Installation Problems with multiple disks

[wakenbake]

It all started when I formatted my machine to reinstall windows...

Here's my config:

AMD64 FX-15 4000+ CPU
3GB RAM
ASUS A8N-SLI Deluxe
nVidia Geforce 7800 GTX Go
1 single SATA JBOD disk
2 IDE HDDs

#1 - Whenever I try to install to a partition, XP insists on copying some files to one of the IDE drives... I've never had this problem before, and all of a sudden here it is. if I disconnect that drive, and just install to the SATA, then reconnect after boot, my boot.ini gets jacked up and boot can't find windows on the HDDs... I've never had that problem before either... used to be able to add and remove physical disks at will and they would never mess up my booting (never removed the OS disk of course)...

what gives ya think?

 

[pscowboy]

Upon bootup, the process will follow the order in the BIOS. If the SATA drive is going to have the OS, it should follow the cd drive in the order.

Check out your boot priorities in the BIOS.

 

[wakenbake]

its not a boot order thing... I seem to have been able to install the XP OS on my IDE drive, the other IDE drive still has a partition on it with backup data I keep across all windows installations...

I disabled the SATA... Only have the two IDE drives. If I ENABLE my sata drive, When I try to boot, I get "INSERT SYSTEM DISK, BOOT FAILURE" or some such message. It's like a boot.ini problem, or something, because with the SATA enabled, I can't seem to get the damn thing to boot!!!

the only order setting for disks is "hard drive" in the bios...