[MarkJohnson]

I have three hard drives on my system with each having a different OS on it. I remove all hard drives on each install to avoid the dual boot menu and go into the bios to change out the first hard drive when I want to change to a different OS.

anyway, I just finished installing Windows 7 and after all updates and a few tests I decided to plug back in my other drives and now Windows 7 won't boot at all and it switches to a different hard drive after about 15 seconds of waiting with no errors. I even switched SATA ports and that doesn't help.

Is this a common problem/feature with Windows 7?
-=Mark=-

[cluberti]

When you install Windows, any NT-based version, it keeps track of what drive (and the position on the bus) that it installed on, so that it can boot to that drive later. I would suggest that after installing and removing, you did not put these back in the exact order they were in, hence the boot loader is not working. Is there some reason you are removing the other HDDs when installing? If there's a good reason, getting a removable drive bay is probably a good idea long-term.

[MarkJohnson]

cluberti, on Jan 27 2009, 08:46 PM, said:

When you install Windows, any NT-based version, it keeps track of what drive (and the position on the bus) that it installed on, so that it can boot to that drive later. I would suggest that after installing and removing, you did not put these back in the exact order they were in, hence the boot loader is not working. Is there some reason you are removing the other HDDs when installing? If there's a good reason, getting a removable drive bay is probably a good idea long-term.

I only remove them so the install setup doesn't pick up the other OSes and create a boot menu. I find them annoying and prefer to turn on and go straight to desktop.

I do have an eSATA port and use a 4th drive for external storage. But it would be jsut too complicated and messy to have all my drives external. I'm too cluttered as it is.

I'll try to move the Windows 7 drive around as I never moved it at all and pray it works.
-=Mark=-

edit: I moved the drives to the top ports and all is fine. Thanks for the tip.

This post has been edited by MarkJohnson: 27 January 2009 - 11:28 PM

[cluberti]

No, not external removable, *internal* - like this one for instance. But good to hear you got them back in the correct order.

I'd still suggest a removable hard drive tray .