VAIO 2 HARD DRIVES - HOW TO BOOT OFF SECOND DRIVE?

[skkanda]

Hi
I have an AR series laptop and would like to boot off the second sata hard drive in the bay.
By default it boots off the first sata drive and the only option in the BIOS is boot "Internal Hard drive".
I have Vista on the first disk and Windows Server on the second drive and would like to boot directly off the second disk.
Any help please?

[Blencogo]

Hi skkander and welcome to Club Vaio.

Can you let us know the exact AR model you own?

The hard disc configuration varies with different models.

[skkanda]

Hi
It's an AR51e

[Blencogo]

Hi skkanda,

The reason I asked is because some AR models only have one hard drive. This may be partitioned into two drives C:\ and D:\ but there is physically only one hard disc drive.

I may be wrong but I think the AR51E has only one hard disc. This is why a second disc is not available in the BIOS boot menu. If you go to Control Panel -> Administrative Tools -> Computer Managerment -> Disc Management you can check this.

Are all your drives (Recovery, Vaio C:, Vaio D:) shown as being on Disc 0 ?

If this is the case, in Vista you need to download EasyBCD 1.7.1 which will allow you to simply change the booting sequence.

http://neosmart.net/dl.php?id=1

(the download button is at the bottom of the page under "EasyBCD Links" - you need to scroll down the page).

Boot.ini normally automatically reconfigures itself if you add another operating system but you would have to install the older version first for this to work. Windows Server cannot recognise Vista.

Good Luck

[skkanda]

Thanks for your response.
I can confirm I phycially have 2 hard drives in the AR51E.
The first disk has got 2 partitions (recovery and vista).
The second disk I purchased and installed myself.
When i go to the bios i can see both drives (200gb original and 120gb i installed).
I want to be able to boot off the second drive.
Can you help?