Hard drive swapping

[iago]

Right now in my desktop I have 2 drives:
Master - C - 10gb
Slave - G - 40gb

Windows is installed on G, and pretty much all my software is on G.  C is just in there for tradition.  

<edit> I need a harddrive for my new computer, and the 10gb one would be nice.</edit>

Is it possible to remove C without stuff breaking, or would I have to make G into a master?  And if I do that, will Windows break?

Thanks!

[Grok]

Right now in my desktop I have 2 drives:
Master - C - 10gb
Slave - G - 40gb

Windows is installed on G, and pretty much all my software is on G.  C is just in there for tradition.  

<edit> I need a harddrive for my new computer, and the 10gb one would be nice.</edit>

Is it possible to remove C without stuff breaking, or would I have to make G into a master?  And if I do that, will Windows break?

Thanks!

Which OS?  What types of partitions are on G?  (Primary, Extended, etc)

[iago]

Right now in my desktop I have 2 drives:
Master - C - 10gb
Slave - G - 40gb

Windows is installed on G, and pretty much all my software is on G.  C is just in there for tradition.  

<edit> I need a harddrive for my new computer, and the 10gb one would be nice.</edit>

Is it possible to remove C without stuff breaking, or would I have to make G into a master?  And if I do that, will Windows break?

Thanks!

Which OS?  What types of partitions are on G?  (Primary, Extended, etc)

OS is Windows XP
G is the only partition on the drive.  It's primary and NTFS.

[Grok]

OS is Windows XP
G is the only partition on the drive.  It's primary and NTFS.

If G: is primary and active, does it have an OS installed as well?

I'm trying to ascertain whether you ever booted to G: from the boot sector on C:, or ever booted to C: from the boot sector on G:.  If so, you may have created a hard link between the drives and partition numbers that can only be fixed manually.

[MyndFyre]

I think you might actually okay by changing boot.ini.  If the boot sector is on G (that is, if G is Active and System), you probably could do it just by changing boot.ini:

Before:

Code Select Expand


multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /fastdetect

After:

Code Select Expand


multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /fastdetect


[Adron]

You should make G a master or your system is out of spec. Having a single slave on an IDE bus is not permissible.

[iago]

Grok -- I installed the OS on G, and have done everything on G.  C is just incidental, it just sits there gathering dust.  I'm not sure exactly what else you need to know.

Adron -- right now, I have a master/slave on that line, but I can make G the master.

[muert0]

I think windows loads the MBR on C:/ automatically though. Or does it just load it on the drive you load Windows on? But if it does you could probably just take out the first harddrive change the jumpers to master. Boot from your windows cd and go to the repair console and type fixmbr.

[iago]

I think windows loads the MBR on C:/ automatically though. Or does it just load it on the drive you load Windows on? But if it does you could probably just take out the first harddrive change the jumpers to master. Boot from your windows cd and go to the repair console and type fixmbr.

I could just install LILO to the mbr

[muert0]

GRUB at least loads something if it has an error instead of just LIL .

[iago]

GRUB at least loads something if it has an error instead of just LIL .

I actually thought the L or LI or LIL thing was quite a clever way of doing it, albeit silly.

[Adron]

I think windows loads the MBR on C:/ automatically though. Or does it just load it on the drive you load Windows on? But if it does you could probably just take out the first harddrive change the jumpers to master. Boot from your windows cd and go to the repair console and type fixmbr.

The BIOS loads whatever is in some boot record / sector. You may be able to set which one in  your BIOS. The mbr code from win2k then loads the other nt stuff from the boot drive. If you have a C: / G: setup, find where ntldr is at. If that's on C:, you'll probably have to move it to G: before you set the BIOS to load the OS directly from G:.

[muert0]

OK I just wasn't exactly sure how it worked.

[Hitmen]

I have an idea: Try it. If it doesn't work, put it back and fix it. No harm done.