Hard drive & new windows install

casacristeva

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Hi

Advice please.......

I have windows7/8 upgrade, new additional hard drive which is twice as large as current one.

I want to now install windows on new drive which has been partitioned to have XP and Linux installed as well to mess about with...

Do I have to disconnect internally the current additional drives, including the current C drive? or Can I simply go into the BIOS and changing the boot sequence to the new drive and the primary partition?

Re-boot and hope it will got there, find no system and install there...... or CD primary to pick up the installation disk and then install to new hdd?

Then hopefully simply wipe the old drive with the windows on it from old and start fresh.... all data etc has been backed up already.

I just don't really want to delve into the case and leads etc to disconnect!!

Any thoughts please from you experts?

best wishes

Steve :lease:
 
When installing Windows onto a new drive, you need to ensure that the install drive is the only one connected to your motherboard. Once installed, you can then connect the other drive/s and configure them from the OS.
 
Hi,

I followed instructions as per my computer man in shop.

The new drive was formatted and partitioned within win8, and I learned a lot today!

The drives bar the new one were then disconnected via SATA leads, if it was wrong that is my fault....... but then the machine was then re-booted and black screen with message an operating system wasn't found. Try disconnecting any drives that don't contain an operating system. Press ctrl+alt+del.

That was all done but nothing happened same result.

The bios showed cd drive first then new drive, still same result!

Show connected up as it was and then no message, cant get into bios as it seems graphics card not working now...... monitor showing no signal now and of course it's the weekend!

Have checked as best I can with connections and all seems good as nothing touched by me as drive was installed into new case and all tight!

So I now fear the piggin graphics card is kaput! Can't think of any other reason.....

Steve
 
Most likely you won't be able to boot to the old xp installation and it will just blu screen. You will be able to physically have the 2 drives in there without issue. What are you trying to achieve exactly?
 
I want to be able to install dual system, win7/8 upgrade (already on old drive).

A third drive has been installed twice as big.... so the plan was supposed to be simple.......

install new drive, partition to what I wanted for 7/8 and xp in each partition, the other drive with old OS on was then for backup or whatever.......

but then the message showed up and nothing else and no matter what was done - no joy!

so all was put back as it was and the message came back......... no matter what was tried.....

then only a black screen, the power button suggested on the tower that maybe the system was booting, but now there is no video signal and I think the graphics card has gone down now!!

thanks

Steve
 
Ahh, in the bios you just need to set the smaller drive to boot from by the sounds of it. Then it should pick up the boot loader from the windows 7/8 drive and you can choose accordingly. What you probably have is 2 drives both with MBRs so both think they are the primary drive.
 
What you probably have is 2 drives both with MBRs so both think they are the primary drive.

When installing Windows onto a new drive, you need to ensure that the install drive is the only one connected to your motherboard. Once installed, you can then connect the other drive/s and configure them from the OS.

:rolleyes:
 
Sliver said:

Not true. The bios will look at whatever drive comes first... And read the MBR from that drive will be used. You simply select the drive in your bios that has the correct OS to boot from first. I can assure you this is the case...
 
thank you but I can't get into the bios as no graphics are being picked suddenly........ can't see anything else at all, no graphics signal being found now........ so a bit screwed for the time being it appears!

question though.......

why would the boot be from the smaller drive, which already has the system on it, and I want that drive formatted, and the new 500gb drive to be master and so forth, I have no idea how to get things back now......

all seems to be there but no boot up pictures to respond to DEL to get into bios

Steve
 
casacristeva said:
thank you but I can't get into the bios as no graphics are being picked suddenly........ can't see anything else at all, no graphics signal being found now........ so a bit screwed for the time being it appears!

question though.......

why would the boot be from the smaller drive, which already has the system on it, and I want that drive formatted, and the new 500gb drive to be master and so forth, I have no idea how to get things back now......

all seems to be there but no boot up pictures to respond to DEL to get into bios

Steve

Did you add anything new other than the hard drive? If not then temporarily remove the small coin battery on your PC (without the power cord I in) press the power button a few times to clear any left over charge. Replace battery and turn on again. That will probably bring something up again. Then go in to your bios menu and select whichever the drive you want to boot from as your primary boot device.
 
You can quote whatever you like. But whatever you select as your primary boot device in the bios will have the bootloader written too it. I do this sort of thing on a daily basis as a job so sorry but I know what I am on about.


Well if that is true, which I'm sure it's not, then why are so many people posting on the internet about problems installing Windows when more than one HDD/SDD are connected to the motherboard?

I'm not going to continue this discourse with you as you have made it clear I'm wasting my time. I hope and trust that others reading this will arrive at what is true after doing some very simple google searches. :smashin:
 
Sliver said:
Well if that is true, which I'm sure it's not, then why are so many people posting on the internet about problems installing Windows when more than one HDD/SDD are connected to the motherboard?

I'm not going to continue this discourse with you as you have made it clear I'm wasting my time. I hope and trust that others reading this will arrive at what is true after doing some very simple google searches. :smashin:

Because they don't understand how to set a particular drive as boot?

As you say though no point debating.
 
I honestly appreciated all that is said, so in the morning will look for the mobo battery to try again, it just seems crazy at this time that there is no graphics to get into bios....

so please let me get my scenario clear.....

1. my old drive which currently has OS on disconnected at first, along with new and other 1tb.....
2. ALL HDD except new 500gb disconnected.
3. then booted up and got the black screen message regarding no operating system ctrl etc to start again...... BEEN LIKE THAT EVER SINCE!

now advice.........

take the battery out of the mobo, press start button several times to make sure rid of any other charge.......

then start up again.....

is that possible to get the video signal back up again?

Please forgive me as this is a silver surfer leqrning and following instructions given, it needs to be sooooooo idiot proof ideas am afraid!

many thanks to everyone........ if I can get sorted with your help, will be eternally grateful.

Just want to install fresh install of win7/8 on new partitioned drive, the format old system and programs drive! SIMPLES!

Steve :lease:
 
casacristeva said:
I honestly appreciated all that is said, so in the morning will look for the mobo battery to try again, it just seems crazy at this time that there is no graphics to get into bios....

so please let me get my scenario clear.....

1. my old drive which currently has OS on disconnected at first, along with new and other 1tb.....
2. ALL HDD except new 500gb disconnected.
3. then booted up and got the black screen message regarding no operating system ctrl etc to start again...... BEEN LIKE THAT EVER SINCE!

now advice.........

take the battery out of the mobo, press start button several times to make sure rid of any other charge.......

then start up again.....

is that possible to get the video signal back up again?

Please forgive me as this is a silver surfer leqrning and following instructions given, it needs to be sooooooo idiot proof ideas am afraid!

many thanks to everyone........ if I can get sorted with your help, will be eternally grateful.

Just want to install fresh install of win7/8 on new partitioned drive, the format old system and programs drive! SIMPLES!

Steve :lease:

First thing is simply undo what you did and see if it boots then (I assume you just added in old hard drive to new PC)?

If still no boot then move on to bios reset step (battery removal as described)

Once you have done that let us know what happens.

As far as I can tell your new drive is the one you want to boot from (with win 7/8) then use old XP drive as secondary drive?

Bed time for me as sadly as on call tonight. Will respond tomorrow to any response.
 
Hi

Advice please.......

I have windows7/8 upgrade, new additional hard drive which is twice as large as current one.

I want to now install windows on new drive which has been partitioned to have XP and Linux installed as well to mess about with...

Do I have to disconnect internally the current additional drives, including the current C drive? or Can I simply go into the BIOS and changing the boot sequence to the new drive and the primary partition?

Re-boot and hope it will got there, find no system and install there...... or CD primary to pick up the installation disk and then install to new hdd?

Then hopefully simply wipe the old drive with the windows on it from old and start fresh.... all data etc has been backed up already.

I just don't really want to delve into the case and leads etc to disconnect!!

Any thoughts please from you experts?

best wishes

Steve :lease:

I believe when installing Windows 7 or 8 that you must disconnect all HDD's other than the HDD you are installing Windows on. Once Windows is installed you can reconnect the other boot drives.

David
 
DavidT said:
I believe when installing Windows 7 or 8 that you must disconnect all HDD's other than the HDD you are installing Windows on. Once Windows is installed you can reconnect the other boot drives.

David

Nope. The only reason you might want to disconnect the old drive during an install is if you want to make sure the new MBR is written to the new disk. It is perfectly possible to install windows 7 to a second drive with the old one still in.
Source: Me, I do this sort of thing in my job and have recently done my own desktop at home when I added an SSD to boot from.
 
casacristeva said:
Hi

Advice please.......

I have windows7/8 upgrade, new additional hard drive which is twice as large as current one.

I want to now install windows on new drive which has been partitioned to have XP and Linux installed as well to mess about with...

Do I have to disconnect internally the current additional drives, including the current C drive? or Can I simply go into the BIOS and changing the boot sequence to the new drive and the primary partition?

Re-boot and hope it will got there, find no system and install there...... or CD primary to pick up the installation disk and then install to new hdd?

Then hopefully simply wipe the old drive with the windows on it from old and start fresh.... all data etc has been backed up already.

I just don't really want to delve into the case and leads etc to disconnect!!

Any thoughts please from you experts?

best wishes

Steve :lease:

Ok some questions.
1: do you want to keep XP and dual boot?
2: have your partitioned some space off for windows 7 on the drive? If not you will want to do this first.
3: you say your first drive is your 'c' drive. Is there an OS on that too?
4: your going to have fun trying to fix the bootloader for your Linux distro (probably GRUB) if you already installed Linux, its not the simplest to figure out. My suggestion would be if your just playing with it to remove those partitions, restore XP's own loader, install windows 7, reinstall your distro.

