Windows with ATA + SCSI

[Dark Ember]

Ok, I'm having a bit of a problem. I posted in Operating Systems already, but I would think that guys might have some ideas for me too.

I have windows installed on my SCSI drive. When I installed it, it wanted to write something to an ATA drive I had connected as well, so I said "OK" and let it do it's thing. Everything worked fine, etc.

Now, this ATA drive I had is incredibly old, so I wanted to replace it. I bought a new ATA drive, to replace that one. I swapped drives out, but now Windows won't boot without that old ATA drive connected. Im guessing that it has some kind of boot vector on it pointing to my WINNT folder on my SCSI drive, but I don't know.

I tried installing Windows again onto my SCSI drive (to a different folder) with the new ATA drive connected, but that will only allow me to boot from this new install, not the one that I actually want to use.

If there is some kind of boot vector I need to grab off of the old disk or something, I figured you guys might know how I could do that.

Any ideas as to what I can do without installing over my old Windows install (I would like to keep it intact, if at all possible...)?

Thanks.

Oh yeah, heres my thread in OS'es: http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=817767

 

[ashed]

I have no idea what happened but my present system is 36GB SCSI (boot) with 2 x 250GB IDE drives. I suggest you disconnect all IDE drives and reinstall, then attach your IDE drives.

Also check to make sure your SCSI card is set as a boot device in the BIOS, sounds like it's not.

 

[tiebird321]

look on the old ata drive for a file called "boot.ini"
will be in the base directory
your going to have to enable "view system files"
in the folder preferences
if the file is there it ment it saw the ata drive as the first drive in the system
if its there just copy the file to the new ata HD
its less than 1k in size

if its not there and its present on the Scsi drive
it means the system is getting confused from the new ata drive and you need to go into the bios and set the scsi drive as the main booting drive

no matter what you DO NOT NEED TO REINSTALL WINDOWS

 

[Dark Ember]

Well, heres the thing. SCSI is set as the boot device, so it should be booting off of that. I don't understand why there isn't a boot.ini on my SCSI drive.

Also, I cannot put both ATA disks in there and copy it, because it won't boot with the new one attached. Even with the old one attached at the same time, it still won't boot.

Also check to make sure your SCSI card is set as a boot device in the BIOS, sounds like it's not.

And you mean the BIOS on my motherboard, right? Not the SCSI card BIOS? Because it IS set to that on the mobo BIOS

 

[tiebird321]

connect the new ata drive
boot into new copy of windows

open up the boot.ini file (either on the new ata drive or on the scsi drive)

the 3rd line should read something like:

default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS

where the last bit "windows" is the windows booting directory
int his case it should be whatever you named the new windows install folder

change the last bit so its named what ever the old folder was named
most likely windows
DO not use the line i gave above
only modify the last bit on yours

now your system will boot into the old copy of windows

report back

 

[Dark Ember]

Well, what I did was install a new copy of windows without any ATA drives connected to create a MBR and boot.ini on the scsi disk. I haven't put any of the ata devices back on yet, but all seems well for now. I'll let you know what happens as soon as I put an ATA device on. Thanks for the help so far though.

 

[Dark Ember]

Yep, connected them up, and all is well in the world. Thanks for the help guys.