Im trying to boot my 250gb SeagateSATA drive first with Vista installed. But when i plugged in my 40gb WD IDE drive, i cant seem to change the order of boot in the BIOS. When i select the SATA drive to boot first, it accepts the changes, then doesnt actually set it as first priority. I cant even boot into the 40gb drive because its corrupted, (i need to format it in Vista but i cant even boot into Vista.)
Yes, when the IDE drive is removed, my 250gb drive with vista on it works flawlessly. I seem to be the most screwed because the 40gb HD isnt completely empty, and its interfering with the process. Especially since my motherboard wont allow my SATA to be recognized first.
is there no other way for me to be able to set the SATA as priority? Does the IDE drive really have to be formatted in order to not load before my SATA?
No, but there's something wrong with your motherboard that it won't allow the SATA drive to boot first.
If you want to spend weeks trying to troubleshoot that problem, that's up to you. It would be much faster to buy an external enclosure.
Also, I remember some older motherboard designs that, when you had an IDE and a SATA drive you could ONLY boot from the IDE drive. That may be your problem in which case there is NO WAY around it.
moved to correct forum as not a windows issue. what is the make & model# of the computer or motherboard? did you actually select the seagate drive to boot 1st or just the sata drive?
Try filling in all the boot fields as only the 250 and leave out the 40 altogether in the bios. When XP boots it'll still ad the 40 as a slave.
If you need to boot from the 40 just doggle between the two in the first choice.
