Making IDE or SATA Primary drive

[Dan G]

Hi! In my PC I have a main SATA drive with XP on it, an IDE CD Drive and just recently an empty IDE HDD.

I want to install Vista BETA2 onto the IDE HDD, but it has to be a primary drive to work. Its on my mobo's (LanParty NF3) Second IDE Channel as a Master, the CDROM Drive is on the First IDE Channel, also as a master.

How can I get my IDE HDD as the primary? Switch cables with the CDROM drive, or would the SATA be my primary?

Please enlighten! Daniel

 

[Kazatan]

I dont think having both hardware on the same IDE ribbon as set to master will work or at least not work very well.

if you use cable select (which i think is best, its certainly easiest) then the one at the end of the ribbon is Master and the the one in the middle is Slave (i think ;P)

"Primary" i wouldnt attribute to where on the IDE cable the drive is, i would say that Vista needs to be installed on a Primary partition and unless you know you didn;t set up your drives with primary partitions etc then you probably won't have any problems, Vista should install to your drive despite where on the IDE cable it is.

These are my opinions, and could be erronous, if someone says something contradictory... beleive them ;P

[EDIT] I didn't read your post properly did i , just do as the guy below says

 

[squiffy]

IDE HD- Primary Master
CD-ROM Secondary Master
SATA- SATA

Set boot priority that the CD-ROM is first, SATA second, IDE HD third. When it asks for a install location choose the IDE HD. Install.

When you complete install move CD-ROM boot order to the bottom. Then SATA or IDE HD to number 1.

You could also mess around with boot.ini. Before you mess around backup your data.

Windows should create a boot order config (Vista -IDE HD and XP-SATA)

 

[Dan G]

Thanks Squiffy,and Kazatan!

I shall give it a go when I get the chance, and fear not, all data was backed up before I even started to fiddle!

Thanks again!