[Laser Sharks]

I am reformatting a computer that has a SATA drive and an IDE drive. I made blank partitions on both drives and installed Windows on the IDE drive. Windows boots up fine after installation but when i power down and power back up it will not start windows unless I have the disk in the CD drive. It gives me an error saying invalid partition table.

I thought it might have been because the SATA drive had the blank partition so I tried again but it would not recognize the SATA drive after that.

Should I make the SATA drive the primary and then use the IDE as a slave?

Should I not put the partition on the second drive?

Also I have the IDE drive hooked up with the main connection, not the slave. As I am typing this I realize that perhaps it is trying to boot from the blank Partition and I should try disconnecting the SATA drive? I am not at the PC currently.

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What are the Sizes of your two drives?
What do you mean by. "I have the IDE drive hooked up with the main connection, not the slave" ?

Reason for the question:

IDE's throughput is Slower than Sata.

If it were my system.

I'd build it this way.

Sata Drive as Primary Master. Windows installed on this one.
IDE Drive as Primary Slave. Yes, Partion this one.

Edited by isimaster, 25 February 2009 - 10:08 AM.

[isimaster]

What are the Sizes of your two drives?
What do you mean by. "I have the IDE drive hooked up with the main connection, not the slave" ?

Reason for the question:

IDE's throughput is Slower than Sata.

If it were my system.

I'd build it this way.

Sata Drive as Primary Master. Windows installed on this one.
IDE Drive as Primary Slave. Yes, Partion this one.

Edited by isimaster, 25 February 2009 - 10:08 AM.

[Laser Sharks]

It is for my parents and the IDE one is like 40 gb larger which will perfectly fit all of my dad's music. They like to do things backwards. I tried to tell him he would want the faster one to have Windows but there is no reasoning trust me. I will do what I need to though.

When i saw main connection I mean that on an IDE cable there are 3 connections. One goes to the motherboard, one goes to the main hard drive and one goes to the slave drive. I have it on the main connection as shown below. (Blue as in the picture).

http://www.gshop.com...e_133_cable.jpg

I was planning on trying to setup the SATA as the main and then the IDE as the slave later on today but I just wanted some input before I go through it again.

[isimaster]

Good Luck with your setup!

[Laser Sharks]

I ended up making the IDE one a slave and it worked. Appreciate the input!