ok to swap SATA assigned channels after OS install ?

my available SATA ports on the m1730 are 0 and 1.

long story short, i wound up with my windows vista x64 installation on SATA 1, and a second non-OS drive on SATA 0.

set up my bios to start from SATA 1, it is in ATA mode, but i want to know if it's safe to physically swap the drives so that windows is on the SATA 0 channel. my concern is whether or not the windows installation can discriminate or if it's built on the SATA channel it was installed on, or whether i will have boot up issues after swapping the drive assignments ?

i want to do this, so that i can go ahead and install ubuntu in a dual-boot setup, which is something i've done before. i think ubuntu will install GRUB on the SATA 0 drive, so i want that drive to be the OS drive, not the non-OS drive.

 

iirc there are options on the install of ubuntu that allow you to choose which drive to install grub to.

 

it shouldn't matter for it. the only thing that matters is if you have more than one os. the one of the lowest-numbered sata port gets booted first, then.. or so.

just try?

 

i didn't know this, thanks....
i still would like to know if it's ok to do this kind of swap, at least with only windows installed.....

if anyone has experience with this....i'd appreciate the input

 

i have some experience with it: so far it was no problem. and if there is a problem, it just won't boot and you can plug it in like before and all is fine.

so it's worth a try. it should work without a flaw.

 

ok, i figure it's worth a shot, let me try it out

thanks all

 

worked without a hickup.....
of course making sure boot sequence in bios reflects the correct hdd is a good idea.

so sata 0 in the m1730 is identified as the "internal hdd". the "secondary hdd" is sata 1, making sure SATA operation is off (ATA mode) and flash cache module is off as well (affiliated with RAID).

i think if i had to do this after installing ubuntu, i'd have problems with bootup or ubuntu, because ubuntu's drive paths are linked to the assigned sata # of the drive.

 

might be. and even if not, it's good to make the step for the final layout as early as possible.

nice it worked.

 

Yeah, as long as the mbr code and partition boot code were written on the drive, it's just a matter of hardware designation via bios or a boot menu.

I have used multi drive computers this way, rather than a pure dual boot system just so I didn't need to mess with proprietary boot menus.