Ok my system originally started with an IDE HDD but later bought a SATA
drive and I reinstalled Vista (business x64) on the SATA drive, but was
unable to format the older IDE drive so I just used it for storage and
removed its boot option.

Today I formated the IDE drive using the open source program called
GParted. But when it rebooted the system wouldn't boot saying it
recognized a signifcant hardware change.

I am assuming there was a way for me to format the drive in Vista and I
just was too stuborn to ask the correct way and by using GParted I
screwed it up. I am also wondering if my primary boot sector was then
located on the original IDE drive which probably caused further insult
to my self inflicted injuries.

Right now I completely removed the IDE drive (for now) and am
reinstalling Vista once more. Does anyone fore see me having any issues
if I add the IDE drive back once Vista is intalled?

What if later I decide to remove it once more and put it in an external
enclosure?


--
Tweaked

On Thu, 1 Jan 2009 17:00:24 -0600, Tweaked
wrote:


Ok my system originally started with an IDE HDD but later bought a SATA
drive and I reinstalled Vista (business x64) on the SATA drive, but was
unable to format the older IDE drive so I just used it for storage and
removed its boot option.

Windows won't let you format its system partition.


Today I formated the IDE drive using the open source program called
GParted. But when it rebooted the system wouldn't boot saying it
recognized a signifcant hardware change.

If you do so, then you can't boot Windows.


I am assuming there was a way for me to format the drive in Vista and I
just was too stuborn to ask the correct way and by using GParted I
screwed it up. I am also wondering if my primary boot sector was then
located on the original IDE drive which probably caused further insult
to my self inflicted injuries.

No, no, yes, yes.


Right now I completely removed the IDE drive (for now) and am
reinstalling Vista once more. Does anyone fore see me having any issues
if I add the IDE drive back once Vista is intalled?

No.

What if later I decide to remove it once more and put it in an external
enclosure?

No problem relating to booting Windows.

Thanks Andy. So, really there was no safe way for me to remove the
original install the way I did it? And to ensure I am tracking the only
issue was that vista was truly installed on both drives. If the IDE
drive would have been formated prior to the installation of the SATA
drive everything would have been ok.


--
Tweaked

"Tweaked" wrote in message
...

Thanks Andy. So, really there was no safe way for me to remove the
original install the way I did it? And to ensure I am tracking the only
issue was that vista was truly installed on both drives. If the IDE
drive would have been formated prior to the installation of the SATA
drive everything would have been ok.


--
Tweaked

Check your Bios settings and make sure you are booting from the SATA drive.
Different motherboards have different settings.

Clark

Tweaked wrote:
Ok my system originally started with an IDE HDD but later bought a SATA
drive and I reinstalled Vista (business x64) on the SATA drive, but was
unable to format the older IDE drive so I just used it for storage and
removed its boot option.

Today I formated the IDE drive using the open source program called
GParted. But when it rebooted the system wouldn't boot saying it
recognized a signifcant hardware change.

I am assuming there was a way for me to format the drive in Vista and I
just was too stuborn to ask the correct way and by using GParted I
screwed it up. I am also wondering if my primary boot sector was then
located on the original IDE drive which probably caused further insult
to my self inflicted injuries.

Right now I completely removed the IDE drive (for now) and am
reinstalling Vista once more. Does anyone fore see me having any issues
if I add the IDE drive back once Vista is intalled?

What if later I decide to remove it once more and put it in an external
enclosure?


My system has two plug-in disk drives. Back in the win98 days, I could
add/subtract/rearrange disk drives with abandon. Partition managers
could re-arrange drive letters. It always worked.
When I switched to XP, I had all manner of problems. Got worse with
Vista. I had to stop moving drives around.

Googling over the years, I have a theory.
M$'s primary objective is to protect YOU from software piracy.
They do that by denying you access to your licensed software,
and thus your computer, when it detects that symptoms that MIGHT
be related to software piracy. Sorry for any inconvenience.
Costs THEM nothing to protect YOU!

Second issue is that the computer boots according to pointers
it gets from the BIOS. If you move drives, you change those pointers.
I had ALL primary partitions, so avoided some of the unpleasantness
of primary vs. extended partitions that relate to the boot order.
In the old days, this was sufficient for windows to boot.

