Can't remove 2ndry hdd w/Mandrake, primary with W2k won't boot!
 

Hi!

Mandrake newbie here - windows master.

I have my primary HDD installed with Windows 2000.

I added a removable second hard drive and had XP on it for the longest time.

I wiped the secondary drive and installed Linux Mandrake to it.

Every time I boot, I got the Mandrake boot selection screen before my Winodws OS screen, such that I would have to select NT from that Menu to get to Windows 2000.

Now, when I remove that secondary drive, Windows 2000 will not boot up.

It gets passed BIOS, but then fills the screen with 010101010101010101010's and then just stops.

I can put the Mandrake HDD back, and it boots fine, but defeats the purpose of having a removable HDD (cuz ya can't remove it, hehe )

Any and all help is appreciated.

I just want to be able to remove the secondary HDD and still have Windows 2000 be bootable.


Sincerely,

Ariel Starfire

could it be that you have the bootloader on your second harddrive. I guess thats the reason why you need the other HDD to boot everytime. The best way to fix this is to go to windows 2000 and run the command fdisk /MBR. This restores the bootloader for windows.

edit: alternatively you could install you bootloader for linux onto the first hard disk. Set windows to boot as default, and when you want to use linux just select it on the bootscreen. Are you using lilo or grub as your bootloader?