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Odd Windows XP installation problem WRT boot options

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Carol Haynes:
Having just reinstalled Windows XP and go a nice stable system I have just discovered that there is an odd configuration problem ...

Before reinstalling the orginal disc had three primary partitions:

C: Windows (Active boot partition)
D: Data
E: Data

During the reinstall I used the tool in Windows setup to delete the Windows partition, create a new formatted partition for the new installed version.

All went well and everything works fine EXCEPT the partition table is now:

C: Extended Partition containing 1 Logical Partition (Windows)
D: Data (now the active partition)
E: Data

The problem is that Windows setup has put ntldr and boot.ini etc on the D: partition

The trouble is that MSCONFIG no longer has any boot.ini options and also if I want to reformat D: at any time I can't.

I can convert the C: partition to an Active Primary partition easily enough but how do I get all the boot related stuff onto drive C: and working properly?

Anyone got any ideas? TIA

f0dder:
Let me guess - you have mixed IDE and SATA drives?

The best option is leaving only the to-be system drive plugged in, and do a reinstall. Changing system drive letter post-install is pretty risky, since there's a lot of places you need to fix up.

Carol Haynes:
Yes but the the active boot partition and Windows are on the SATA drive next to each other.

I don't want to change drive letters I want to make the Windows partition the active boot partition, rather than the neighbouring data partition.

I think it is probably because Windows Setup created wthe Windows partition in an extended partition rather than in a primary partition - it made the pre-existing primary partition active instead and consequently installed the NTDETECT, NTLDR and BOOT.INI on the active partition rather than on the Windows logical partition.

Presumably I can convert C: to an Active Primary partition and then simply copy NTDETECT, NTLDR and BOOT.INI to C:\ and use the repair console to run FIXMBR ???

Anyone know if this is the case or will I totally screw my system?

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