Solved moving the "system" partition between hdds

abhishake

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okay here is the deal i have 2 hdds (160 gb and 1 tb) late last night used the 1 tb as a flash drive and re installed my OS on the 160 gb drive. the "system" files are on the 1 tb drive and all other files ( boot crash dump etc ) are on the other one.

PROBLEM: while doing a cold start the system fails to spin up th bigger drive in time for the software to detect the system file on the bigger drive and it brings up the boot manager saying files are not present to load, a restart fixes the problem as the bigger drive would be up to speed by then, any work around to delay the boot till both drives are up to speed .........???.
further i think that moving the "system partition " to the other disk will eliminate this issue ...... how do i go about doing that ... guides would be appriciated see the image below

QUESTION :if i remove the 1 tb disk physically and reinstall OS and connect it back will everything be as good as new or will it pose problems as then there would be two "system " partitions ..... help?
 

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My BIOS has a boot delay feature built in,....I set if for a 10 second delay on boot...perhaps there is a similar option in yours?
 

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My BIOS has a boot delay feature built in,....I set if for a 10 second delay on boot...perhaps there is a similar option in yours?

It does have something called hard disk pre delay which was zero and I have set it to 15 ....I pisses me off to have to wait that long awhile so is there a way to get it to the way described ....
 

My Computer

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    windows 8
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    intel
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    core 2 duo
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The steps here will move your reserved partition into drive C:. Download EasyBCD Portable
  1. Run easybcd and follow the steps from the screen shot below:

    easybcd.png
  2. Next, from the elevated command prompt, run: diskpart <enter>
  3. List disk <enter>
  4. select disk # <enter> <====== # is disk number of your 2TB disk
  5. select partition 1 <enter>
  6. inactive <enter>
  7. exit <enter>
  8. reboot your PC

NOTE: there should be only one active disk in your PC where the boot manager is.
 

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Ideally, All things and partitions to do with boot should be on one drive and that drive to be on the first channel (connector on MB) with that drive being first in the boot order (Disk_0). That pre delay affects all drives so you have another slowdown. It also helps somewhat if OS disk is the faster one if possible.
What I would do is to make new partitions on that 1TB drive and transfer contents of 160 GB one to the 1GB drive. Than install windows on 160 GB one and let windows "kill" all the partitions on it and make and format only one partition on it. That could be done during the install process and you'd have a nice clean disk to work on. Before starting installation I would physically disconnect 1 TB drive so there's no mix-up with system placement. After successful windows installation, I would reconnect second drive, transfer all data files (if any) from it's first partition to first or second disk and than reformat that partition. I think that would be cleanest way to do it, most practical too.
What I usually do is to give a name to every partition before even starting anything because it's much easier to know which partition is which, when shuffling stuff around and change OS, partition may get different letters and that can lead to confusion.
 

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The steps here will move your reserved partition into drive C:. Download EasyBCD Portable
  1. Run easybcd and follow the steps from the screen shot below:

    View attachment 45165
  2. Next, from the elevated command prompt, run: diskpart <enter>
  3. List disk <enter>
  4. select disk # <enter> <====== # is disk number of your 2TB disk
  5. select partition 1 <enter>
  6. inactive <enter>
  7. exit <enter>
  8. reboot your PC

NOTE: there should be only one active disk in your PC where the boot manager is.
this method does not move the "system" from the other drive to the partition C . it just send the boot files there ( which are already in the right place) ... as soon as i am able to get a 8 gb pen drive will do as you told which is logical and the best way to go about it for now though it has to suffice .. if you know a way to do transfer the contents of system folder share it thank you see ya in a few days as i dont have a 8 gig pendrive and the iso is too big for a 4 gig one ... and hence used the hard disk( system file containing partition) as a flash drive and all the drama
 

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abhishake;391858 this method does not move the "system" from the other drive to the partition C . it just send the boot files there ( which are already in the right place) ... [/QUOTE said:
The "System" partition is the boot files. If you say they are already on the other active partition, change the boot order or remove the other drive and see if the system will boot to the small one. If it won't, will need to run a startup repair probably 3 times to get it completely configured or use EasyBCD as Topgundcp suggests.

If you get to a point where it says it cannot repair and you need to Restore, cancel and reboot. It may already be repaired.

If you want to move the entire I: partition to the small drive you will need to make room for it. A MBR configured drive can hold 4 primary partitions, or 3 primary and an extended for logical drives. You should be able to arrange for the room and then copy the partition over using something like Partition Wizard. I think it will allow you to adjust the size of the copied partition, assuming you do not have a lot of data on that partition. But as was mentioned, the partition should not be set to active after you get the boot set up on the other drive. Of course, you could just reconfigure the small drive and copy the data over.

Edit: In a Windows 8 system, the Recovery file are probably also in the I: partition. You could move those to the C: partition, or you could reinstall, making sure the other HDD was removed or at least set to a lower priority in the bios than the SSD.
 
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Does removing the bigger drive and reinstalling set everything right .... What happens when I connect the bigger drive back will the two system files confuse the system ...even though in the boot order the first smaller drive is set first...
 

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Your system, according to your Disk Management window is booting to the larger drive. That is what the "System" designation means. When you installed, you probably had the large drive set to first priority so the boot files were placed there.

If, in fact, you do have the small drive set as first boot priority then the system may be helping you by looking for and finding another active partition it can boot to... but not sure it actually can. The boot priority is set on the Boot tab of the bios. Showing it first in the Drive list where you set the controller type for the drive does not mean it is first boot priority.
 

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    i7 3770K
    Motherboard
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Indeed when the OS was installed the bigger drive was set first as I used a partition on it itself as a flash drive and installed it ...... Still doesn't answer my question... Unplug bigger drive and reinstall OS and reconnect bigger drive .... Will the two system files pose a problem? Downloading an image of torrents now will update again in 24 hrs....
 

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thankyou people from where ever you are problem solved

Solution: removed the bigger drive and booted the computer the "system " partition was transferred to the right partition on the other drive as shown thankyou finally can sleep properly it was killing me
 

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Even though it worked now. You did not complete what I suggested in my previous post (step 2-7). You should also mark I: as Inactive. There should be only one Active disk where the boot manager is.
 

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Yeah red around the web each disk can have one active partition ...buy yeah as you said unnecessary active partition does confuse system will deactivate it using diakpart the next time iuse the computer ... Cheers
 

My Computer

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  • OS
    windows 8
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    System Manufacturer/Model
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    CPU
    core 2 duo
    Motherboard
    82945g express
    Memory
    4gb
    Sound Card
    realtek
    Monitor(s) Displays
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    Screen Resolution
    1440*900
    Hard Drives
    1.5Tb
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Yeah red around the web each disk can have one active partition ...buy yeah as you said unnecessary active partition does confuse system will deactivate it using diakpart the next time iuse the computer ... Cheers
That's why you had the problem in the first place.
 

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    Motherboard
    MSI-Z97
    Memory
    16 GB G-Skill Trident X @2400MHZ
    Graphics Card(s)
    NVIDIA GeForce GTS 450
    Sound Card
    X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty Professional Series
    Monitor(s) Displays
    Dual HP-W2408
    Screen Resolution
    1920X1200
    Hard Drives
    256 GB M2 sm951, (2) 500GB 850EVO, 5TB, 2 TB Seagate
    PSU
    Antec 850W
    Case
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