Dual HDD problem

OS XP

I am working on a PC with two hard drives one SATA one IDE

The IDE is set as the C drive and SATA as D.

I am trying to make the SATA drive the C drive but if I disconnect either drive the PC fails to boot.

If I disconnect the SATA D drive I get the message:-

Windows could not start because of a computer disk hardware configuration problem.
Could not read from the selected boot disk. Check boot pathway and disk hardware.


If I disconnect the IDE C drive I get the message:-

Disk boot failure, insert system disk and press enter.

That I can understand but not sure how to deal with the first scenario. Have looked in the BIOS but cannot see a setting that needs changing that is immediately apparent.

As always any help and advice gratefully received.

TP

How many and which operating system do you have?
Which drives are they installed on?

From the look of it XP Pro is installed on both drives and the IDE C drive is set as the master.

With both drives connected I get a dual boot option first one (C IDE) boots normally. Second assuming SATA D gives BSOD error 7b

It looks like you've managed to install the boot files on one drive, and the OS files on the other. Which is why you need both drives connected. About the only thing you can do is to disconnect the IDE drive and either do a repair install of Windows if it is the one with the OS files, or a clean install if it isn't :(