Can I make a logical drive primary?

soon2bexpat · 16 Jan 2010

I have 4 SATA drives. Disk 1 is C: (Primary with Windows 7 64 bit). Disk 0,2 & 3 are data drives (D,E,F).

I am having bad sector problems on the C: drive and have ordered a new one. However, I was wondering if I could turn the D: drive into the C: drive by shutting down the computer, removing the faulty C: drive, then booting to the W7 (RC 7100) DVD and do an install. Then when the repalcement drive arrives, install it as a data drive.

Right now, the D: drive has just one logical partition and some data that is backed up.

Lebon14 · 16 Jan 2010

If I understood, you have four different hard drives. C:\, disc 1, has Win7 x64 with bad sector. You backed up the data on the second hard drive, D:\, and want to make Primary.

Well, you can but you will to install Win7 on it and format it during the installation. But if you want to put it simply Primary, the answer is No. You need an OS on the hard drive for it to be primary.

surfasb · 16 Jan 2010

Yes, this is quite possible. When you reinstall Windows, it will label the new partition as the primary.

soon2bexpat · 16 Jan 2010

Thnak you. I'll try it.

Do I have to do anything to the faulty C: drive before I remove it, or can I power down and just pull it and reboot?

surfasb · 16 Jan 2010

Power down and pull.

unifex · 16 Jan 2010

Basically, you could even leave it there and install another OS on your drive D. On my machine that's what I did - I originally bought the computer with Vista installed. Then 7 came out and I wanted to try it, so I got another hard drive and installed 7 on it, doing nothing to Vista. Now I have a dual boot machine. Moreover, each OS sees the drive on which it is installed as drive C :) - there is no reason for two different OS to keep the same letter assigned to the same drives.

Of course, I understand that you want to change the drive you are having problems with. I just wanted to illustrate what was already suggested before - you can simply install an OS on another drive, and do whatever you want with the faulty drive - leave it, pull it, replace it.

Venths · 16 Jan 2010

Hi,

What is the fault with your drive? we could try recovering it if possible !

gregrocker · 16 Jan 2010

You should run CHKDSK and your maker's HD diagnostics/repair CD on the HD as it can often be salvaged.

You can also save a Win7 backup image of the HD now, then reimage to the other HD by booting from the Win7 DVD into Repair console, selecting Recover Using an Image.

soon2bexpat · 16 Jan 2010

Venths said:

Hi,

What is the fault with your drive? we could try recovering it if possible !

The hard drive light was staying on and the system would stall or react very slowly. Then I got a couple of BSODs. Running chkdsk showed 30000k in bad sectors. Event viewer showed numerous and constant HDD error reports.

I just pulled the drive and tried to install W7 onto the D: drive. I deleted the partition and formatted. It made the D drive primary but Windows wouldn't install. Something to the effect of 'no system partition found'. I should have written the message down, but I put the old disk back in so that I could get a somewhat usable system unitl the new drive comes in Monday.

Saltgrass · 16 Jan 2010

You probably don't have the drive you think set as primary in the bios drive priority. This primary is different from a primary partition, but you need both.

If you want to make sure, disconnect all other drives then install. As long as you are not trying to use a logical partition, it should work.