Calling All W2K Gurus: I Put In New HD, But Where Is W2K Booting From?

[canguro]

Hello,

I just got thru installing a new Hard Drive and using the install manufacturer's CD to copy over all the files from the old HD, but I am confused about whether my boot is coming from W2K on the old HD or W2K on the new HD (I assume the 'copy' put a bootable form of W2K on the new HD). Please help clear up my confusion !!!!

Here is the status of my computer system:

1. CMOS Drive Settings:
a. Primary Master - New HD
b. Primary Slave - CD ROM
c. Secondary Master - Old HD
d. Secondary Slave - (none)

2. CMOS Boot Sequence:
a. 1st Boot - Floppy
b. 2nd Boot - CD ROM
c. 3rd Boot - HDD-0
d. Other Boot - (Disabled)

3. In Computer Management / Disk Management my new HD is shown as DSK1_VOL1 (E with a Status of Healthy (System) and my old HD is shown as Local Disk (C with a Status of Healthy (Page File).

When I boot my computer W2K comes up successfully, but I don't know if it's booting from E: (new HD) or from C: (old HD). I Read somewhere that the Primary Master is always (?) designated as the C: drive, but I can't see that here.

Also, Help in Computer Management says that "Windows 2000 allows the static assignment of drive letters on volumes, partitions, and CD-ROM drives. This means that you permanently assign a drive letter to a specific partition, volume, or CD-ROM drive. When you add a new hard disk to an existing computer system, it will not affect statically assigned drive letters."

Is this why my new HD shows up as E: ? Is there some way I can change the CD ROM to F:, the old HD to D:, and the new HD to C:? I want to boot from the new HD as C:, but I am worried about registry and environment questions.

Thanks in advance for your help.

 

[mymisguy]

First setup the old drive as master and the new drive as slave both should be on the primary ide.
Then just copy the data from the old hard drive to the new drive.
Once the all the files and os is copied remove the drives and reverse the master slave setting. (meaning the new HDDrive is master the old HDDrive now becomes the slave on ide1.

"NOTHING BEATS A FAILURE BUT A TRY"

 

[chuckg0413]

Go into Administrative Tools>Computer Management>Storage>Disk Management local.

There you can change drive letters, make partitions primary etc. I would set my new drive to C: and then make it primary. I think that will force it to boot from the new drive.

BTW I usually set one HD as master on channel 0 and the other as master on channel 1, then slave cdrom's etc. off each channel.

 

[wolluf]

What I think you should do (have done) is boot the machine with just the new drive connected immediately after cloning the installation. It would then have been assigned C:. You could then add old drive - which should pick up a free letter (probably E in your 'new' system. As old HD with 2k installed on it was in machine, I think 2k was a bit too clever for itself.

PS. What's the connection speeds of your new drive and CD ROM? (ATA? PIO) - it might be slowing new drive down if its not at least ATA33 being connected on same IDE cable.

 

[canguro]

First of all, thanks to everyone for your replies and the variety of suggestions!

To tell you the truth, I am pretty green at this stuff, and I had the help of a friend to install the new drive. Even then we had to spend a lot of time getting the 2 drives and CD-ROM recognized and set up the way I wanted them set up, in other words, new HD is Prim mstr, CD ROM is Prim slave, old HD is Sec mstr. So at this point I have no desire to go back in and disconnect anything. The good thing is that I got some valuable exposure.

As far as changing my new HD to C: in Disk Management, is that even possible? The old HD is C: so I would first have to change it to something else, say F:? I am unsure if W2K will let me tamper with the current C:

However, I have an idea as to what may resolve what I'm trying to do, and maybe you can tell me if it sounds workable. I want to make the new HD my C: and I want to make the old HD D: (or whatever). Since I'm confident that all my files got copied over to E: I don't need any of them on C: so I think I should be able to format C:, and the new HD (I think) should then boot up as C:

Do you think that will work? At the worst if the old C: has been formatted and the re-boot fails I should be able to re-install W2K. Is my plan reasonable?

I am interested in your take on this.

Thanks.

 

[wolluf]

I don't think your plan will work. 2k install on the new drive now knows its on E: - so even if you remove C:, it will make no difference. That's why I suggested redoing the copy and then booting new drive on its own initially - so it will 'decide' its on C: in the first place (no other existing drives/partitions to confuse it).

You can't change drive letter of system drive in disk management (any other) - so you can't make E: become C: this way.

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;Q223188

tells you how to change system drive letter in 2k - but says it isn't generally recommended. It might be ok in your case though, as presumably many of the registry entries on the new drive are still referencing C: (as was just a copy of the old). While you still have original drive with 2k install intact as backup, might be worth trying this (again - I'd disconnect old drive while doing it - just remove IDE cable & power comnectors to it).

In fact, you'll probably start having problems if you remove old C: drive or format it or whatever (as E: install will be using stuff from C

HTH