«

Hello. I had two hard drives installed in my computer and set it up to be
able to boot from either drive into XP. One is SATA and the other IDE. I
removed the IDE drive because it is having some problems. However, now, I
cannot boot using my SATA -- I get the "select proper boot device" error.
I've gone through the recovery console and rebuilt the boot.ini file and ran
CHKDSK with no errors reported. I've tried FIXBOOT and FIXMBR.
One thing I noticed is that, prior to removing the IDE drive, the SATA drive
letter was D:. Now, the recovery console seems to recognize it as C:. Would
this make the system unable to find the proper files to boot?

System details:

AMD64 4200 Dual Core (2.3 GHZ)
4 GB DDR2 RAM
320 GB SATA HD
NVIDIA GeForce 8600 GT
Windows XP Professional x64

Hi, Peter.

Have you gone into the BIOS and designated your SATA drive as the boot
device?

> I get the "select proper boot device" error.

At what point do you get this error? My guess is that it comes at the
beginning of the boot process, before Windows even starts to load. So it is
a system error, not a Windows problem. The BIOS is still set to boot from
that IDE drive - which no longer exists. Nothing you can do in Windows - or
even the Recovery Console - can help the system find Boot.ini on a drive
that is no longer there.

If you need help getting into your BIOS, please tell us the make and model
of your computer - or of your motherboard and BIOS if you build it yourself.
Various computers use various keys or combinations to enter the
BIOS-changing utility, but the proper incantation must be invoked at the
very beginning of the boot process, while the computer is "counting the RAM"
and finding out how many hard drives are in your system and what kinds they
are. On my computer, I must press the <Del> key at this point; others use
the <F10> or <F2> key - or some other combo. If you have an owner's manual
for your computer, it should tell you. Or give us some clues and we can
probably help you find the right procedure. (It sounds like you are way
ahead of me on this, but your post didn't mention "BIOS".)

Another possibility is that you may need to just edit Boot.ini's rdisk(#) to
reflect that what used to be rdisk(1) is now rdisk(0).

RC
--
R. C. White, CPA
San Marcos, TX

Microsoft Windows MVP
Windows Live Mail 2009 (14.0.8064.0206) in Win7 Ultimate x64 7000

"peteryoungblood86" <> wrote in
message news:FE994D59-275B-4327-A24F-...
> Hello. I had two hard drives installed in my computer and set it up to be
> able to boot from either drive into XP. One is SATA and the other IDE. I
> removed the IDE drive because it is having some problems. However, now, I
> cannot boot using my SATA -- I get the "select proper boot device" error.
> I've gone through the recovery console and rebuilt the boot.ini file and
> ran
> CHKDSK with no errors reported. I've tried FIXBOOT and FIXMBR.
> One thing I noticed is that, prior to removing the IDE drive, the SATA
> drive
> letter was D:. Now, the recovery console seems to recognize it as C:.
> Would
> this make the system unable to find the proper files to boot?
>
> System details:
>
> AMD64 4200 Dual Core (2.3 GHZ)
> 4 GB DDR2 RAM
> 320 GB SATA HD
> NVIDIA GeForce 8600 GT
> Windows XP Professional x64

On Fri, 20 Feb 2009 06:44:03 -0800, peteryoungblood86
<> wrote:

>Hello. I had two hard drives installed in my computer and set it up to be
>able to boot from either drive into XP. One is SATA and the other IDE. I
>removed the IDE drive because it is having some problems. However, now, I
>cannot boot using my SATA -- I get the "select proper boot device" error.
>I've gone through the recovery console and rebuilt the boot.ini file and ran
>CHKDSK with no errors reported. I've tried FIXBOOT and FIXMBR.
>One thing I noticed is that, prior to removing the IDE drive, the SATA drive
>letter was D:. Now, the recovery console seems to recognize it as C:. Would
>this make the system unable to find the proper files to boot?

No.
Requirements for booting from the SATA disk:
1. Primary partition marked as active.
2. Files ntldr, ntdetect.com, and boot.ini in primary partition.
3. Boot sector that runs ntldr.

>
>System details:
>
>AMD64 4200 Dual Core (2.3 GHZ)
>4 GB DDR2 RAM
>320 GB SATA HD
>NVIDIA GeForce 8600 GT
>Windows XP Professional x64

Thanks for the reply. The SATA drive is set in the BIOS as my boot device.
The error does come right before the Windows XP splash loading screen is
supposed to appear.
From the Recovery Console, I have edited the Boot.ini so that it only has
one item listed, which is rdisk(0). Any other ideas? Thanks again for the
help.

