[deathdellic]

I freshly Installed xp pro on my computer as I do every now and then. I didnt add anything extra to the install which i performed many times before(except a harddrive). I have 2 harddrives installed one is 500G and one is 160G they are both sata drives. I do not have raid turned on in the bios. upon completion of my new install i noticed that XP was using my second harddrive as the boot harddrive and was also mirroring system files etc to the backup harddrive and there are systems files etc in both hdd's . although this is wierd i would like to know what the heck is happening so i can replicate this effect again. here is an example of the files on the

D:\>dir
Volume in drive D is backup
Volume Serial Number is 6666666

Directory of D:\ (backup)

12/29/2007 11:40 AM <DIR> computer-software
12/31/2007 02:59 PM <DIR> Documents and Settings
12/31/2007 04:23 PM <DIR> Downloads
12/29/2007 09:36 PM <DIR> driver-project
12/26/2007 07:41 PM <DIR> Drivers
12/30/2007 11:24 PM <DIR> games
12/29/2007 09:33 PM <DIR> Linux-and-software
12/29/2007 11:47 AM <DIR> mac cd's
12/29/2007 12:08 PM <DIR> Movies
12/31/2007 05:47 PM <DIR> My Documents
12/29/2007 09:36 PM <DIR> My Music
01/03/2008 09:46 AM <DIR> osx stuff
01/02/2008 04:43 PM <DIR> Program Files
01/02/2008 06:35 PM <DIR> WINDOWS
12/30/2007 10:57 AM <DIR> windows cd
12/31/2007 03:35 PM <DIR> xp64bit-programs
6 File(s) 55,173,745 bytes
23 Dir(s) 28,806,557,696 bytes free

thats the backup and then there is my C:\ drive which is the errr normal part of the problem except that the computer runs from the D:\ drive....wierd

[nitroshift]

Hello and welcome to THE forum! I think that you didn't pay enough attention when you installed Windows and you selected your new hard-drive as the install location.

[Arie]

Or your first hard disk was not recognised during setup and Windows was therefore installed on your second hard disk, leaving the old installation on the first hard disk?

[deathdellic]

the big disk was the installation disk it has 2 partitions on it and one is not used. the smaller disk is just a backup. when i installed my larger disk © was a fresh reformat so there was no installation already on it. the D drive also had no system related files on it before installation. now both HDD's contain system files, both of which are used by the system kind of like a clone.

[Arie]

Then you must have RAID switched on in your BIOS, eventhough you state that it's not the case. Update to the latest BIOS and check all settings again. Also check your Windows settings if you haven't mirrored your drive.