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by sid_kraft

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I am running WinXP Pro, SP2, Have Vista on a DVD and have a DVD reader attached to the computer on a USB port. I have a replaceable drive unit where I can remove one hard drive and insert another very quickly. However, when I remove my WinXP Pro SP2 hard disk and place a new Western Digital, 160 Gig hard disk in the system as the primary hard drive with a secondary hard drive in place and the proper Jumper setting and I set my BIOS to boot from floppy and reboot the computer, the system recognizes the secondary hard disk as the C: drive and has no other drives assigned. Not sure what is wrong here but any help will be appreciated. Thanks in advance, Sid Kraft

3 replies

by thechas

DOS and Windows will not recognize a hard drive until it has been partitioned and formatted.

When you boot from a floppy, you are booting into a form of good old DOS. DOS labels the first logical drive it sees as the C: drive.

If your Vista DVD is from Microsoft, and not a burned copy of the IMG file, you should be able to boot from the DVD. (If it was burned copy, and burned correctly, it should also boot.)

If you cannot boot from the DVD, try using an XP startup floppy set. Or, boot from the floppy and run setup from the DVD.

The Windows 2000, XP and Vista releases all allow you to partition and format any volume that the BIOS can identify. However, when other drives are present, the new volume sometimes is labeled as other than C:

Under worst case conditions, you may need to disconnect your data drive to assure that the partition utility that is part of the Windows installer labels your boot drive as C:

Chas

by kiltie

You need to partition and format, DOS just won't see it, especially of a HD that size.

Try one of the partitioning utilities on this bootable CD:

http://tinyurl.com/3jnpy

CAVEAT: disconnect the drive with your OS on, to avoid accidental erasure of the wrong drive and any other drives, for that matter, except the new empty one.

Best to be safer than sorrier

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