I am attempting to replace a failing hard drive on a Dell 8400. I installed my new hard drive in SATA port 1, enabled the SATA port in my BIOS, and booted my computer (running Windows XP Pro). The drive is properly recognized, and assigned a drive letter (G). I ran the "Copy My Hard Drive" utility in Norton Ghost, and selected the options: set drive active, and Copy MBR. The "Destination partition type" area is greyed-out with Primary Partition selected, and the Drive Letter as G (which I also cannot change).
When the copy was complete, I disconnected the original drive from the SATA 0 port and moved the new drive to that port. I then disabled the SATA 1 in the BIOS, and loaded the computer. Windows loads properly to the login screen, but when I enter my login info, it goes to "Applying Settings", then to "Closing Network Connections" as if I am logging off and goes back to the login screen. It does this in an endless loop. The only idea I have is that maybe it is because the drive letter was set to G, and obviously all of the existing computer programs/files reference C. Unfortunately I do not know how I could resolve this, because the only way that I know how to reassign a drive letter is from Windows. If I was to load into Windows with the original drive, I still cannot reassign the letter, because the drive I would be using is already designated as C.
If this is the problem, I find this rather shocking. Although I am far from a computer expert, I do not know how a complete novice would be able to replace a drive. I can only assume that I am missing something, because it seems like people upgrade hard drives constantly with ease.
I would greatly appreciate any help that someone could provide.
Thanks.
-John