got a good deal on a new 120 Gb drive recently, and so I added it to my Compaq PC, just to prove that I could do it.

The original drive (160 Gb) had an eight-pin jumper block as opposed to ten on the new drive, so it was hard to figure out how it was set, but I assumed that it was a "Master," so I followed instructions to set the new one to "Slave" status. Installation was pretty routine, and I ran the initialization software.

That was the first hint of a problerm; it identified my OLD drive as "slave," though as the "boot drive." I'm guessing that both drives had the same status and it picked the first or last one in the chain for the master.

When I restarted XP, it couldn't find the OS. I tried again, used an Escape-sequence to get a menu, and told it to boot from the slave drive, and all was well: I had the extra, new drive available for data.

But, now, I have to do this trick on each reboot. No really big deal, but I was wondering about the best way to fix it. Should I:
(1) Take everything apart and try to get the jumpers correct. (Not fun.)
(2) Put some kind of startup script on the new "master" drive telling it to boot from the "slave" drive. (Is there such a thing?)
(3) Use my restoration disk to install XP on the new master, then remove it from the old. It makes sense for the system to be on the smaller drive. (My fear is ending up with two OS's and having neither work.)

Any recommendations?

in the long run it will be easier to correct the jumper settings

I suspect that you're right. However, I went through the BIOS "setup" and was able to make the choice of the alternate boot drive more-or-less permanent, and it works just fine.

However, when I have cause to open up the case for some other reason, I'll probably fix the jumper settings. But, who knows, I may end up replacing a drive before that happens.

I thought I'd mention this in case anybody else encounters the same problem.

Thanks for the response.

Thanks for the update; the tip; and the Thanks!

Let us know if we can help further in the future!

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