"R. C. White" wrote:

> Hi, Peter.
>
> Have you gone into the BIOS and designated your SATA drive as the boot
> device?
>
> > I get the "select proper boot device" error.
>
> At what point do you get this error? My guess is that it comes at the
> beginning of the boot process, before Windows even starts to load. So it is
> a system error, not a Windows problem. The BIOS is still set to boot from
> that IDE drive - which no longer exists. Nothing you can do in Windows - or
> even the Recovery Console - can help the system find Boot.ini on a drive
> that is no longer there.
>
> If you need help getting into your BIOS, please tell us the make and model
> of your computer - or of your motherboard and BIOS if you build it yourself.
> Various computers use various keys or combinations to enter the
> BIOS-changing utility, but the proper incantation must be invoked at the
> very beginning of the boot process, while the computer is "counting the RAM"
> and finding out how many hard drives are in your system and what kinds they
> are. On my computer, I must press the <Del> key at this point; others use
> the <F10> or <F2> key - or some other combo. If you have an owner's manual
> for your computer, it should tell you. Or give us some clues and we can
> probably help you find the right procedure. (It sounds like you are way
> ahead of me on this, but your post didn't mention "BIOS".)
>
> Another possibility is that you may need to just edit Boot.ini's rdisk(#) to
> reflect that what used to be rdisk(1) is now rdisk(0).
>
> RC
> --
> R. C. White, CPA
> San Marcos, TX
>
> Microsoft Windows MVP
> Windows Live Mail 2009 (14.0.8064.0206) in Win7 Ultimate x64 7000
>
> "peteryoungblood86" <> wrote in
> message news:FE994D59-275B-4327-A24F-...
> > Hello. I had two hard drives installed in my computer and set it up to be
> > able to boot from either drive into XP. One is SATA and the other IDE. I
> > removed the IDE drive because it is having some problems. However, now, I
> > cannot boot using my SATA -- I get the "select proper boot device" error.
> > I've gone through the recovery console and rebuilt the boot.ini file and
> > ran
> > CHKDSK with no errors reported. I've tried FIXBOOT and FIXMBR.
> > One thing I noticed is that, prior to removing the IDE drive, the SATA
> > drive
> > letter was D:. Now, the recovery console seems to recognize it as C:.
> > Would
> > this make the system unable to find the proper files to boot?
> >
> > System details:
> >
> > AMD64 4200 Dual Core (2.3 GHZ)
> > 4 GB DDR2 RAM
> > 320 GB SATA HD
> > NVIDIA GeForce 8600 GT
> > Windows XP Professional x64
>

Andy, thanks for the reply.
In the recovery console, by using the "DIR" command, I see that all the
files needed to boot are on the hard drive. However, I'm not sure how I would
go about making sure that my partition is marked as active. Could you
possibly explain how I might do that? Thanks again.

"andy" wrote:

> On Fri, 20 Feb 2009 06:44:03 -0800, peteryoungblood86
> <> wrote:
>
> >Hello. I had two hard drives installed in my computer and set it up to be
> >able to boot from either drive into XP. One is SATA and the other IDE. I
> >removed the IDE drive because it is having some problems. However, now, I
> >cannot boot using my SATA -- I get the "select proper boot device" error.
> >I've gone through the recovery console and rebuilt the boot.ini file and ran
> >CHKDSK with no errors reported. I've tried FIXBOOT and FIXMBR.
> >One thing I noticed is that, prior to removing the IDE drive, the SATA drive
> >letter was D:. Now, the recovery console seems to recognize it as C:. Would
> >this make the system unable to find the proper files to boot?
>
> No.
> Requirements for booting from the SATA disk:
> 1. Primary partition marked as active.
> 2. Files ntldr, ntdetect.com, and boot.ini in primary partition.
> 3. Boot sector that runs ntldr.
>
> >
> >System details:
> >
> >AMD64 4200 Dual Core (2.3 GHZ)
> >4 GB DDR2 RAM
> >320 GB SATA HD
> >NVIDIA GeForce 8600 GT
> >Windows XP Professional x64
>
>

peteryoungblood86:
If you're running XP or XPx64, dot the operating system disk
into the CD/DVD drive with the boot order set to boot from the CD/DVD drive
first. Restart the system but don't hit any key to boot from the disk. If
the system boots into the operating system you can then go into disk manager
to set the SATA drive active.

