I want to boot Windows XP from the second hard drive. More specificly,
I have an XP installation that boots fine as drive 0, and boots fine
from drive 1 if I start from a floppy. I have it installed as the
second hard drive (drive 1) and I am using System Commander to chose
the operating system. On drive 0 I have Windows 98SE (legacy software)
and Linux (came with the new PC - want to try it out). These are
booting OK from System Commander which either choses the Win98
partition or loads the Linux MBR (LILO). System Commander also
recognizes the WIN XP partition on drive 1 and lists it as an OS
choice, but it does nothing if selected. I understand that XP requires
that its boot code reside in a primary partition on the first drive.
To accomplish this I installed a clean XP on drive 1 and allowed it to
put its boot code in a small empty partition at the begining of drive
0. (There must be an easier way to format a partition to be bootable,
but I didn't know how to do it for XP. Please tell me.) During
installation the computer got stuck in a restart loop. I completed the
installation by using the bootable floppy I mentioned earlier, but if
I let it boot to the hard drive it restarts whenever it reaches the
point of starting the OS. After reinitializing System Commander, the
new XP boot partition appears in the menu and when selected exhibits
the same restart loop behavior I have described. I
can now boot either of the XP installations on the second drive from
the floppy, but neither of them from System Commander. I have tried
editing boot.ini without effect. I have tried replacing all the files
in the XP boot partition with those from the floppy. Disregarding
System Commander and the other operating systems entirely, I think I
can make it all work if I only learn how to get XP to boot from the
hard disks when loaded on the second drive. Seems easy, but I'm stuck.
What am I missing?

Do you want to permanatly want to boot from Drive 1. or the drive
where win XP installed. Then do following ways:

Yo u can change it from your boot menu. If you have dell pc then when
comp starts press F12 and boot menu will come up. Then you can go to
primary boot and say drive 1.
If that doesn't work then open your pc and detach your hard drive. Now
back of the hard drive youwill see three pleace to plug cable. One
will be IDE ATA cable, other will be power supply and other will be 4
pin parrllel 2 pins. like there will 8 pin slot will open. Those four
are called jumper for hard drive. I think it's on slave that's y it
doesn's boot from there. You have to set it too Master drive. I think
on drive it has been written in which you have to put master jumper.
Most if time first two pin from power supply is for master. If you
resolve your probelm then let me know. If you want more clarification
then reply here or e-mail me at <study_us25@yahoo.com> I think mail be
best to contact me. So contact me through mail
This website will help you
http://www.seagate.com/support/kb/disc/ref/jumper_settings.html
there is blck little piece should be right now in slave. You have to
take t=it out from there and try to insert in master. You can see
where is master slot. from that web.

On following website you can select which company hard drive you have
and which model then it will tell you where is master slot.
http://www.ontrack.com/jumperviewer/


http://www.mysuperpc.com/hdu/jumper_pins.shtml
On above weblink you can see what type of little plastice pice goes in
those jumper pins. It should have came with you hard drive. on that
weblink you can see white plastic thing inserted in jumper pin. That
tell Pc to where to boot.

Let me know did i resolve your problem or not.
Thanks

My problem is not with boot order or jumper settings.  I understand
these well.  My drives are set to cable select and I have deliberately
placed Win XP on the second drive.  I am booting to the first drive
where System Commander and the other operating systems are loaded.
System Commander provides the menu to select the operating system I
want to load. As I understand it, a feature of XP is that all but a
few boot files can be loaded on any primary or extended partition on
any drive. Only a few boot files must be loaded on a primary partition
of the first drive. I am trying to take advantage of this feature of
XP, but have been unable to make it work.