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How to return drive MBRs and FATs to their pre-Windows-7 states
I have two SATA hard drives that are confused about themselves and are causing confusion in my multi-boot system. One of them somehow convinces my BIOS it is the third drive (hd2) in my system even though it is now connected fourth (hd3), and the other variously shows up either as fourth (hd3) or fifth (hd4) even though it is actually (physically) connected as my third (hd2) drive. All of this began a few months ago following a regular Windows 7 update, and absolutely nothing I have tried so far has been successful in undoing whatever Windows 7 had done.
I can live with SATA #2 somehow convincing my BIOS it is actually SATA #1, but I need my SATA #1 to stop showing us as two different drives. Two examples:
In KillDisk, my physical SATA #1 still shows us as two different drives even after having been ZEROed, and now here is how its first two partitions are being accessed for their separate installations of XP (via boot.ini):
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(4)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Windows XP Pro1"
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(3)partition(2)\WINDOWS="Windows XP Pro2"
note: Both of the above installations are on the same hard drive that would actually be known as 'rdisk(2)' if I could get my actual #4 to stop somehow convincing my BIOS it is #2.
Question: Does anyone here know how to manually edit sectors so my #3 will again have only one FAT?
note: Its first FAT actually could be coming from the other SATA and I have not tried either drive in KillDisk without the other also being connected at the same time. So, maybe the challenge here is to fix the #3 drive that is somehow showing itself as #2. The two drives appear as physically connected prior to the actual start of an OS, but then #3 pushes itself in as #2 and leaves the real #2 with no option other than to be #3 or even #4 while an OS is actually running.
Last edited by leejosepho; 14 May 2015 at 05:20.