Re-installed Vista, boot info on another drive?

Furton · 8 Feb 2008 at 11:47

I've re-installed Vista as I've done some upgrading however it now seems to have used my spare 500GB drive as a boot drive and given it the drive letter D:. I've tried to delete it as I want my File Store partition to be D: and Backup to be E:. What's Vista installed on this other drive that won't allow me to delete it?

rpstewart · 8 Feb 2008 at 15:21

There are ways round this but they're a pain in the rear. If you've only just installed it's easier to re-install again but disconnect any HDDs other than the one you want Vista to boot from.

d.chatten · 8 Feb 2008 at 16:04

I noticed this quite some time ago when Vista was first released, it seems that if you use AHCI mode for your HDDs the boot info/files get put on a different HDD to the OS, strange, but true, then, if you want to remove the HDD that has the boot files on it, you're screwed, Windows won't boot.

What i started doing is installing Vista in standard IDE mode, when Vista was installed i would change the drivers within Windows for the AHCI drivers then set the HDDs to AHCI mode in the bios, this would overcome this issue.

Sorry i haven't been of much help, but, as rpstewart has said, the easiest way round this would be to reinstall Vista, also, install in standard IDE mode and then change the drivers manualy (forced) within Windows to the AHCI drivers, reboot and go strait into the bios and change to AHCI mode, this worked for me.

PS: You may need to format your Backup drive that is currently holding the boot files before you reinstall Vista, this is because you can't delete the boot files within Windows without a load of hassle.

Furton · 8 Feb 2008 at 16:44

So essentially, disconnect the other drive, re-install Vista, re-connect other drive and format it through Vista set up then quit and carry on as normal?

d.chatten · 8 Feb 2008 at 23:09

Yes, just disconnect Backup D: and File Store E:, install Vista on C: as normal, when Vista is installed reconnect the other drives and format the drive that contains the boot files from the previous install from within Windows, all should be fine.