help!

thefool · Post by **thefool** » Mon Oct 03, 2005 9:37 pm

Okay...!

Saturday my computer began to say sounds like "boing... SMACK!"
wow i was sitting wondering what it was. It turns out next day my computer
comes with a lovely "Harddisk read failure" :/ even spinrite cant save it.
I had an old 40 gbyte[with windows on] + new 200gbyte [music, projects, backups etc]
So i bought a new drive. now i have 2*200 gbyte western digital with 8 mbyte cache.

However, as lucky as i am, my music and everything i have programmed was on the 200 gbyte disc.
Now i just installed windows xp on the NEW drive, HOWEVER, windows seems to like calling my new drive for F: and the old 200 gb for C: !!
How can i change that?

fweil · Post by **fweil** » Mon Oct 03, 2005 10:29 pm

Don't you have master / slave strap, jumper or switch on the disks ?

Or maybe it is just to invert the two disks on the flat cable ? Some flat cables have reversed wires between disks to define which one is the master and the other the slave.

Just one question, are you using SCSI drives or IDEs ? Here I answered about IDE connections.

netmaestro · Post by **netmaestro** » Mon Oct 03, 2005 10:44 pm

Two factors likely worked together to cause this. For one thing, the master/slave configuration issue raised by fweil could contribute. However, what most likely caused this to happen was that when you set up windows on the new drive, it was not partitioned and formatted yet. So Windows chose the other drive as the c: drive because it was the only drive fully set up in the computer and set itself up on the new drive, calling it f: Unfortunately, while you can change drive letters through Windows, you cannot change the letter for the drive Windows is running from. My advice would be to set the OS up again, making sure the cabling/jumpering is correct and that both drives are partitioned and formatted. Then you can watch as it chooses drive letters and make sure it's happening as you desire.

thefool · Post by **thefool** » Tue Oct 04, 2005 9:30 am

damn..
Ok so i need to reinstall it all AGAIN?
Or could i do like fweil said just switch the cables?
Of course they are set as master [Master w. slave setting], and a slave setting.

Its just IDE drives. However it seems to work that i have both disks on same cable..

fweil · Post by **fweil** » Tue Oct 04, 2005 9:35 am

You can make a test by changing the master / slave order (changing position on the cable or by switches), but if the issue comes from that the OS discovered the older 200Gigs was better to boot first, then I guess you will have to re-install the OS on the newer first to solve this.

thefool · Post by **thefool** » Tue Oct 04, 2005 3:01 pm

It IS installed on the new disk!
The problem is that the old disk wich windows wasnt installed on is now C: and windows is F: ..

However will that cause trouble?

dracflamloc · Post by **dracflamloc** » Tue Oct 04, 2005 5:07 pm

Having it on F wont cause probelms except for old installers that just assume C:\ for everything. Yes I've seen them.

Heres my advice:

If you cant just do it with the jumpers and such, unplug your old 200gb (the one that is called C: now)

Make the new 200GB the master.

Start your computer, format and install windows onto the new drive.

Boot the new windows.

Shutdown, set your old 200gb to slave, plug it back in.

Boot the new windows again. Now you should be set.

thefool · Post by **thefool** » Tue Oct 04, 2005 8:51 pm

dracflamloc wrote:Having it on F wont cause probelms except for old installers that just assume C:\ for everything. Yes I've seen them.

i have seen them too :8 also when installing newest drivers just now...

Heres my advice:

If you cant just do it with the jumpers and such, unplug your old 200gb (the one that is called C: now)

Make the new 200GB the master.

The new 200gb is the master already.
However havent tried using the jumbers and that stuff.

Start your computer, format and install windows onto the new drive.

Boot the new windows.

Shutdown, set your old 200gb to slave, plug it back in.

Boot the new windows again. Now you should be set.

True.. However i think ill keep it i have way to much work to do and if i cant use my computer for the next 7 days, im practically screwed...!
Thanks for the advices!