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Re: Setting active drive/partition in XP

Subject: Re: Setting active drive/partition in XP
From: "Keith"
Date: Tue, 31 Jan 2006 19:14:28 -0000
Newsgroups: microsoft.public.windowsxp.general
Dont listen to Andrew E.
He's barmy.

Miescha wrote:
> Just to be clear (as I am new to XP as stated) should my hard drive
> be listed as 'active' in the drive management console or is 'system'
> correct?  This is the only drive and only partition on the sytem.
>
> Also, if using XCOPY as suggested, will the MBR also be copied to the
> second drive?
>
> Many thanks.
>
> "Andrew E." wrote:
>
>>   Xp doesnt run with FDISK.Try installing xp cd,boot to xp cd,at
>>  menu select r for recovery,select 1 for disk C: press enter for
>> password,then type:CHKDSK C: /R
>>   After type:EXIT  Let xp start up.If the OS is damaged,boot to xp
>>  cd,select install xp,repair this copy.If youre pcs are identical
>> w/o any
>> variations,you can
>>  install 2nd drive from other machine,set as slave,format the
>> drive,then go to run,
>>  type:XCOPY C:\*.* D:\ /c/h/e/k/r  Agree to all in the DOS
>>  window,when the DOS window exits,youre thru,C: and all its contents
>> are on other drive,move to
>>  other pc.Also,D: being slave,but if asigned diffrent letter then
>> use that.
>>
>>
>> "Miescha" wrote:
>>
>>> I'm new to XP pro, but not computers overall.  Our small company is
>>> preparing to move from WIN 2K pro to XP pro.  I set up and "played"
>>> with one of our new PCs using XP pro and all the various software
>>> we use.  After little more than a week, I'm happy with XP pro and
>>> confident the system is stable and fully 'updated' (for now).
>>>
>>> In an attempt to deploy the setup to the other PCs, I connected a
>>> second hard drive and used Symantec's Norton Ghost 10 (part of
>>> SystemWorks 2006) to "copy my hard drive" to the second 'target'
>>> drive from the first 'source' drive.  I selected the options to
>>> copy the MBR and set the 'target' drive as active.  After
>>> completion, I shut down and removed the 'target' drive.
>>>
>>> Upon installing the 'target' drive to one of the new PCs (all
>>> identical machines with identical or nearly identical hardware to
>>> the 'source' machine) all did not work well - the POST went fine
>>> and the 'starting windows' appeared but then the machine froze on
>>> what looked like the shut down/log out screen of XP (blue
>>> background with small XP logo).  That is a question for another
>>> time perhaps.
>>>
>>> The problem at the moment is that when I put the second 'target'
>>> drive back in the original 'source' PC, it is still listed as the
>>> active drive and the 'source' drive is listed only as a 'system'
>>> drive.  The disk management console with not let me change this
>>> (the 'make partition active choice is greyed out).  What am I
>>> missing?  In this state, XP will not let me format the 'target'
>>> drive and Ghost 10 will not let me duplicate the 'source' drive to
>>>  the 'target' and format in the process b/c it is the current
>>> active drive. I also tried to change the active setting using
>>> DISKPART inside XP and FDISK from a WIN98 boot disk - no luck with
>>> either (although FDISK shows the 'source' disk as the active disk
>>> when it is the only disk connected).
>>>
>>> Any thoughts? 



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