Problem after formating my slave HD

[LaZaNha]

well, it was my first time formating a HD.

i have 2 HD. Before formating , i put the 20gb(winxp sp1) as master and my 120gb(full of virus) as a slave( cause i wanted to format the 120gb one, and let the 20gb be the master, but then, my father asked the 20gb, so i would only use the 120gb one ).

everything went right, now both HDs have winxp sp1, i always load windows of the 120gb(slave) and so on...

The problem is that i formated the 120gb when it was a slave...but
sometime after, my father asked me to give him the 20gb, i said it was ok cause i had the 120gb...but while trying to boot the 120gb as master, it keeps requesting a boot disk in drive A:/

someone said me that the 120gb wont be a master cause it was formated as a slave but i can do something to make it work as a master...but i dont know what to do...plz....1337 people out there, help me! thx in advance..

ps.: the 20gb is FAT32, 120gb was formatted using the NTFS system.

my computer is a P3 1ghz, 256ram, 20gb(no name) and 120gb(maxxtor ata133, 7k rpm, 8mb buffer)

[kgburns]

Do you have the pins on your 120 gb HD set for master?

Is it on IDE 0?

Sounds to me that if you do have XP on that drive, then you have something not set right for it to boot to that OS

[wayout44]

The problem is that the boot record was on the other drive and since that has now been remove from the PC you'll have to either reload XP or make a new boot record. Try booting with the XP CD and go to the repair console then type fix mbr (someone may correct that) but I'm not sure that this will work in your case as it is usually used to fix corrupted boot records and not missing ones.

[01001101]

formating as slave doesn't make any difference at all.

it's already been said, but he's what you need to do:

First, check the jumpers and make sure it's set to master for your 120 GB HDD. Then boot off your XP CD and enter the recovery console, login and type 'fixmbr' and reboot

However, moving hdd's around, especially the one with windows installed on it, can (and probably will) cause a fair amount of headaches. It may be in your best interest to re-install XP (even if it's just a repair install) once you can boot again.