Both drives needed to find OS?

<OtakuMark> Okay, I'm having a very bad problem :(
<OtakuMark> I had two drives, one with winxp pro and one with win2k3, and I formatted the win2k3 drive in winxp pro
<OtakuMark> Now, I try to take out either drive to figure out which is the Win2k3 drive, and it doesn't find an OS at all. No OS select screen, nothing.
<OtakuMark> However, if I plug both drives in, I can select my OS. (Win2k3 just hangs and goes back to the OS select screen, Winxp boots)

<goat> your boot.ini is on your winxp drive
<goat> and your disk that would be 1 is now 0 for win2k3
<goat> if you only have 1 drive
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<goat> multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)pa rtition(1)
<goat> that's what it needs to read

<OtakuMark> crap!
<OtakuMark> If I remove either drive
<OtakuMark> it gives the same no OS error, again! :(

I formatted the win2k3 HDD and am trying to remove it. I removed what I believe to be all signs of it from boot.ini, and used recovery console to make sure Windows was set correctly that way.

And it's still requiring BOTH drives to boot any OS.

Fixed, somehow. I think God lent me a hand for a minute.

<OtakuMark> <OtakuMark> It fixed itself. Don't ask how, or why. It did.]
<goat> it works?
<goat> what did you do?
<OtakuMark> Nothing :(
<OtakuMark> It didn't work
<OtakuMark> So
<OtakuMark> I wanted to figure out which drive
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<OtakuMark> Windows was on
<OtakuMark> so, I removed one
<OtakuMark> and then booted to recovery console
<OtakuMark> it said there was no windows detected
<OtakuMark> so, I removed the second drive's power
<OtakuMark> but FORGOT to attach the power to the first
<OtakuMark> so it booted to recovery console and didn't dectect any drives at all!
<OtakuMark> So, I turned it off
<OtakuMark> reconnected the first power
<OtakuMark> and then started it
<OtakuMark> it then skipped any cd booting and booted normally, with the second drive unpowered, to windows XP
<goat> crazy
<OtakuMark> indeed

Wow, this is interesting. It turns out I have to have a WinXP CD in the drive, and NOT hit any keys so it doesn't boot to CD for WinXP Pro to actually load.

Seemingly, my computer has a "SOMETHING IS NOT WORKING NOW I BOOT NORMALLY" fetish.


=/

<_< >_> its like useing the cd as a boot loader.

Nono, because if I don't have a CD and have a formatted hard drive connected it boots normally too. D: