HELP! having DRASTIC trouble removing dual boot!

[robothenry]

I have a dual boot system with two of the same copies of XP3 installed on two drives.
One HD is 500GB SATA, with 3 partitions. 2 partitions are just empty space for storage (drive letters C and E). The last partition is my MAIN OS for regular use (letter F).
Other HD is 8GB ATA (letter D set as master on IDE1, has no other device on the ribbon). Has a clean install of XP3. I am trying to dispose of this drive as I am now trying to run a silent PC and this old disk makes a LOT of noise.

I've tried pulling the plug on the 8GB ATA and then running fixboot and fixmbr on the Recovery Console but it has not been successful. Each time I try to boot, I get the message "Invalid partition table".

My suspicion is that the necessary boot files for both OSs are stuck on the 8GB ATA. How can I get my system to work as single boot with the SATA drive? Does the order of the drive letters have importance? Please help!

Here's an image of what partition magic diagnoses my drives as.

http://files.openomy.com/public/robothenry/pmagic.JPG

F: is where I boot from to do my regular work. I'm trying to get rid of D: The Henry drives are just NTFS partitions for me to store stuff.

 

[KSoD]

The problem is that first off the 2nd drive is not the master drive. So it will never be used as a bot drive over te 8GB drive.

2nd the F:\ drive is not your boot drive. The D:\ drive is. With PM mark the F:\ drive as the active system drive.

 

[EricB]

you create partitions at the wrong part of install. go to folder options and uncheck the hide protected OS find your boot.ini. copy the text and paste it here. so I can show you how to modify it and save it to the right spot.



somebody else here had this issue (thorn) once, but since he got a big kick out of attacking me, I refused to help him


Edit. you have to reinstall window. my edited comments below explain why.

you can take the 8 gig out and then reinstall windows. you never want an f OS. it can cause all kind of problems. those partition table is jacked because you have xp set as the third partition. it was never meant to run like that. xp has to be first (xp is funny like that. you do it with vista and other OS's). the only reason that you even got that off is because the xp cd wrote the boot.ini to the first drive

 

[robothenry]

[boot loader]
timeout=1
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /noexecute=optin /fastdetect
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS=""
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(3)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /noexecute=optin /fastdetect

so if i reinstall XP on the first partition and get rid of the 8GB, should my dual boot work again? i'd like to just have a single boot but i'm okay with dual boot if it helps me keep all my settings in my current install

 

[KSoD]

If you get rid of the 8GB and move it to the first partition you shouldnt have a dual boot anymore. Unless you plan on keeping the install on the F drive.

 

[EricB]

you going to have to reinstall windows. I explain that in my edit part of the last post. xp will never work with two non hidden ntfs partition is in front of it on the first drive

Edit. you have to reinstall window. my edited comments below explain why.

you can take the 8 gig out and then reinstall windows. you never want an f OS. it can cause all kind of problems. those partition table is jacked because you have xp set as the third partition. it was never meant to run like that. xp has to be first (xp is funny like that. you do it with vista and other OS's). the only reason that you even got that off is because the xp cd wrote the boot.ini to the first drive

 

[EricB]

I could have show you how to change this if xp was on the first partition of the second disc

[boot loader]
timeout=1
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /noexecute=optin /fastdetect
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS=""
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(3)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /noexecute=optin /fastdetect

so if i reinstall XP on the first partition and get rid of the 8GB, should my dual boot work again? i'd like to just have a single boot but i'm okay with dual boot if it helps me keep all my settings in my current install

 

[robothenry]

Alright, this is what I had with the last working set up

[boot loader]
timeout=5
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(3)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(3)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional Main" /noexecute=optin /fastdetect
signature(891b8327)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /noexecute=optin /fastdetect

 

[KSoD]

Eric answered this back on post 6. You will have to reinstall.

 

[EricB]

for optimum xp performance you should set it up like this. then you could use the 8 gig drive as a swap file.