[NTLUG:Discuss] Boot problem After Removal of GRUB

[Robert Pearson]

The Problem:
Windows 2000 will not boot the first time (power on) from the IDE
Primary Master. Setup does not show this device detected until after
the hardware Reset.
The first boot fails with the error message "Reboot and Select proper
Boot device or Insert Boot Media in Selected Boot device". Repeated
power off/on's produce the same result.
If I press the hardware Reset button on the "white box" clone after
the first failure, the Windows 2000 disk will boot after a long delay
in Setup and several seconds of a blank screen.
The Windows 2000 IDE Primary Master will boot normally if I insert any
non-bootable drive in the IDE Primary Slave, which is the second
removable slot, .

How I got this Problem:
I have an Intel P4 2.4 GHz "white box" clone. I have had this machine
running Windows 2000 on different disks since 2000. It currently has a
Western Digital 80 GB in a removable chassis.
This 80 GB drive is the IDE Primary Master. It has been running
successfully on this disk since 2003. The only other device is an
Optorite DVD+/-RW on the IDE Secondary Master.
I added a second Western Digital 80 GB drive (identical to the first)
in another removable chassis as the IDE Primary Slave.
I installed Debian "sarge", with GRUB for the multi-boot loader, on
the IDE Primary Slave drive. During the Debian install I turned off
the power (but did not remove) the Windows 2000 disk in the IDE
Primary Master removable slot. GRUB saw the Windows 2000 removable
device but complained it "could not access" it. The power was off-How
did GRUB see the drive?
When I booted with both drives powered on the GRUB menu came up
showing both drives and everything worked fine.
I could boot either OS as long as both drives were powered on. If I
powered off the Debian drive (Primary Slave) the Windows (Primary
Master) would not boot. If I powered off the Windows drive, Debian
booted fine with some message from GRUB about the other disk. This is
normal but not what I wanted.

What I wanted:
Two separate OS's on two separate removable drives. One *nix plus Windows ??.
Boot would be controlled by the GRUB multi-boot loader depending on
which drives were powered on. Debian or Windows 2000 or both.
Is it possible? Or should I just buy VMware?

Solutions I have tried:
(1) Went to Western Digital's Web site and ran the diagnostics on my disk.
(2) Booted from the Windows 2000 Cd and ran Repair
(3) Booted from the Windows CD and ran Recovery console and ERD
(4) Booted from Windows Boot disk set and ran Repair, Recovery console and ERD
(5) I set up the Windows 2000 Recovery console and did:
    (a) Fixboot - more than once
    (b) Fixmbr - more than once
    (c) Re-installed Windows 2000 (the OS is on it's own partition)
        (1) reconnected all the applications
    (d) Finally gave in and used the Windows98SE boot disk and ran fdisk /MBR
        (1) The first time I ran fdisk /MBR it reported there were no
fixed disks present?
        (2) The second it appeared to work but did not fix the problem
    (e) I have scoured the Web via Google for two weeks trying to resolve this.

Conclusions:
GRUB altered something either in CMOS or somewhere else that I don't know about.
It is obvious to me that I don't know enough to do this.
It looks like I am several years behind everyone else.
I have learned a lot about Google searches.

A Side Note:
I tried this once before in 2003 on an HP AMD machine using one disk.
I had the same problems and symptoms when I tried to remove GRUB and
SuSE and return to Windows 2000. The install of SuSE to an open
partition of a working Windows 2000 machine went well. Everything
worked fine until I decided to remove SuSE. I finally got the disk to
work again in another machine by completely re-formatting it. in the
process of removing GRUB I destroyed the HP CMOS somehow. It would not
recognize any drives after a while. There was not an easy fix for
that.

All help is appreciated.

Thanks,

Robert