveing now is NTLDR is missing when unplugging the other H/D and trying to just run the E drive.

Mattus · 6 Sep 2009 at 18:19

It sounds like you need to fix the master boot record on the E drive. Unfortunately this is generally done by booting from a CD.

First, I'd disconnect the old C drive. Then, generally there's a key you can press during the BIOS sequence to select the device to boot from. It tends to be F12, although the BIOS may show something different at the bottom of the screen. Try pressing that key and selecting the CD drive.

When you've booted the XP CD, you need to press R for the recovery console. When it loads, type FIXMBR - this command will write a new boot record to the primary drive (which will be the E drive if it's the only one you have connected.)

You shouldn't have to do anything to fix the drive letters, as the E drive will become the C drive once the OS is booting from it.

ns400r · 6 Sep 2009 at 18:21

Because the loader (NTDLR) is on the C drive. Disconnect it and the system won't boot.
If you can't boot from a CD top repair the problem then you may have a faulty CD or CD drive.

Amnesia · 6 Sep 2009 at 18:47

thats why you should only have 1 hd connected when installing windows.
if you have just installed windows then an easy solution is a reinstall but make sure you disconnect the other hd when installing