I have Windows XP Pro SP2+ running on an HP Pavillion 510w. I started getting "operating System Not Found" occasionally. I decide to use Norton Ghost to Ghost a new Maxtor drive. It worked fine, but I screwed up somehow on the bootup and nor my ghosted drive is assigned to F: and is the boot drive. The Maxtor is in master and the old seagate is the slave. They both show when I boot up, but neither will boot up without the other. I went to Disk management under Manage My Computer and thought about changing the drive letters but it won't let me. It says C: seagate is a "Page File" and the Maxtor is the "system" drive. All kinds of weird things are happening. How do I get the new Maxtor to be assigned to C: ??
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F:drive is boot drive not C: Change?????
- Thread starter Odis
- Start date
In Folder Options/ View, make sure you have it set to show both Hidden an System files. Now see what your Boot.ini file is pointing to is so far as the drive/partitions it has listed.
It sounds like your C:drive is the System Partition (that by Microsoft terminology means the one Windows boots from, and the F: drive is your Boot Partition (the one which Windows is loading from, confusing isn't it?).
If this is the case you need both drives operating to get anywhere.
The files that you need to get onto the same drive as your working operating system are Boot.ini, Ntldr, and NtDetect. You may then remove C: drive, as F: should become a System and Boot drive/partition. Hopefully the drive lettering will sort itself out at that point.
Change Drive Letter Of Windows Drive
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It sounds like your C:drive is the System Partition (that by Microsoft terminology means the one Windows boots from, and the F: drive is your Boot Partition (the one which Windows is loading from, confusing isn't it?).
If this is the case you need both drives operating to get anywhere.
The files that you need to get onto the same drive as your working operating system are Boot.ini, Ntldr, and NtDetect. You may then remove C: drive, as F: should become a System and Boot drive/partition. Hopefully the drive lettering will sort itself out at that point.
Change Drive Letter Of Windows Drive
thread779-1227186
How to Use System Files to Create a Boot Disk to Guard Against Being Unable to Start Windows XP (Q314079)
Q305595 - HOW TO: Create a Boot Disk for an NTFS or FAT Partition in Windows XP
HOW TO: Edit the Boot.ini File in Windows XP (Q289022)
- Thread starter
- #3
Thanks. I can't even get the two drives to boot up. I did go to recovery console and copied them from there, but that didn't work. The F: drive doesn't have a I386 directory. (Thats where they copied from). Anyway all three files, ntldr, ntdect.com and boot.ini are on bothe drives, but they won't boot up. What happens is that it keeps cycling through the Windows screen where it ask you to start safe mode, etc. Anyway, I've tried a new approach. Most all of the data I need is on the C: drive (seagate), but it is a Page file disk now. At least I can get to it as a slave drive. I have cloned the F:drive (maxtor) from another disk with current windows xp. Now I can boot up the Maxtor as C: and the seagate as D:. How can I get the data from D to C and have the registry match up? The end objective is to have everything back on one drive (maxtor)? Do I reload all the software to the new C drive, then copy the data over? Id there an easier way to try? Thanks again.
The I386 directory is on your XP install CD. Unless you copy it from there to F: there is no reason for it to be on the drive. It is used by Setup when you install XP.
Data as opposed to programs, can easily be copied from one drive to another. It is the registry locations pointing to this data, and more critically programs etc. that will give you problems.
Resplendent Registrar may offer some help, but by the time you go down that track a clean install might be easier?
Data as opposed to programs, can easily be copied from one drive to another. It is the registry locations pointing to this data, and more critically programs etc. that will give you problems.
Resplendent Registrar may offer some help, but by the time you go down that track a clean install might be easier?
linney said:
Uhmmm......
.OEM installs often place the \i386 folder on the drive as they supply only recovery media by default. This is to allow an SFC /Option
. Service Pack 2 with a "network" installation does the same for the same reason.
. An installation from MS-DOS will also result in the Directory being created.
. A regular installation will remove the directory when finished.
.
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