Windows 7: NTLDR on first SATA drive?

Before installing Windows 7 on a fresh new empty 500 gig drive, I seem to have mixed up SATA1 and SATA2.
The drive accidentally sitting in SATA1 position was a Terabyte drive used on my last system, a Vista system I fried.

Once I noticed my mistake, after the Windows 7 install, I switched them so that the boot drive can be SATA1. When I went to reboot, the message was "can't find NTLDR", so I assume that important file is on the terabyte drive, which I want to format now that I've moved my files to the new drive.

IT won't let me format, which is another reason I think some important files landed on the terabyte drive.

What can I do to change this so the Western Digital Terabyte drive can be formatted, and the boot drive can sit at the SATA1 position?

Thank you in advance for any help.

Hello,

Check this article MBR - Restore Windows 7 Master Boot Record

- Captain

Hello Webfairy, welcome to Seven Forums!



Everything needed to do what you need is in this tutorial at the link below including information to give you an understanding of the entire process so you can get it straightened out.

Startup Repair - Run 3 Separate Times



Then when you want to wipe the other HDD on the old data, have a look at step 7 in this tutorial.

Disk - Clean and Clean All with Diskpart Command

Please post back a screenshot of your full Disk Management drive map and listings, using SNipping TOol in Start Menu. Tell us what is on each partition and what you what to end up with.

Here's what I've got going on.
I'm still studying the information presented in the thread before I do anything!

The C drive is meant to be the boot drive, the drive with Windows and program files.

I'd like to use the terabyte drive to capture video files, and then swap it out for a fresh one when it's full.
My guy has lots of hi-8 and old Digicam that needs to be digitized for archive.
My interest is 911, and I have several hundred gigs of video and related files I'd like to keep on the 640 gig drive.

Hello again Webfairy.



Here's what to do.

Disconnect both the Hard Disk Drives (HDD) "Disk #0" and "Disk #2" because they are both marked as "Active" and that is the flag that tells WinRE (Windows Recovery Environment) where to do the repairs to and all the actives is confusing the matter.

Now with only the "Disk #1" connected, do the startup repairs, with the restarts to create the new boot files to that partition; out-lined in this tutorial at the link below.

Startup Repair - Run 3 Separate Times


BTW, the "System, Active" partition is where the boot files are presently stored.

Make sure the Windows 7 HD is set as first HD to boot in BIOS setup, or swap the cable from DISKO to it when you unplug DISK0, which contains the System Active boot files for Windows 7, and DISK2. THen boot your Windows 7 DVD to run Startup Repair up to 3 separate times as shown in tutorial above.

After Windows 7 boots, power down to plug back in the other two HD's, then boot the Windows 7 DVD press Shift F10 to open a Command Line to mark them Inactive using the Diskpart commands given in this tutorial: Partition - Mark as Active The only difference from the steps given in tutorial is you will be marking the Active partitions on the two non-Windows 7 HD's Inactive instead of Active so that they can't derail your System MBR from Windows 7 again.

That one does not show how to mark " Inactive " you have to use Option Two #2 in this tutorial.


Startup Repair - Run 3 Separate Times