Win install on a multi HDD system

[Trypt]

I don't know why Windows does this, and it really gets to me.

In any case, I had to reinstall windows after more then two years (Win 7 Ultimate x64), I had a major crash. Now, with only 1 HDD on the system, it installs everything onto that drive, but when there is a second drive, for some reason it puts the boot folder and record onto another drive.

In my case, now I have my SSD drive with windows, but the boot directory and some files are on one of my storage drives (I have two, I'm not sure if it just chooses one randomly or what).

Why does it do that? This has happened to me before, when my storage drive crashed, I couldn't boot windows anymore even tho windows was installed on a healthy drive. I could fix it, but I forget how, I think it was a command run from the windows disk to make the C drive have the boot record.

In any case, the C drive, the SSD drive, has all the windows files, but my storage drive has the boot directory (hidden system directory), along with "bootmgr" "bootsect.bak" "install.log" "msdia80.dll" files, and I don't want ANYTHING on my storage drives but storage files.

I know that I should have disconnected my two drives when installing windows and just have the SSD connected, but really, why should I have to do that? Is there a reason that windows does this, when it's clear it doesn't have to since it runs just fine with one drive.

So besides wanting to know why, I also want to know if there is a way to transfer those files onto my SSD windows C drive, and change windows to think everything is on C drive rather then have those important files on my storage drive (and they are important, in the past I deleted them thinking it's a mistake and all of a sudden I couldn't boot anymore, thus the above mentioned fix which I found out about).

Thank you for any help you can offer.

 

[SMOKEU]

It should just make a 100MB ish partition by default as "system reserved".

 

[shadowdr]

Windows looks to disk0 for boot files, so if your install is not on disk0 it installs the boot files there so that it can find the files faster, or in case it has multiple OS's installed it looks there to find all boot partitions. Moving your SSD to SATA0 should solve the issue. You can copy the files to the C: drive or disconnect the other drives and do a startup repair but moving the SSD to SATA0 and doing a startup repair is your best bet. If you look in disk management your OS should be on the first disk listed.

 

[Trypt]

Ah I see, I think my SSD drive is on Sata 2 for some reason, but I'm not sure. So, once I move it, it won't boot, so I boot from the CD, then choose repair my computer, then what? Do I go to command prompt and type anything, or just do an automatic repair and that is it?

SMOKE: no, that is not what I'm talking about, the partition is fine.. shadow understood what I mean.

 

[shadowdr]

Make sure in disk management that the SSD is moved to the disk0 position and I would go ahead and disconnect the other drives to make sure that it can install the boot files only to the SSD. A guide here shows it bettter than I could try and explain but it's pretty simple after you do it A time or two. It will try and fix it by itself and usually does so the first try. After, just connect the other drives and delete the boot files from the storage drive.

 

[Trypt]

Just to let others know. There is a simple way, just change the boot sequence to the main drive, the one you want Windows to run from, and of course it won't run, it will say it's missing files, NTLR or whatever.

That being said, just throw your Win7 disc in there, and boot via disc, choose repair your computer, and it puts everything on the SSD C drive where it should be, and it doesn't matter what SATA it's in

It's mostly language stuff etc in the secondary drive that win needs to starts up (it always does this, even if your disc is disc0, it will use a different disc for the BOOT folder), but it also has important files like boot and .ini files, which naturally slows down the startup process.


Thanx for the info anyway guys.

 

[shadowdr]

After I got an email from the subscription to this thread I noticed that the "A guide here shows it bettter than I could" did not have the hyperlink to the guide. Sorry, hope it didn't take a month to figure it out.