Ok, here is my question and problem. I have two HDDs, one running Windows 7 and the other Windows XP. I want to remove the HDD with XP on it. When I do that my system fails to load anything and just sits on Loading DMI data when system is booted. If I disconnect the HDD with Windows 7 on it, system boots to Windows XP perfectly fine, minus still having to select the OS out of the dual-boot screen. I've tried switch SATA cables around with no dice.

It seems that the drive with XP on it has to be the drive thats accessed first.

So how do I go about making my W7 HDD primary drive with zero need for my Windows XP HDD to be connected in-order to boot from the HDD?

HDDs are both Western Digitals, W7 on my 320GB and XP on my 160GB.


Ya, I know this sounds rather noobish, but I've never done this before, and the fact i would have figure this would be easier to do since they are both SATA HDDs.

This may sound like a noobish solution but did you make sure that the HDD with Windows 7 on it has the jumper placed on the "Master" pins on the back?
If the jumper is on the slave pins, or there is no jumper at all...this could cause an issue such as this.

I have no idea.

I don't think SATA HDDs have master/slave pins.  Only IDE drives on the same ribbon cable.

there is no jumpers at all, they are sata drives. plus i dont even own jumper cables.

bump, id love to remove this HDD, free up some power for my GTX 470.

check your boot.ini files
your bootloader is (i think) sitting on your XP drive and your PC is looking to your XP drive to see where (which device/partition) Win7 or XP is located.
I could be wrong, it's been a while since I've played with dual boots, and certainly not for win7 lol

might also be able to set your primary boot HDD though BIOS...like I've said I haven't played with this for a while

I'm not hure how to shift the bootloader/mbr to your win7 drive without re-installing either or fuxing up the win 7 installation

EDIT:

try:

remove xp drive

boot from Win7 media

run repair installation

???

profit?

BIOS settings?

Yep, but not only. I'd say that you (ssj12) will have to

1) set your BIOS so that the Windows 7 drive is the first drive the system tries to boot from. A temporary solution is removing the XP drive altogether, but you still have to set up the BIOS for when both are connected.

2) make sure your Windows 7 drive is bootable in a software sense. Right now you have the boot selector installed in your Windows XP drive, probably in its MBR if I understood your setup. You will have to install the boot code in the MBR of the Windows 7 hard disk... there are tutorials such as this one online, I'm not really familiar with the newest versions of Windows.

Yeah jumpers are for older drives.... I got the surprise while building a comp this year, my SSD would not be recognized :x
I changed it in the Bios... but I also had to reinstalled windows (was a fresh install anyways) so that the boot segment was on the proper drive. I now have 3 HDDs and no problems. If your Win7 install is brand new, you might want to reinstall to fix the problem :p (though your boot being on the XP drive, i'd guess this is the most recent install)...

Basically do what WereKitten said and it should be fine.