Or if you don't want to keep any data as you mention just format both disks from a bootable cd, reboot, in bios change the boot order to start from the drive to the one you want to be the primary.
 
Nope. The only reason you might want to disconnect the old drive during an install is if you want to make sure the new MBR is written to the new disk. It is perfectly possible to install windows 7 to a second drive with the old one still in.
Source: Me, I do this sort of thing in my job and have recently done my own desktop at home when I added an SSD to boot from.

So I am right then.....to make sure the install is to the correct HDD disconnect alll the others.

David
 
So I am right then.....to make sure the install is to the correct HDD disconnect alll the others.

David

Kind of, but the question is 'can he do it without having to unplug the second drive' and the answer is 'yes'. Its an extreme way of making sure though. Depends on what you are trying to achieve. If all the drives are formatted (ie blank) windows will write its own boot loader to the drive you select for its install (which could be any drive or partition you want), you then ensure this is the selected boot drive in the BIOS. If the windows 7 installer detects an existing OS (say XP) on a different drive then it will assume that that is the first boot drive and install a new bootloader onto that drive, however you can still put the actual OS onto the second drive (so you have bootloader and XP on drive 1 and Windows 7 on disk2 for example). GRUB (which for the purposes of this explanation I am guessing he uses for whatever Linux Distro he uses) works in a similar way.

From the original post to me it looks like he is starting from 2 now blank drives, if this is the case there really is no need to remove them. Just select the right drive during the install process.
 
Well if that is true, which I'm sure it's not, then why are so many people posting on the internet about problems installing Windows when more than one HDD/SDD are connected to the motherboard?

I'm not going to continue this discourse with you as you have made it clear I'm wasting my time. I hope and trust that others reading this will arrive at what is true after doing some very simple google searches. :smashin:

Do you need to be like that? I have real world experience not just some 'simple google searches' and I am trying to help someone with it. I have done this sort of thing many times before so know I am correct unless I have completely misunderstood the question. People will struggle with this not because it can't be done but because it is not the simplest thing in the world to do.There may be the odd case where it is genuinely impossible but it certainly is not the norm.

An example - On my home desktop I have 5 drives 3 in a RAID 5 an SSD and a small old drive use for Debian. I have Windows 8 on the SSD, Windows 7 on the RAID 5 and Debian on the old drive. The OSs are all separated, Grub is actually on the RAID 5 (as Windows 7 is what I had on there first).
 
Just to make it easier OP here are some screenshots of me installing Windows 7 on a Virtual Machine that already has XP on it. Note all drives are connected.

On installing Windows 7 you can see it has 3 drives i can install too. I don't select the XP one as I want to keep it. If you want to delete it you of course can using the 'Drive options (advanced)' link and you wont have to worry about boot loaders at all
Win7Install1_zps8c338d6e.jpg


I now have the option of booting either XP or 7,
bootselect2_zpse1ac493e.jpg


and when I look at disk management i see this, note 'system' is on disk 0 which is my XP drive, this is what controls your booting. If you have 2 of these (which if you take your old disk out during install and have left an OS on you will) then when you reboot it will use the drive selected first in the boot order so you may not end up in the OS you want.
http://i1339.photobucket.com/albums/o713/vmistery/Win7Installed3BootLoaderOnOldDrive_zps5ae223de.jpg

Now, If you want to move your Bootloader (in windows 7) you can use the BCDBoot command (best do some research on this before you use it), this will then move you bootloader on to the drive of your choice. You can then set the main disk as your primary boot.

Unless you think you are going to remove the other drive in the future I'd just leave the bootloader on the old drive though. Its easy enough to recreate on the new drive if the old one fails from a win 7 disk.

Sorry if this explanation is a bit rushed.
 
Kind of, but the question is 'can he do it without having to unplug the second drive' and the answer is 'yes'. Its an extreme way of making sure though. Depends on what you are trying to achieve. If all the drives are formatted (ie blank) windows will write its own boot loader to the drive you select for its install (which could be any drive or partition you want), you then ensure this is the selected boot drive in the BIOS. If the windows 7 installer detects an existing OS (say XP) on a different drive then it will assume that that is the first boot drive and install a new bootloader onto that drive, however you can still put the actual OS onto the second drive (so you have bootloader and XP on drive 1 and Windows 7 on disk2 for example). GRUB (which for the purposes of this explanation I am guessing he uses for whatever Linux Distro he uses) works in a similar way.

From the original post to me it looks like he is starting from 2 now blank drives, if this is the case there really is no need to remove them. Just select the right drive during the install process.

I got the impression that the OP wants to install windows on a new drive in a PC that already has a C: drive with XP on it.

David
 

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