Darn it :mad:
1x160Gb (c: )sata
1x80Gb (d: ) ide
2x250Gb (e: and f: stripe raid) sata
Removed the 80Gb as it’s small and handy for a new install on another machine. Machine no longer boots, not an issue, must be the MBR. So into XP disk recovery console and ‘FIXMBR’, reboot again = nothing. No difference 
So the MBR must have been on the 80Gb IDE disk, now that’s gone why is XP not putting the MBR onto the 160Gb SATA disk from the recovery console ?
:help:
DT.
Can’t you use ASR?
Oh the joys of SATA on XP, when building a machine, as a rule I don’t install any other drives into a machine or set up any partitions other than the one I’m installing the OS on, XP & now vista will spread them selves to all the drives. I’ve spent many an hour trying to get round the problem, the quickest way I hav efound is to do a ‘repair’ install over the top.
SOrry I can’t give you any better news.
the only saving grace at the moment is the data drives array is safe and sound, knoppix cd to make sure and then start again with a clean Vista I think
Not what I had planned for today :nono:
DT.
if that’s the comp you had Vista on, I’m guessing the XP mbr fix wouldn’t be suitable for the Vista mbr ??
different machine, same board and SATA controllers, and a very slightly different HD configuration.
Knoppix can see all my data on the RAID array, so it’s a RepairInstall attempt in a minute now the data is visible.
DT.
Automatic System Recovery should work. It checks your drives and rewrites the necessary information. It’s always worked for me.
As Damski says, I only put extra disks in my machines after the full install is done.
I ended up getting a XP install from an identical machine hardware wise to get to the RAID array and get all the data off. The issue seemed to be that by removing the one IDE HD, the SATA assignments got all confused about where to be. Probably not helped by me pluggin one of the drives into the wrong SATA connector. :amstupid: :doh:
Ah well, there wasn’t anything of importance on the OS HD and gave me an excuse to take that machine to Vista as well 
DT.