--
Dennis Pack
Win7

"peteryoungblood86" <> wrote in
message news:FE994D59-275B-4327-A24F-...
> Hello. I had two hard drives installed in my computer and set it up to be
> able to boot from either drive into XP. One is SATA and the other IDE. I
> removed the IDE drive because it is having some problems. However, now, I
> cannot boot using my SATA -- I get the "select proper boot device" error.
> I've gone through the recovery console and rebuilt the boot.ini file and
> ran
> CHKDSK with no errors reported. I've tried FIXBOOT and FIXMBR.
> One thing I noticed is that, prior to removing the IDE drive, the SATA
> drive
> letter was D:. Now, the recovery console seems to recognize it as C:.
> Would
> this make the system unable to find the proper files to boot?
>
> System details:
>
> AMD64 4200 Dual Core (2.3 GHZ)
> 4 GB DDR2 RAM
> 320 GB SATA HD
> NVIDIA GeForce 8600 GT
> Windows XP Professional x64

Dennis,
When I boot from the disk, it goes straight into Windows Setup and not into
the operating system itself. As far as I can see, there is no way to get into
disk manager from setup. Is there something I can do to boot the OS from the
disk instead of Windows Setup? Thanks for the reply.

"Dennis Pack" wrote:

> peteryoungblood86:
> If you're running XP or XPx64, dot the operating system disk
> into the CD/DVD drive with the boot order set to boot from the CD/DVD drive
> first. Restart the system but don't hit any key to boot from the disk. If
> the system boots into the operating system you can then go into disk manager
> to set the SATA drive active.
>
> --
> Dennis Pack
> Win7
>
> "peteryoungblood86" <> wrote in
> message news:FE994D59-275B-4327-A24F-...
> > Hello. I had two hard drives installed in my computer and set it up to be
> > able to boot from either drive into XP. One is SATA and the other IDE. I
> > removed the IDE drive because it is having some problems. However, now, I
> > cannot boot using my SATA -- I get the "select proper boot device" error.
> > I've gone through the recovery console and rebuilt the boot.ini file and
> > ran
> > CHKDSK with no errors reported. I've tried FIXBOOT and FIXMBR.
> > One thing I noticed is that, prior to removing the IDE drive, the SATA
> > drive
> > letter was D:. Now, the recovery console seems to recognize it as C:.
> > Would
> > this make the system unable to find the proper files to boot?
> >
> > System details:
> >
> > AMD64 4200 Dual Core (2.3 GHZ)
> > 4 GB DDR2 RAM
> > 320 GB SATA HD
> > NVIDIA GeForce 8600 GT
> > Windows XP Professional x64
>

peteryoungblood86:
If you're going straight into setup it sounds like the operating
system isn't recognizing the SATA drive. Hit enter to start the operating
system install then hit f6 to load the SATA drivers from a floppy disk
copied from the motherboard disk, pass the first "R" (recovery counsel), hit
f8 to agree to terms then hit "R" to perform a repair installation.

--
Dennis Pack
Win7

"peteryoungblood86" <> wrote in
message news:526F777A-A1E8-4A0B-BF7C-...
> Dennis,
> When I boot from the disk, it goes straight into Windows Setup and not
> into
> the operating system itself. As far as I can see, there is no way to get
> into
> disk manager from setup. Is there something I can do to boot the OS from
> the
> disk instead of Windows Setup? Thanks for the reply.
>
> "Dennis Pack" wrote:
>
>> peteryoungblood86:
>> If you're running XP or XPx64, dot the operating system disk
>> into the CD/DVD drive with the boot order set to boot from the CD/DVD
>> drive
>> first. Restart the system but don't hit any key to boot from the disk. If
>> the system boots into the operating system you can then go into disk
>> manager
>> to set the SATA drive active.
>>
>> --
>> Dennis Pack
>> Win7
>>
>> "peteryoungblood86" <> wrote
>> in
>> message news:FE994D59-275B-4327-A24F-...
>> > Hello. I had two hard drives installed in my computer and set it up to
>> > be
>> > able to boot from either drive into XP. One is SATA and the other IDE.
>> > I
>> > removed the IDE drive because it is having some problems. However, now,
>> > I
>> > cannot boot using my SATA -- I get the "select proper boot device"
>> > error.
>> > I've gone through the recovery console and rebuilt the boot.ini file
>> > and
>> > ran
>> > CHKDSK with no errors reported. I've tried FIXBOOT and FIXMBR.
>> > One thing I noticed is that, prior to removing the IDE drive, the SATA
>> > drive
>> > letter was D:. Now, the recovery console seems to recognize it as C:.
>> > Would
>> > this make the system unable to find the proper files to boot?
>> >
>> > System details:
>> >
>> > AMD64 4200 Dual Core (2.3 GHZ)
>> > 4 GB DDR2 RAM
>> > 320 GB SATA HD
>> > NVIDIA GeForce 8600 GT
>> > Windows XP Professional x64
>>