Can't boot Windows without IDE present and Windows disc in drive.

Ok, my problem started when I installed my first Sata drive. I installed Windows Vista and had no problems other than it wouldn't boot without the original IDE drive. I noticed there was a bootsect file on the IDE. Removing the drive or the file resulted in a "insert system disk" message on boot. I left it as is because at least it still worked. I decided to do a dual boot with Windows 7 installed on a separate 1tb Sata. This time I removed the IDE, installed the new Sata and on powering up, the PC didn't recognise the Sata drives. Installing the IDE as master and installing my IDE CD-ROM drive was the only way to get the bios to see all drives. Windows 7 (original disc) install took ages to start and took ages to expand files. Once installed I had a dual boot and selecting either OS all goes well. Now, when I remove the Windows 7 disc I get the "insert system disk" message again. With the CD in, it goes to the "press any key to boot from CD" message, I do nothing and I get the dual boot option.

I understood all Windows versions after XP has SATA drivers so why isn't my SATA drives recognised unless there are IDE present? Needing the Windows CD in has puzzled me because it doesn't read anything off it in order to boot. I'm not interested in setting up RAID / mirror / striping etc. I just want a simple SATA setup that boots on its own. I want to remove all IDE drives.

I have 2 on board SATA controllers and 1 PCI SATA card with two ports. My Motherboard is a Foxconn P4M900-7MB.

Are you all scratching your heads?

Hi, Bare Foot Kid, thanks for the quick reply. As you can see from the pic I need one IDE per SATA or the system won't boot. Obviously the smaller drives and one CD drive are the IDE ones. Drive (D) is the only one with a BOOTSECT.BAK file on it.

Cheers.

Vista is the (F) drive, Windows 7 is on (C) drive. A dual boot and all drives are physical, no partitions.

Thanks for everything so far. I followed your advice exactly and here's what happened.

During the first startup repair, in the system recovery options it detected no drives. There is the load drivers option but not knowing what to look for or where to find them I just clicked next and did the repair. The second time both Windows installations were found, Windows 7 under drive F and Vista drive C (The opposite of my drive management pic). I selected F and did the repair. No problems were found but I still got the 'disk boot failure.....' so tried a third time. Again no problem found but still a disk boot failure. I've had to insert the Windows 7 disc in the IDE drive so I could get back here. Strange.

The other thing is, even if this fixed the problem I'd still have the same thing all over again should I re-install due to the IDE's having to be present right from the start.

Here it is again.