Help me change primary HDD or move boot sectors?

Cognisseur

I have 2 hard-drives. C & E. C has Windows XP. E has Windows 7.

I installed Windows 7 on E and it appeared to work. When I start up my computer, I load into Windows 7. However, if I take out my C hard-drive (which I want to do because it's dying), Windows 7 doesn't load. My computer goes 'uhh... put in a CD? Please? I have no clue whats going on'.

I looked around online a bit, and I think the problem is that even though Windows 7 is on E, the booting instructions are on C. So I somehow need to change that. Here are some incomplete ideas I've had:
1. Move boot.ini (but I can't find it)
2. Move 'boot sectors' (but I have no idea what that means or what it entails)
3. Go to disk management and change stuff. Currently I have:
C: (System Active, Primary Partition)
E: (Boot, Page File, Crash Dump, Logical Drive)

I guess I would have to make E say some of those nice terms C has? I'm totally out of my league.

Help! :-)

darkmayo

What is on the windows 7 drive, if its base install then just pop out C: move E: to where C: was and reinstall again. then throw C: back in after and it should just be recognized as an additional bootable drive.

illig

1st , move the Win 7 to the primary HD spot in the boot order (in BIOS, or by moving cables around)... if that doesn't work, repair your install. The Win 7 install CD should be able to fix that for you with no problem.

when you pop it in, it'll find the previous install, and ask if you want to repair it.