Hi A while back my motherboard began to die on me. One of the first things to happen was my main C drive wasn't being recognized. I had to dust off and old PATA drive that I had and use it to run my computer. I finally replaced the motherboard and bought a new SATA drive at Fry's while I was at it because the price was so good (640GB Seagate for $79). I got it hooked up but I don't think I installed it correctly. I've been running everything from the new drive for a couple of weeks now but had left the other drive installed so I could copy some files. It uses a different port on the mobo anyway. I finally decided I can take that old PATA drive out altogether and put it back on the shelf. But when I unhooked it and restarted my computer it wouldn't boot up. It said something like "bootmgr missing, press ctrl alt del to restart". The reason I say "something like" is because the words are not fully visible on my monitor - the first few letters are outside the frame. I had to shut it back off and hook the old drive back up to get it to start. So what does this mean? If I can run my computer on my new drive (which is set to C: and is set up as the first boot device in CMOS) then why won't it boot without the old drive hooked up?
Some more details would help 1. What OS/version (different OSs require different boot fixes)? 2. When both HDDs were in the machine, which HDD were you booting from (if you were booting from the PATA HDD, which it sounds like, you removed that drive - which may or may not contain the bootloader, or the OS)? 3. Were you running a dual boot system; (the C: drive may contain the boot loader, e.g., XP's boot.ini)? 4. Did you install SATA drivers, say from mobo setup disc? 5. If you were running the computer from the PATA HDD, did you reinstall the OS to the SATA HDD? 6. Depending on your mobo, the BIOS settings should reflect the boot PRIORITY (which may be a separate setting in addition to the boot order) Monk
This is my motherboard: MSI MS-7184 Socket 939 AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 184-pin DDR PCI Express x16 2 SATA Motherboard I'm running Vista Home Basic. The new motherboard didn't come with a setup disc so I don't think I installed any drivers. They may have installed automatically when the drive was recongnized(?) The new mobo has been working great aside from this snag. Both drives (old PATA and new SATA) are in the machine now - it's the only way I can boot up. I did enter BIOS to make sure that the new drive is set to #1 in the boot priority (I know very little about making changes to BIOS). I had to do a fresh install of Windows onto the new drive. Now when I power up (after having to hit F2 to continue - another new oddity but not a big deal) it asks me which version of Windows I want to run. It just shows two identical choices: Windows Vista Windows Vista I've figured out that this is effectively asking me which of my two drives I want to boot from. If I highlight and select the first it will boot from the new (C:/) drive. If I highlight and select the 2nd it will boot from the old (E:/) drive. Since it will run from the new drive I assumed I could just disconnect the old one altogether but, as I said, if I do that it will fail to boot.
Boot manager Boot manager:Vista::boot loader:XP I have to wonder about your drive designations, i.e., the drive you are removing must contain the boot manager - usually C: Regardless, use BCDEdit or third party app to assign the boot to the drive you wish to keep (whatever its present drive letter), while deleting the PATA drive from the boot options. Monk