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Missing operating system

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by bifes

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I had two IDE hard drives on my computer. One had 20 GB, Win98 installed on it as the operating system, and was operating as master. The other has 120 gb, had windows xp installed and was set as slave. Every time I had to boot up the computer, I had to select one of the two operating systems: XP or win98. Now I want to get rid of the 20 gb HDD. So I bought a SATA one. I thought the only things I had to do was to set the 120 gb IDE as Master (the one with XP installed) and connect the SATA hdd. But now everytime I boot (although it detects my 120 gb hard drive as primary master) I am given the following message: missing operating system. I would very much appreciate any help.

3 replies

by oh smeg

The old 20 GIG Drive has some necessary Files copied to it that tell the system where to look for the OS as well as the Dual Boot Option.

The cure will be either to refit the 20 GIG Boot Drive as the Primary Master or perform a In Place Install of XP but before doing the latter you will first need to refit the original Drive and perform a complete backup including any Windows EFS Encryption Keys if you are using XP Pro or some third party Encryption Software.

To save the Windows EFS Key follow the directions here [i]NB Only Applies to XP Pro[/i]

http://tinyurl.com/3cd8hf

Follow the directions here to perform an In Place Install

http://tinyurl.com/g4bv8

Just remember to do a full backup before proceeding as you run the risk of loosing all of your data if anything goes wrong with the In Place Install.

Col

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