I finished fixing the drives, and I sent my important files to a cloud based server, and a flash drive. THis i s my updated disk management screen, after renaming some partitions, deleting a bunch of junk, converting from dynamic to basic, and setting the correct order.
I plugged C: in first, botted, plugged in D:, re-booted, and then plugged in F: (I chose to skip E: because a couple of old programs I wrote before environment variables refer to F:/)
2 things I see, C: should read as Disk 0 ( actually just 1 now that I see you wanted to skip E: )
Having C: as disk 0 is just a pet peeve of mine, I don`t like to see it any where else.
Something else I always do, I change the letter of the cd/dvd drive to X, Y, or Z. Just so when you add another drive or make more partitions, they will grab the next letters of the alphabet.
And D: is still showing as active, did you get rid of the OS on that drive ? Did you format it ?
Yes, only the drive intended to boot the OS should be marked Active.
If Win7 HD is not in Disk0 position, then during Startup Repair or Reinstall the System boot files can be derailed to a preceding Primary partition - especially if that partition is marked Active, or the other HD's are not unplugged.
So if possible I'd switch cables between Disk0 and DIsk2, assure Win7 is then set first HD to boot in BIOS setup before trying to start it again.
Ok, marked D: as inactive, formatting shortly
Remember to back up the data first.
If you're formatting it to use for data, I would make it a Logical partition so it can't become marked Active to derail the boot files: Partition / Extended : Logical Drives - Windows 7 Forums
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