Hello everybody. My first time here.
I have an HP pavilion dv8130 laptop. It USES 2 hard drives. I recently installed 2 new ones and used my Windows XP Pro disc to format and install. My machine is now up and running, and it took quite a bit of time to get this far. Now, in "my computer" I only see the "C" disc and the dvd/cd rom is labelled "D".
I assume I still need to format the second hard drive, but I'm anxious about losing what I have set up on "C".
My question is:
1. Do I have to rename the cd rom to "E" first? And how?
2. Will the Windows disc automatically go to the second hhd disc?
JimA new drive needs to be formatted before Windows will recognise it...
After this is done you can assign any drive letter you want to each corresponging drive.
You neglected to mention how these extra drives are connected as it is a laptop...I'm not sure I understand. The hard drives are inside! lol
The C is the main one. The D is for storage and I always had to access it from "my computer".
The new ones are:
Western Digital GB/GO EIDE model wd1200vertl

During the install, it automatically formatted the C drive but obviously not the secondary or D drive.

JimOK, I got impatient waiting for more help and tried to set up my secondary drive on my own. I should have waited!
I put in the windows xp pro cd and it went into set up MODE. At the end I expected to get a choice of which drive to set up but ONLY THE C DRIVE was listed, so I hit ESC and popped the disc out. The computer restarted and now during the boot up it asks me which operating system to start.
1. Windows XP or
2. Windows set up
I don't understand how to get it to format ONLY the secondary drive. And now, how to get the start up back to normal.
??
Jim

HP pavilion dv 8130
win xp pro
Avg free,Spybot S&D,Adaware 2007
2 new hard drives. the secondary is raw.this is not to difficult to do

go to start
go to my computer and right click on it
select manage

in the next screen double click on storage
then double click on disk management

here you will see your two drives present as "0" and "1"

right click on the one not showing in the top screen and select format

restart you computer and voila you will have two drive with there respective drive letters showing

bartrob
thankyou thankyou thankyou thankyou

That worked like a charm. It's formatting the D drive right now.
Now about what I did to the C drive. As stated above, when I start my computer, it asks which operating system to start. It gives me a choice of:
1. Windows XP
2. Windows set up.

I previously had put in the Windows cd (after the C drive was up and running Windows) to attempt to format the D drive.
It apparently began set up on the C drive and it still wants to finish!
How do I get rid of that? Do I have to format C again and reinstall Windows again?
JimNo that isn't necessary.
We will need to have a look at and later edit your boot.ini file.
So here is what you do:
Right click My Computer and select Properties.
Select the Advanced tab and press the Settings button in the Startup and Recovery frame.
Click the Edit button.
Now notepad should open and display some text.
Copy all this text and paste it into a reply here. Do not edit the boot.ini at this point. Merely close it after you've copied the text. If it asks you to save any changes select no.[Boot Loader]
Timeout=5
Default=C:\$WIN_NT$.~BT\BOOTSECT.DAT
[Operating Systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /noexecute=optin /fastdetect /usepmtimer
C:\$WIN_NT$.~BT\BOOTSECT.DAT="Microsoft Windows XP Professional Setup"

OK here it is.
Note, every bit of this is a learning PROCESS for me and I greatly appreciate what you all are doing here.
JimOkay now we're ready to to edit the boot.ini file.
Open boot.ini as you did before.
Delete all the text in it and replace it with the text I've written in the box below:
Code: [Select][boot loader]
timeout=5
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /noexecute=optin /fastdetect /usepmtimer
Close notepad and save the changes.
Reboot and cross your fingers. The boot menu should now be gone.

EDIT: Don't know if you've already made the change to the boot.ini, but notice I've just updated what you should put in your boot.ini file a bit. I added the "/usepmtimer" switch because this was present in your original boot.ini file and your system might need it for optimal performance.
If you've already changed boot.ini open it again and add /usepmtimer like shown above. If you haven't done anything yet just disregard this and go ahead. OK I deleted and then copy/pasted and saved the change.
I'm crossing my fingers!
Here goes
Deerpark,
You're the best!
Kudos to everyone here. My machine now boots up like it should!

OK just one more thing!
There are pictures and stuff on my old "D" hard drive. I would like to get back. I think I remember seeing a holder you can put a laptop hard drive in and use as an external drive. There was a JUMPER on two of the pins, but I used it on the new slave.
Can I rig that up and get those files back, and will it still need that jumper?
JimYou can get an external USB HDD caddy for laptop hard drives and hook it up that way.
Or you can get a 2.5" to IDE connector for about 10 bucks and hook it up to a desktop and copy/burn your data to CD/DVD and do it that way...