Legit Reviews

Ok first off I hope this is in the right forum section...It could have gone to a few...



Here's my problem... I recently added a 2nd hard drive and installed Vista 64 on it. It is plugged into sata2 on the motherboard. My original hard drive runs xp pro and is plugged to sata1. When I first installed vista I unplugged the xp drive(sata cable) just in case it would cause some problems... Ok everything was fine, Vista installed no problem, I installed all my drivers etc etc. I then hooked xp drive back up and rebooted. (Note: I was planning on choosing to boot xp or vista by changing the boot priority either in bios or by hitting esc)


To make a long story short, now my machine will only boot up into xp. If I choose to boot from the Vista drive it gets as far as the little green loading bar and then it hangs. But XP boots no problem whatsoever.

I switched the sata cables so that Vista was plugged to sata1 and xp was sata2 ...it didn't help.

The only way I can get Vista to boot is if it is the only drive hooked up. Then it boots no problem.

Anybody have a clue what is the problem? This is driving me nuts, Thanks in advance guys!

Note: Sata connectors 3 and 4 are not able to be used as my gpu is in the way. I tried plugging one drive into sata 5 but it wasn't recognized(guess I need a driver installed?)

I think I got it figured out, I need to re-install vista this time leaving the xp drive plugged in so as to not corrupt the boot.ini file/sequence.

Yes, because the boot manager in Vista uses a new proccess versus the old ones.

Yes, install Vista again, or try to recover it, but with all drives plugged. Maybe you are going have problems in vista installation.. but it is another story...

Good luck,
MBL.