PC upgrade fun - NOT
newb non-tech lost everything
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A mate recently gave me a 160 gig HD to help with the extra storage space required by my step-daughter for her schooling - great, no problems, or so I thought.
Got the new HD installed and loaded with Windows XP Pro with little problem. Migrated everything from the old drive, no problem and everything seemed honky dory.
However, wiping and removing the old 40 gig drive proved to be my biggest PC mistake. Once I had done this, none of the partitions on the new drive showed up and I couldn't even boot from disc. Apparently, during a previous upgrade from 98 to XP Home, the techie who installed the then new 80 gig HD for it didn't change the drive boot-up sequence. Hence, removing the 40 gig effectively shut down the whole system and the new drive and all data on the 80 gig was inaccessible.
After several hours in Setup trying to get these drives back on line, I was finally able to see their physical presence but not the data on them. I was able to ascertain that it was still there due to total space and available space, so thought an upgrade install of XP Pro would remady that, but alas, no go and the system wouldn't allow it. All I could do was a clean install, meaning all the previous data would be lost. Sorry Stardock, but I had to redownload OD all over again cos I couldn't get anything to or from "backup" Luckily, I kept all my skins backed up on an unaffected storage partition, just in case.
Anyhow, can anyone advise me as to how I can make the new 160 gig HD the primary and first boot drive? Taking it to a techie is too inconvenient at present, and an expense I'm presently unable to meet due to new clothes required by a growing teenager. Any help would be greatly appreciated and can be sent to [email protected] should it be too much information for here. Thanks
Got the new HD installed and loaded with Windows XP Pro with little problem. Migrated everything from the old drive, no problem and everything seemed honky dory.
However, wiping and removing the old 40 gig drive proved to be my biggest PC mistake. Once I had done this, none of the partitions on the new drive showed up and I couldn't even boot from disc. Apparently, during a previous upgrade from 98 to XP Home, the techie who installed the then new 80 gig HD for it didn't change the drive boot-up sequence. Hence, removing the 40 gig effectively shut down the whole system and the new drive and all data on the 80 gig was inaccessible.
After several hours in Setup trying to get these drives back on line, I was finally able to see their physical presence but not the data on them. I was able to ascertain that it was still there due to total space and available space, so thought an upgrade install of XP Pro would remady that, but alas, no go and the system wouldn't allow it. All I could do was a clean install, meaning all the previous data would be lost. Sorry Stardock, but I had to redownload OD all over again cos I couldn't get anything to or from "backup" Luckily, I kept all my skins backed up on an unaffected storage partition, just in case.
Anyhow, can anyone advise me as to how I can make the new 160 gig HD the primary and first boot drive? Taking it to a techie is too inconvenient at present, and an expense I'm presently unable to meet due to new clothes required by a growing teenager. Any help would be greatly appreciated and can be sent to [email protected] should it be too much information for here. Thanks
