Windows 7: Windows & install and asus p5n-d

HI all
hoping for some answers.

Tried loading a clean install on my system. Asus p5n-d mobo e8400 pro geforce 9800gtx+ 1 x ide with xp and 1 x sata with xp

Installed a new second Sata looking to get rid of the ide drive after install
everything disconnected except the new sata and a sata optical

Install hangs doesn't even get started many attempts.

Booted up existing xp on the existing sata drive and inserted windows 7 install disk. This caused the system to completly freeze no mouse movement nothing.

Booted up system with xp on old ide drive and inserted windows 7 install and it worked!

Had the install load windows 7 on the new sata drive.

All is ok but to load windows 7 now i have to boot via the old ide drive.

booting up from the new sata drive fails. so obviously can't get rid of old ide drive now.

So any ideas as to why the above has happened??(am suspecting sata driver issues)

And also is there a workaround to do a clean install direct to my new sata drive?

Thx in advance

Vinno

Welcome to Seven Forums.

Your computer boot files are on the old XP IDE HD.

Can you take a Snip of Disk Management with both HDs?

Start button, in search programs and file box type 'Disk Management' and hit enter.

Start button, click Snipping Tool. Save the pic somewhere.

How to Post a Screenshot in Seven Forums

Have you backed up your new Windows 7 yet?

Hi thanks for reply here is the snip

vinno

From your snip, which one is the IDE drive and which one is the Windows 7 drive?

I'll take a guess,
Disk0, partition 2, C:/ is the original XP and IDE drive?

Disk1, partition 1, D:/ is the second XP and a SATA drive?

Disk2, partition 1, F:/ is the Windows 7 and a SATA drive?

Is this correct?

How long have you had the second XP on your Disk1?
Did you do a clean install have you installed your programs personal files etc?

An easy way to get the boot files from your old XP HD to the new XP HD would be to use a backup of the old XP and restore it to the new XP, then disconnect the old HD and see if the computer will boot from the new XP.

The best way to move all your partitions from an old HD to a new one is to Clone the old HD.

If you don't want to do that we can try to move the boot files.

Do you want to keep XP on a dual boot with Windows 7?

The reason I ask is that many are wanting to bail out of XP soon after installing Windows 7 and it is not that easy if you have created a dual boot.

If you would like to install just the Windows 7, then unplug the other drives and reinstall Windows 7 to it's own drive.

You can still plug in the other drives afterward and use them as data drives, or boot into them separately using BIOS shortcut key (F10 usually) allowing you boot to XP drive first, rather than having a more complicated dual boot which makes your 7 dependent upon the XP.

Thanks for replies.

firstly Dave76 your are correct in your analysis of my drives
Disk0 is the ide drive and is my old XP disk which I use for general purpose i.e. email, dvd autoring etc.

Disk1 is sata also with XP loaded i use it for flightsimming no other programmes loaded on it but do not want to lose this drive obviously

Disk2 is the new sata and i have loaded windows 7 on it but could only do this from within XP i.e i fired up XP from the old ide drive and installed windows 7 from there. I did try loading it from within XP by firing up XP on disk1 my sata drive but as soon as put the windows 7 instal disk in my dvd drive the whole system froze.

so at present to load windows 7 i have to point my bios to the ide drive as first in the sequence. I am then given the option of either loading "an older version of windows" i.e. the XP that is on my disk or windows 7, both of them work fine. I can also if i want to flightsim direct my bios to my old sata and that will boot fine.

So as you can see everything is working at present but if I didn't have my old ide drive it looks like i would never have got it to work(on another forum someone with my mobo swapped it out for another keeping his processor memory garaphics and drive etc and loaded Windows 7 fine, he couldn't on the asus p5n-d)

I did do a clean install so am happy to mess about with it at present all my old files etc are happy on my old ide drive. I presume that the boot.ini on my old ide drive points to the new sata to load Windows 7 but if i try to boot from the new sata i get a non sys disk error so copying the boot.ini over and renaming the windows drives may be a way forward.

To Gregrocker

yes i do want to keep xp but only on my old sata drive. And you are right in that at present i am dependant on the XP on my ide drive if i want to run Windows 7 which is not ideal. Did try loading to the new sata with all other drives disconnected with no success install took an age to even get started and would freeze just after i loaded my language options. i presume this is because the win 7 install is not loading the correct sata drivers for my setup

So if i didn't have my old ide drive but rather had just the two sata drives in my system i don't think i would have been able to load Windows 7(just like the other fella on the other forum with the same mobo) this is obviously not ideal and if i didn't have a smidgen of knowledge about computers i would have beenh back to pc world abusing staff for selling me duff windows7 disks!!!

So the ideal would be to load Windows 7 directly onto my new sata a full clean install. If that is not possible then as Dave76 says i could copy over the boot.ini files from the old ide but you would have to walk me through that( i only have a smidgen of knowledge!!!)

Thx for your efforts thus far

Vinno