weird things happening

[solo]

on my epox 4pca3+

i installed xp on my 120gb sata, and i have an 80gb slave drive ATA

but when i remove the 80gb, or set priority to boot from my 120gb, my system doesnt boot

it hangs at the verifying DMA thingy

if i put the 80gb back in, it boots

any ideas?

[jhl3]

Is it dependent on jumper settings on the HDD ie: master, slave, master only, master w slave present?

[solo]

sata drives dont have jumper settings

i might have to check out my CD ROM drive, becasue it is also on IDE Channel 1

im pretty sure my 80gb is the channel 1 slave and the CDROm is the channel 1 master

[solo]

anyways, it recognizes my windows drive as D:/ and my slave as c:/

isn't that abnormal?

[Xaotic]

The reason that this happens is that the MBR and initial boot files are on the slave drive. Windows has a bad habit of installing the boot on the first available IDE disk during installation. Normally, it's best to install with only the boot/system drive installed to prevent this. You solution is a repair with the OS CD and the slave disconnected. Boot to recovery console and FIXBOOT.

[solo]

ty xaotic ill try that fix now

[solo]

well xaotic, i did the fixboot command and wrote a new boot sector to my D:/ drive the one where windows is installed

it still doesn't work, i need the 80gb plugged in

it doesn't let me write a boot sector w/o the 80gb plugged in

strange?