[frankjohn]

Need some help on this. Running Windows XP home on a home build.Have a IDE hard drive already installed with windows, i added a sata hard drive and named it F. It shows in bios and in my computer. What the problem is i cant get it to boot from F. Meaning bios wont let me change the boot order.What i want to do is load windows on to the F drive.

[BG-0]

Heh, I had the excact same issue with my old computer and I was told that no such issue could occur. (That SATA couldn't go ahead IDE, even if there's no OS on the IDE, meaning it's a boot device with no capatibility to boot...) Why won't you disconnect the IDE, install windows on the SATA, and you're done? I'm guessing you want to copy some files internally from the IDE to the SATA? That's where the problem is... I only managed to do so by connecting the IDE drive while the OS on the SATA was running. DO NOT DO SO! It will cause a lot of problems. I guess. I think I fried the IDE drive that way. Propably my MB's IDE controller too.

[frankjohn]

Ill try the dis connect method.THANKS

[Rich-M]

You should be able to do that providing you jumper the ide drive a slave drive and make sure you enable the sata drive and choose it as the boot drive as well.

[BG-0]

That might not work, didn't work for me... Thought he had already done the basics.

[neil21stirling]

Make sure while both drives connected (and windows installed on Sata drive)
to change boot order to boot from SCSI before IDE,

[crjdriver]

Boot order and hard drive priority are two different things. With most bios, you set boot order ie; CD, Hard disk, Floppy. There is usually another setting for hd priority. This is where you will select which hd will boot.

Next do you want to clone your ide drive to the sata or are you going to do a clean install of windows on the sata?

[frankjohn]

CRJDRIVER, i did that priorty and tried to move the sata to boot 1st but no go,What i did do though is on my start up window i hit F12 and this put me into a screen with both hard drives. I then set the sata !st and ide 2nd from there [test only] it worked.I dont want to clone i just want to add windows.

[crjdriver]

OK, you simply need to install windows on the drive. I would disconnect your ide drive at least during the install. Next you may or may not need to load the sata driver during setup. This depends on the mode of the sata controller; ie ahci, native ide, or raid. It also is dependent on the type of motherboard you are using. XP has native drivers for most intel chipsets [when set to ide mode] however if you are using an nforce, via, etc you will most likely need to load drivers.

[crjdriver]

Since you had problems moving/selecting the boot drive, I am going to guess you have an asus board? Is that correct?

[frankjohn]

using n force,no raid install

[frankjohn]

Forgot to answer your question,the board is a Gigabyte GAK8N SLI

[crjdriver]

OK, you may or may not need to load drivers. Boot with your xp cd. If it "sees" your drive great, if not then you need to load the sata driver. You should have received a driver disk with your board OR the support CD should have some type of "make disk" app.

[frankjohn]

Thanks ,I notice you are very helpfull with other posts.