Activating partition

[kemperhills1]

Here is my problem. I have a computer that got a virus and I had to replace the HD. The computer came with an 80 GB HD in SATA 0. I had installed a 500 GB HD on SATA 1 to increase my memory.

The 80 GB drive was the boot drive. When the virus got past my AV I had to replace the HD. I had an IDE 120 GB HD from a computer that was no longer working and since my present computer supports both IDE and SATA I installed the 120 GB drive as the boot drive until I could get another SATA drive.

I got another SATA drive, cloned the IDE drive with DriveImage XML, and tried to activiate the partition of the new SATA drive to use it as the boot drive.

But when I opened Disk Management and right clicked on the new SATA drive the "Mark partition as active" option was greyed out and I cannot find a way to activiate the partition on the new SATA drive to use it as the boot[system]drive.

If remove the 120 GB IDE drive the computer won't boot. With the 120 GB IDE drive in the computer I can't activate the partition on the new SATA drive.

Can anyone tell me how to activate the partition on the new SATA drive so I can use it as the boot[system]drive for the computer.
The computer is running XP Pro, SP3.

Thanks.

 

[lawrencej285]

Would it not have been easier to back all your files up and complete wipe the drive and reinstall your O.S.? Ultimate Boot CD - Overview or Hiren's BootCD 15.1 - All in one Bootable CD » www.hiren.info. Both have partition editors you can access from a live cd.

 

[kemperhills1]

Would it not have been easier to back all your files up and complete wipe the drive and reinstall your O.S.? Ultimate Boot CD - Overview or Hiren's BootCD 15.1 - All in one Bootable CD » www.hiren.info. Both have partition editors you can access from a live cd.

Well, maybe I should have done that before the HD stoped working. But after the HD did stop working I don't know of a way to back it up.

Thanks.

 

[lawrencej285]

Well, maybe I should have done that before the HD stoped working. But after the HD did stop working I don't know of a way to back it up.

Thanks.

Ok I didn't see where you said that your hard drive stopped working just that you got a virus and replaced your hard drive that you were using as a boot drive. Here is a link that might help you How to clone IDE to a SATA for boot drive - Hard-Disks - Storage