I have 3 SATA drives currently connected to my MB (specs below). My original install was XPPro32 bit on my WD Raptor, which is now identified by Windows as the C: drive. I cloned that install onto a 500 gb Seagate using Acronis Home, and this cloned drive is now identified by Windows as my D: drive. I then did a full, manual install of XPPro 64 Bit onto an identical 500 gb Seagate to what is now identified as my E: Drive. I cloned that new E: drive to the Raptor C: drive, and I now have two identical installs of Windows XPPro 64 bit Edition with FS9 and all add ons on 2 drives: the Raptor Clone (C:) and the Seagate (E:) with a full backup of my original 32 bit system on the Seagate D: drive.However, in my eternal tinkering with the ASUS Extreme Tweaker menus it appears I have accidentally reordered the 3 drives in the BIOS sometime after the initial E: drive install of XP 64, and now no matter what I do if I boot into the Raptor, I can't get any internet connectivity. More alrmingly, if I disconnect all drives but the C: drive I can't boot at all. In doing so I get my computer to POST fine, and I'm presented with my choices as I've set up the boot.ini file, but then I get a black screen with a blinking cursor and an eventual "Can't find NTLDR error, or with alternative BIOS drive configurations I'll get an immediate warning that Windows can't find any drives.Can anyone tell me what I'm not seeing here and how I can rebuild my master boot record so that I can dual boot (triple boot?) and I don't have to manually reinstall XPPro64 and my entire FS9 and addons on the Raptor? I just got done doing this (AGAIN) on the Seagate, and have done this many times before, albeit NOT with a 64 bit OS.This isn't keeping me out of the air, it's just bugging me because this shouldn't be hard to do: I can still boot and fly fine from my E: drive as long as I maintain the proper order in the BIOS, but if I try to run the XP64 install off the Raptor C: drive, the lack of internet connectivity prevents me from flying for my VA. (BTW, I use fixed IP addresses behind a switch and a router, no DHCP). I have reordered all 3 drives in my boot.ini file AND the BIOS settings until the cows come home, and I still get one of the above warnings. I've tried just copying the boot.ini file and the NTLDR files from E: to C: but that didn't work. I've even tried using Acronis's Disk and Boot Manager software that is separate from True Image Home program and as I knew before, it is just about the most USELESS 40 bucks I have ever spent. :-lolI have also tried this rather draconian procedure which has always worked for me before, but even it didn't reset my MBR to my C drive:<< http://icrontic.com/articles/repair_windows_xp/2 >>The order of the disks is as follows, (and this is the only order in which I can get my box to boot into any OS):1st Drive Seagate 500gb in ASUS BIOS, E: drive in Windows2nd Drive Seagate 500gb in ASUS BIOS, D: drive in Windows (all OF the mbr and ntldr files are clearly visible on this drive)3rd Drive WDC Raptor 160gb in ASUS BIOS, C: drive in WindowsMy boot .ini file (now residing on the E: drive) reads as follows (I have tried manually editing the disk order here, too, to no avail):[boot loader]timeout=5default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(1)WINDOWS[operating systems]multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional 32" /noexecute=optin /fastdetectmulti(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(1)WINDOWS="Windows XP Professional Professional x64 (Seagate 32MGB Cache)" /noexecute=optin /fastdetectmulti(0)disk(0)rdisk(2)partition(1)WINDOWS="Windows XP Professional x64 Edition on Raptor" /noexecute=optin /fastdetectThanks, folks! As always I really appreciate you taking a look!

Without pursing all the specifics, the clone will cloneit identically, maintaining the drive letter of the original drive. If the bios assigns any other letter to the clone than its cloned-in drive letter, things will get confused. I like the clone method because it doesn't take any additional software to untangle an image file format, then the chancy process of transferring the image to the new drive. Good theory, however I also would run into this weird stuff from time to time. My 865 mobo didn't like the cloned drive plugged in at all. It saw 2 "C"s and would wipe 'em both out. Had a couple of close calls. I had to leave the clone unplugged.Now I use images. I used Acronis and Norton. They all work fine, but I got tired of trying to remember which boot CD to keep on hand. Vista has an Acronis-like full drive image maker so now I just use that. I have a 3 drive raid 0 so I really have to keep up. No real failures (yet) but I've used it a couple of times when restore didn't go back far enough. So far, so good.

Some possibilities off the top of my head - none of which may actually apply here, but perhaps something here may help you:- your BIOS doesn't support booting from a third partition on your last disk (SATA port limitation) (solve by plugging disks in different ports - test the port by removing power to the other drives, leaving the port where it is - that some chipsets/BIOSes will not correctly boot from certain ports)- partition is not marked as a boot partition (solved by using a partition manager)- BOOT ability disabled in BIOS for disk 3 (see primary boot device in BIOS)- MBR somehow toasted during the cloning process (unlikely since you are getting an NTLDR error)- boot.ini not setup correctly, or has the wrong loader for the version of the o/s (meaning, you have a bootstrap loader for an earlier version of Vista trying to load a new version - could be a 32 bit vs 64bit issue too) - solve by repairing the instance from the original install disk- does the disk boot by itself (remove the other 2)?- does Vista boot DVD see / can repair install on disk 3?Hope this helps,Etienne