t3chmachine Posted November 14, 2013 Share Posted November 14, 2013 This is my problem and has been for awhile. I have 4 hard drives in my tower that are sata. First drive is 500 GB 0 Sata and rest are 2 TB 1,2,3. The thing that is pissing me off if that when I reinstall windows the system 100 mb file gets set on one of my hard drives for system only. I cannot see this drive unless use a 3rd party partition manager. What I have to do which sucks is unplug all drives to install windows then plug the other 3 drives in to they all can be seen. I know the drives ain't bad I don't know how to prevent windows in putting it's system file on my other drive. Just to clarify I out of the 4 drives total 2 say primary and the 2 other say system. Do I need to make the storage drives logic because this PC used only as a media center Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
goretsky Supervisor Posted November 15, 2013 Supervisor Share Posted November 15, 2013 Hello, The solution, as I understand it, is to just install Microsoft Windows with one hard disk drive installed, disconnecting the remaining hard disk drives plus any USB drives, memory cards or other kinds of drives. When you are finished installing Windows, getting the system updated, installing whatever apps you need and so forth, reconnect all of the drives, and you can format them, assign drive letters to them, etc. Regards, Aryeh Goretsky Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Anibal P Posted November 15, 2013 Share Posted November 15, 2013 How often are you re installing Windows that this would be even a slightly valid complaint? joemailey, goretsky and Nick H. 3 Share Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nick H. Supervisor Posted November 15, 2013 Supervisor Share Posted November 15, 2013 How often are you re installing Windows[?]I thought that as well. Just disconnect the drives, install the OS, then reconnect the other drives and you're done. If you're reinstalling the OS every week or month then there are bigger issues than just disconnecting the drives. :laugh: goretsky 1 Share Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cork1958 Posted November 15, 2013 Share Posted November 15, 2013 How often are you re installing Windows that this would be even a slightly valid complaint? No doubt!! Otherwise, This is a total non issue! Just do it the way you're supposed to. :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
t3chmachine Posted November 15, 2013 Author Share Posted November 15, 2013 Ok I understand what everyone says but really computers should not work this way. If I need to re install Windows I shouldn't have to disconnect the drives. Yes this is a fix but not the best. I do install Windows 7 about every 6 months. Why do I do this is because I may have friends over drinking and they use youtube and at times notice they download crap on the computer. I can have them not use the computer but really I don't wanna baby sit if they ask me to check this out or try this. This PC is a media center so I cannot format the drives. The drives are full and don't have another hard drive to back up with yet. I do plan on doing that soon. Well back to my issue why these hard drives get set to system and not stay primary. If I go try and install Windows now my main c: drive is primary and there is a 100 mb system one. The other drives Pub 1 is primary Pub 2 is System Pub 3 is System.I can see these drives as I did do the trick of disconnect all drives and install Windows on one. How can I get these drives back to primary and prevent this happening ever again. Thanks:: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
goretsky Supervisor Posted November 15, 2013 Supervisor Share Posted November 15, 2013 Hello, Windows is going to install its boot manager on the first hard disk drive in the system, based on what the computer's BIOS/UEFI firmware tells it. A few idea, no particular order: If you are unable to maintain the integrity of your computer, set up something like a restricted user account, kiosk-type mode, Faronics Deep Freeze, etc. on the PC to allow you to prevent changes to the system or at least roll them back. Consider moving the data drives to removable drive cage or an external enclosure/enclosures, and unplug that one thing when you clean up after your friends mess up the system. Add a second, dedicated computer to the system for web browsing, etc. Have friends use that. As for changing the partition types, I believe you may be able to do that through the Disk Management (filename: DISKMGMT.MSC) MMC snapin. Regards, Aryeh Goretsky Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Noir Angel Posted November 15, 2013 Share Posted November 15, 2013 Look in your BIOS and see what disk is attached to port 0, then swap it with your boot disk. Once your boot disk is attached to the first recognised port, Windows will always install the bootloader onto it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
t3chmachine Posted November 16, 2013 Author Share Posted November 16, 2013 Can anyone recommend a free program to convert a system drive to primary. I don't wanna lose data. Thanks for everyone's help Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Anibal P Posted November 16, 2013 Share Posted November 16, 2013 Can anyone recommend a free program to convert a system drive to primary. I don't wanna lose data. Thanks for everyone's help It's called backup and start over, and do it right from the get go Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts