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Milambar · 15-02-2009, 06:08

This is probably the wrong place to ask this, if so the mods can feel free to move or delete this as they deem fit, with no hard feelings.

I am hoping someone can come up with a solution to a problem I am having with a recently "reclaimed" hard disk. Let me explain a little about the situation...

I have 2 PC's, one runs as a fileserver/internal webserver for testing webapplications on, and runs Ubuntu Linux. The other PC is a gaming PC, running Windows Vista.

I recently put a larger hard disk in the fileserver, that was a painless operation. I then decided to put the old disk that was in the fileserver, into the gaming PC to give me more disk space. Here is the problem...

The gaming PC now keeps trying to boot off that disk, instead of its own hdd. Meaning I have to keep pressing F11 at boot time, to get the boot menu, and select the right disk to boot from.

I have been into BIOS, but there is no option to select which hard disk to boot from as default, just "HDD Group", "ATAPI CDRom", "Network", and "USB Devices", so thats of no use.

I have downloaded Maxtor's Maxblast utility and deleted all the partitions off the disk, however, it doesn't seem to be able to delete GRUB, which is the one thing it needs to delete in order to stop it trying to boot from it.

Some forums have suggested downloading Maxtor's "PowerMax" software, and create a set of bootable floppies, and do a low-level format. Modern machines don't have floppy disk drives anymore, so that is an avenue I cannot persue.

I have tried a gparted live CD, again, that was unable to remove GRUB from it.

Other forums have said to boot the Vista dvd, and let it fix the MBR. The thing is, the MBR of the main disk doesn't need fixing. I need the MBR of the secondary disk wiping... or something.

So, does anyone have a suggestion?

15-02-2009, 06:08	#1
Milambar Inactive Join Date: Jan 2008 Posts: 954	Hard Disk Problem This is probably the wrong place to ask this, if so the mods can feel free to move or delete this as they deem fit, with no hard feelings. I am hoping someone can come up with a solution to a problem I am having with a recently "reclaimed" hard disk. Let me explain a little about the situation... I have 2 PC's, one runs as a fileserver/internal webserver for testing webapplications on, and runs Ubuntu Linux. The other PC is a gaming PC, running Windows Vista. I recently put a larger hard disk in the fileserver, that was a painless operation. I then decided to put the old disk that was in the fileserver, into the gaming PC to give me more disk space. Here is the problem... The gaming PC now keeps trying to boot off that disk, instead of its own hdd. Meaning I have to keep pressing F11 at boot time, to get the boot menu, and select the right disk to boot from. I have been into BIOS, but there is no option to select which hard disk to boot from as default, just "HDD Group", "ATAPI CDRom", "Network", and "USB Devices", so thats of no use. I have downloaded Maxtor's Maxblast utility and deleted all the partitions off the disk, however, it doesn't seem to be able to delete GRUB, which is the one thing it needs to delete in order to stop it trying to boot from it. Some forums have suggested downloading Maxtor's "PowerMax" software, and create a set of bootable floppies, and do a low-level format. Modern machines don't have floppy disk drives anymore, so that is an avenue I cannot persue. I have tried a gparted live CD, again, that was unable to remove GRUB from it. Other forums have said to boot the Vista dvd, and let it fix the MBR. The thing is, the MBR of the main disk doesn't need fixing. I need the MBR of the secondary disk wiping... or something. So, does anyone have a suggestion?