Calling All W2K Gurus: Installed New HD But Dont Know Where My W2K Is Booting From

[aussie0]

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' on E: with a Status of Healthy (System) and my old HD is shown as 'Local Disk' on 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:?

Thanks in advance for your help.

[Nix]

I'm guessing that the new partition on the new hard drive is not marked as active, but the old partition on the old hard drive is.

So, the system will always boot from the active partition which in this case is on the old drive and thus that's why it shows as C:

See from about half way down this for more information on how drives are assigned letters and where the system boots from.

If your using NTFS, I'm not sure if you can use fdisk to make the partition on your new HD active.

[aussie0]

Nix,

Thanks for your reply. If I read it right, Disk Management in W2K is saying that both my old drive C: and the new drive E: each has been designated as its own primary partition (occupying the entire drive), and both are NTFS.

Is there a way I can unmark the old HD as active and mark the new HD as active? Could this tell the system to boot from the new HD and cause the drive letters to be re-assigned?

I also have PM. Could this assist me in resolving the issue? If NTFS is an issue, PM might be useful.

Thanks.

[aussie0]

I started up Partition Manager and I can see that it is showing that the hard drives C: and E: are both Primary (entire drive) partitioned, Active, and NTFS.

In this case, I still am puzzled as to from where W2K is booting.

[Nix]

Well that is surprising, I didn't think you could have more than 1 active primary partition.

If you disconnect the old drive dores it boot from the new ?

[aussie0]

To tell you the truth, I am pretty green at this stuff, and I had the help of a good friend to install the new drive. The good thing is that I got some valuable exposure. We had a devil of a time getting the 2 drives and CD-ROM recognized and set up the way I wanted them set up. At this point I have no desire to go back in and disconnect anything.

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.

[jenae]

Hi start / run and type cmd, from the prompt type" SET" without the quotes post back what you see.

[aussie0]

I assume you're talking about the DOS-style Command Prompt. If I type "set" I get a ton of information and I don't seem to be able to copy-paste it. The 1st couple of lines start out with the words ALLUSERSPROFILE and APPDATA.

Is there a way to re-direct the output of the command "set" to some kind of text file where I can then get a hold of it in Notepad, for example? From there I could easily copy-paste it into a reply to you.

[jenae]

Hi if you go to the cmd icon (top left corner) and right click from the drop down menu select "edit" then select all then repeat the process and this time select "copy" . Then paste into notepad or a text editor (word). While you have it there, look for your root directory and homepath this will tell you where windows is booting from.

[aussie0]

jenae,

Your suggestions are very intriguing! Here is what I come up with:

Microsoft Windows 2000 [Version 5.00.2195]
(C) Copyright 1985-2000 Microsoft Corp.

E:\>set
ALLUSERSPROFILE=E:\Documents and Settings\All Users
APPDATA=E:\Documents and Settings\JOSEF B DOBROVICS\Application Data
CI_HOLOS_CLI=C:\Program Files\Seagate Software\Open Olap\
CommonProgramFiles=C:\Program Files\Common Files
COMPUTERNAME=JBD-7B25M285529
ComSpec=E:\WINNT\system32\cmd.exe
HOMEDRIVE=E:
HOMEPATH=\
INCLUDE=C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio .NET\FrameworkSDK\include\
JSERV=C:\oracle\ora92/Apache/Jserv/conf
LIB=C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio .NET\FrameworkSDK\Lib\;C:\FSC\PCOBO
L32;C:\FUJITSU\PCOBOL32
LOGONSERVER=\\JBD-7B25M285529
NUMBER_OF_PROCESSORS=1
OS=Windows_NT
Os2LibPath=E:\WINNT\system32\os2\dll;
Path=C:\Perl\bin\;E:\WINNT\system32;E:\WINNT;E:\WINNT\system32\WBEM;C:\oracle\or
a92\bin;C:\Program Files\Oracle\jre\1.3.1\bin;C:\Program Files\Oracle\jre\1.1.8\
bin;C:\FSC\PCOBOL32;C:\Fujitsu COBOL\PCOBOL32;C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Ser
ver\80\Tools\BINN;C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\80\Tools\Binn\;C:\FSC\PC
OBOL32;C:\FUJITSU\PCOBOL32
PATHEXT=.COM;.EXE;.BAT;.CMD;.VBS;.VBE;.JS;.JSE;.WSF;.WSH
PROCESSOR_ARCHITECTURE=x86
PROCESSOR_IDENTIFIER=x86 Family 15 Model 2 Stepping 4, GenuineIntel
PROCESSOR_LEVEL=15
PROCESSOR_REVISION=0204
ProgramFiles=C:\Program Files
PROMPT=$P$G
SystemDrive=E:
SystemRoot=E:\WINNT
TEMP=E:\DOCUME~1\JOSEFB~1\LOCALS~1\Temp
TMP=E:\DOCUME~1\JOSEFB~1\LOCALS~1\Temp
USERDOMAIN=JBD-7B25M285529
USERNAME=JOSEF B DOBROVICS
USERPROFILE=E:\Documents and Settings\JOSEF B DOBROVICS
VSCOMNTOOLS="C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio .NET\Common7\Tools\"
windir=E:\WINNT
WV_GATEWAY_CFG=C:\oracle\ora92\Apache\modplsql\cfg\wdbsvr.app

It almost seems that my root directory and home path are based upon E: (if I read it correctly). However, what worries me is that there are a lot of references to C:

My intention is to wipe (format) the current C: drive (my old drive) so that I can boot from E: [which I want to re-designate as the new C:]. I already have copied all the files on C: to E: so I believe I can format C: without worry if I know my system is booting from the OS installed on E:

Can you suggest a process, e.g., what about using Partition Manager to format C: and rename E: to C: and then perhaps make additional changes to (??) Environment Variables [I'm kind of ignorant in this area !!!] so that everything refers to C: before the next re-boot occurs?

Thanks again for your ideas !!!!