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Hardware and Windows Vista Hardware issues in relation to Windows Vista. (microsoft.public.windows.vista.hardware_devices) |
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2nd Drive on notebook is bumping system disk to Disk 1 position.
Hello, I have an HP DV7 notebook that I recently added a second SATA 500 GB hard drive in the expansion bay. The purpose of the drive is to serve as a data drive. I also intend to store an image of my system disk on this internal expansion drive so that I can restore my system and apps when I am in the field. For most purposes the drive seems to be functioning normally. However, I recently noticed that, without my instructions, HP Updates were installing suipport files on my expansion disk rather than on my system disk and I have become concerned that Windows Updates may also end up on the expansion drive (so far they appear not to have done this). On further inspection in Computer Management - Disk Managment I discovered that when I put the expansion drive into the 2nd bay, my original system disk was automatically bumped from the Disk 0 position to the Disk 1 position and my expansion disk became the new Disk 0. In Computer Managment - Disk Management the system currently looks like Disk 0 - F: Expansion Drive - Healthy, Primary Partition Disk 1 - C: - Healthy, System, Boot, Page File, Active, Crash Dump, Primary Partition. If I physically pull out the F: drive from the machine the C: drive returns to the Disk 0 position. I am concerned that my system and application updates are going to get splattered across two drives when I want them to remain on the original C: drive. I can find no way in BIOS or Computer Management - Disk Management to assign the Disk # and physically swapping the drives makes the system disk unbootable. 1) Am I at risk of splattering my Window updates across two drives? 2) Should I instruct Vista to regard my system disk C: as Disk 0 and how to I do this? Thanks in advance for any suggestions. -- TangentRW |
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2nd Drive on notebook is bumping system disk to Disk 1 position.
TangentRW wrote:
Hello, I have an HP DV7 notebook that I recently added a second SATA 500 GB hard drive in the expansion bay. The purpose of the drive is to serve as a data drive. I also intend to store an image of my system disk on this internal expansion drive so that I can restore my system and apps when I am in the field. For most purposes the drive seems to be functioning normally. However, I recently noticed that, without my instructions, HP Updates were installing suipport files on my expansion disk rather than on my system disk and I have become concerned that Windows Updates may also end up on the expansion drive (so far they appear not to have done this). On further inspection in Computer Management - Disk Managment I discovered that when I put the expansion drive into the 2nd bay, my original system disk was automatically bumped from the Disk 0 position to the Disk 1 position and my expansion disk became the new Disk 0. In Computer Managment - Disk Management the system currently looks like Disk 0 - F: Expansion Drive - Healthy, Primary Partition Disk 1 - C: - Healthy, System, Boot, Page File, Active, Crash Dump, Primary Partition. If I physically pull out the F: drive from the machine the C: drive returns to the Disk 0 position. I am concerned that my system and application updates are going to get splattered across two drives when I want them to remain on the original C: drive. I can find no way in BIOS or Computer Management - Disk Management to assign the Disk # and physically swapping the drives makes the system disk unbootable. 1) Am I at risk of splattering my Window updates across two drives? 2) Should I instruct Vista to regard my system disk C: as Disk 0 and how to I do this? Thanks in advance for any suggestions. If your bios does not have the option to set which disc is sought first in the boot order (it should though) just try switching the data cable's |
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2nd Drive on notebook is bumping system disk to Disk 1 position.
Thank you for your response. The HP Pavilion DV7T-100 notebook has two drive bays for SATA drives and came from the factory with one 250 GB system drive in the first bay. I have added a second 500 GB drive for data and system disk image storage purposes. So far there have been no obvious useage malfunctions but some HP update software has been installing support files on the expansion disk rather than on the system disk. To recap the problem in a nutshell, when I add the expansion drive (simple partition) it is being recognized in Computer Managmenet - Disk Management as Disk 0 and the original system disk is being bumped to the Disk 1 position. This is happening even though the original system disk has not been touched. I believe that at least some HP update software is expecting the system disk to be in the Disk 0 position and I am concerned that Windows software may also have that same expectation. Since your reply I have reviewed my system for a second time. I have reviewed the BIOS settings, the physical bays themselves, HP's service guide (which I downloaded from HP) and briefly checked Western Digital's SATA documentation (they manufactured my expansion drive). The HP service guide was of little use except to confirm that I have physically installed the hard drives correctly. In the Western Digital documentation I could find no mention of master-slave relationships in a pure SATA configuration (and plenty of mention of such relationships in an EIDE configuration). When I rechecked the BIOS it recognized the existence of the second drive and can diagnose both drives (no problems were found). However the BIOS controls for setting boot order only allow the user to set the boot order between different kinds of devices (floppy, DVD, hard drives, network device); it is not possible to set the boot order inside one of these levels to prioritize one device of the same kind over another. This is contrary to my own limited experience of the BIOS on other computers. That leaves hardware. I have already tried swapping the drives and the system will not boot so that leaves, as you suggested, changing the connector cable connections to the disk controller itself and possibly changing jumpers (if any) on the disk controller. If that is the only way to solve the problem, that is the only way. However, in this case that clearly will not be a trivial task and I will have to employ an experienced technician to do that. The hard drive connector wires are buried under the main chassis of the notebook and accessing the motherboard will be a major disassembly job. I guess this is boiling down to determining how serious my problem is. So before bringing in someone who is more experienced than I am, I will rephrase my questions to anyone who is interested: 1) Does Windows Vista require that the system disk occupy the Disk 0 position? 2) Is there a method within Vista software to force a system disk to be recognized as Disk 0? Note that I am not talking about changing the drive letter; I know how to do that. Thank you again for your response. -- TangentRW |
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2nd Drive on notebook is bumping system disk to Disk 1 position.
philo - Thanks again. Mr. Rogers - I did not see your reply until after I posted my second post in response to philo. However, I am going to take to heart your point that the BIOS is managing the problem in its own way and that Vista does not depend upon the Disk # for the system disk. I think that answers my questions. Thank you. -- TangentRW |