As drives got bigger and the OS got more complex, the info from the
BIOS was insufficient to make it all work. You probably remember the
days when you had to load an overlay to make your brand new 80GB drive
work in your computer. The overlay stored information about your
hard drives that the BIOS couldn't supply.

Bios's have improved and the overlay stuff has moved into the OS.
Based on the symptoms I've seen, here's what I think happens.

The BIOS tells the OS, "boot at this address". The OS code at that
address says, "I'm Vista, I've got a drive table saved somewhere on the
hard drive." It fetches the pointers from the table and tries to execute
the code there. But if you moved the drives, the info from the bios
is different from what the table says and Vista gets upset.
Or Vista may not even be able to find the table at the designated location.
With XP, I've seen error messages to the effect, "can't find boot device".
Sometimes it just locks up and does nothing.
Sometimes it bluescreens or STOP errors.

There's an argument for not booting an OS when the OS can't figure out
where it is. If you're an IT professional, you may have the tools
and experience to make it right. For the other 99.999% of us, there
are two possibilities:
1) reload windows, sorry for any inconvenience.
2) some magic incantation that sorts itself out. THE OS SHOULD
DETERMINE THE INCANTATION AND ASK PERMISSION TO
TRY THE MAGIC INCANTATION ALL BY ITSELF. The worst that can happen
is that we have to reload windows...which was our only other option anyway.

So, what do you do about it.
For the first problem, you call up M$ and BEG them to let you use
your computer again. If that's the problem it should be obvious
from the error message.

For the second issue, you can try booting the recovery console from
the install CD and running fixboot or fixmbr or both. The problem
must have been a common one, 'cause the Vista console detects the
situation and offers to fix it automagically. Why couldn't they
just put that capability into the boot code? If I image my Vista
C: partition then restore it, Vista refuses to boot. Fortunately
the recovery console fixes it.

Depending on the age and brand of your computer, you may not have
a Vista install CD. How do you get one? You probably don't.
Customer support is extremely expensive. Vendors don't want you
calling for help installing Vista. If you bought it new, you probably
have some means to restore your system to factory condition. You'll lose
all your data, but that's good...the vendor doesn't have to support
you getting it back...it's GONE! If you had the option to create restore
disks and didn't do it, or if your system has a separate restore
partition, or if you bought it used...you're screwed.
There seems to be no sanctioned way to acquire the ones and zeros
to implement your software license...other than buying it again.
Works out great for everybody...except YOU...sorry for any inconvenience.

But, for Vista, there is one ray of hope. Somewhere on the M$ site,
no, I don't remember exactly where, there's a .iso image of a CD
that boots the Vista Recovery Console. Won't help you much if you
need the OS, but can help you fix one that's just locked you out.

I've also read articles that suggest that you can delete the device
drivers from device manager (BEFORE you change drive configurations)
and flush the table that points to drives.
Next reboot, drivers get reloaded and the table is reconstructed.
Never tried it, so don't know the details.

There are also issues with SATA drives...enabling in the BIOS,
motherboard (BIOS) compatibility etc. I'm afraid to buy a SATA
drive for my 2005 computer for fear of having same problems you're
experiencing.

Are we having fun yet?

On Thu, 1 Jan 2009 18:34:15 -0600, Tweaked
wrote:


Thanks Andy. So, really there was no safe way for me to remove the
original install the way I did it? And to ensure I am tracking the only
issue was that vista was truly installed on both drives. If the IDE
drive would have been formated prior to the installation of the SATA
drive everything would have been ok.

No, and no.

It is possible to move or create the Vista boot manager files on the
SATA drive, as long as there's a primary partition on it. So you could
have made the Vista drive bootable, and then reformatted the IDE drive
without problem.

The reason why Windows Vista setup placed its boot manager files on
the IDE drive (aka Windows system partition) was because the
motherboard BIOS was set to boot from the IDE drive. BIOS setup has a
setting called Hard Drive Boot Priority (Award) or Hard Disk Drives
(AMI). The drive that is moved to the top of this setting is the drive
that the BIOS will boot from.