Boot.ini question

[Rod Speed]

Rod Speed wrote

It does in *my* PC,

Dont believe it, you're fooling yourself on that.

and my PC is a pretty near generic Dell Dimension.

Then it doesnt work like you claim.

And I told you how to prove that.

 

[Timothy Daniels]

Then it doesnt work like you claim.

And I told you how to prove that.

All you wrote was convoluted gibberish.
Write something that clearly makes sense,
then someone can check your veracity.

*TimDaniels*

 

[Rod Speed]

Rod Speed wrote

All you wrote was convoluted gibberish.

Lying, as always when your nose is rubbed in your stupidity.

Write something that clearly makes sense,
then someone can check your veracity.

I'll just tell you to go and **** yourself instead.

Anyone who isnt brain dead can work out what I said.

You're brain dead ? Your problem.

 

[Antoine Leca]

En Timothy Daniels va escriure:

You point out an important point, because the "x" in
"rdisk(x)" refers to position in the "hard drive boot order",
Yes.

not simply to the "boot order" - which includes other
bootable devices besides hard drives.

Not really agree (but it could be a disagreement about words, again.)
The "boot order" (really, the "IPL Priority", or "the position inside the
IPL table") only includes _one_ entry for one "BAID entry" corresponding to
the "first (0x80) harddisk"; the other Int13h harddisks are not present in
this table.

What you are seeing on your Dell Dimension is a feature (pretty) specific to
your BIOS, which displays in the so-called "Boot Device Menu", obtained with
a press on F12 while booting, along with all the IPL devices as prescribed
by the BBS standard, _all_ the harddisks installed (and also the BIOS setup,
and the Dell utilities partition, or IDE diagnostics).
As a result, the BAID first harddisk occurs normaly twice (one as e.g.
"Primary Master Drive", and another as "Hard-disk Drive C:".)

Antoine

 

[Antoine Leca]

En news:[email protected], Rod Speed va escriure:

But NOT when you JUST change the boot order sequence.

Correct, assuming the generally used meaning for "boot order sequence"
("order inside the IPL table", also known as "IPL Priority", according to
the standard.)

Thats what he claims and he's just plain wrong on that.

Well, he does not really claim that.
He wrote something that you read this way, but his obvious intent were
different, like I paraphrased earlier. What he thought about is an extension
of the BCV priority (as described in 5.3 of the BBS standard) which
encompasses also changing the relative order of the ATA drives. It is an
obvious extension to provide (it allows to boot independantly from a master
or a slave drive, for example), but it is by no mean "standard".

I have no recent experience of Phoenix BIOS besides Dell, so whether it is
common or not among those is not known to me. I do not know of a similar
thing with Award or AMI (they seem to adhere more strictly to the standard).
And I understand neither you do...


Antoine

 

[Rod Speed]

Rod Speed wrote

Correct, assuming the generally used meaning for
"boot order sequence" ("order inside the IPL table",
also known as "IPL Priority", according to the standard.)

Where exactly are you getting that from ?

Well, he does not really claim that.

Yes he does. He claims that the N in rdisk(N) refers to the
entry in the bios boot order list. That is just plain wrong.

He wrote something that you read this way, but his
obvious intent were different, like I paraphrased earlier.

Cant agree with that at all.

ALL he is saying to you now is that its only the hard drives
with an MBR that matter in the bios boot order list, as
opposed to all entrys in that list including optical drives etc.

What he thought about is an extension of the BCV priority
(as described in 5.3 of the BBS standard) which encompasses
also changing the relative order of the ATA drives. It is an
obvious extension to provide (it allows to boot independantly
from a master or a slave drive, for example), but it is
by no mean "standard".

Irrelevant to what the rdisk() entry actually refers to.

It does NOT refer to the entrys in the bios boot order list.

And its completely trivial to prove that it doesnt with the test I posted.

I have no recent experience of Phoenix BIOS besides Dell, so
whether it is common or not among those is not known to me.

Thats irrelevant to what the rdisk() entry actually refers to.

I do not know of a similar thing with Award or AMI
(they seem to adhere more strictly to the standard).

There is no 'standard' with what the bios boots from.

And I understand neither you do...

Wrong again.

 

[Timothy Daniels]

ABSTRACT

This experiment shows that the Phoenix Technologies BIOS
exposes the hard drive boot order to ntldr such that the para-
meter "rdisk(x)" in the boot.ini file corresponds to the hard
drive having a displacement "x" from the head of the hard drive
boot order, where "x" is a positive integer starting with 0.


HARDWARE

Dell Dimension XPS-R450 with a Phoenix Tech BIOS,
(3) Maxtor DiamondMaxPlus 9 hard drives connected to
(1) SIIG IDE PCI controller card.


HARD DRIVE CONFIGURATION

IDE channel 0, Master - 80GB hard drive
IDE channel 0, Slave - 40GB hard drive
IDE channel 1, Master - 120GB hard drive

Each HD has a Master Boot Record (MBR),
each HD has as its partition #1 a Primary partition
that
1) has a Boot Sector,
2) is marked "Active", and which
3) contains the boot files ntldr, boot.ini, and ntdetect.com .


SOFTWARE CONFIGURATION

Microsoft WindowsXP Pro installed in partition #1 of each HD.

boot.ini file in 80GB HD:

[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS=
"(80GB part 1 boot.ini) rdisk 0, part 1" /fastdetect
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(1)\WINDOWS=
"(80GB part 1 boot.ini) rdisk 1, part 1" /fastdetect
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(2)partition(1)\WINDOWS=
"(80GB part 1 boot.ini) rdisk 2, part 1" /fastdetect

boot.ini file in 40GB HD:

[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS=
"(40GB part 1 boot.ini) rdisk 0, part 1" /fastdetect
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(1)\WINDOWS=
"(40GB part 1 boot.ini) rdisk 1, part 1" /fastdetect
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(2)partition(1)\WINDOWS=
"(40GB part 1 boot.ini) rdisk 2, part 1" /fastdetect

boot.ini file in 120GB HD:

[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS=
"(120GB part 1 boot.ini) rdisk 0, part 1" /fastdetect
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(1)\WINDOWS=
"(120GB part 1 boot.ini) rdisk 1, part 1" /fastdetec
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(2)partition(1)\WINDOWS=
"(120GB part 1 boot.ini) rdisk 2, part 1" /fastdetect


EXPERIMENT

Each HD was in turn put at the head of the BIOS's hard drive
boot order and the PC was started. Each of the three entries in
the boot.ini-derived boot menu was selected and the OS that loaded
was recorded. A file with a name identifying the HD it was on was
put on the desktop of each OS in partition #1 of each HD to aid in
identifying the HD. Since the boot.ini files contained entries
only for the partition #1 on each HD, the experiment was a specific
test for the meaning of the "rdisk()" parameter.

Then the order of the 2nd and 3rd HD in the hard drive
boot order was reversed, and the above experiment was repeated.


RESULTS

HD boot order: 80GB, 40GB, 120GB
menu option selected: booted:
(80GB part 1 boot.ini) rdisk 0, part 1 80GB, part 1
(80GB part 1 boot.ini) rdisk 1, part 1 40GB, part 1
(80GB part 1 boot.ini) rdisk 2, part 1 120GB, part 1

HD boot order: 80GB, 120GB, 40GB
menu option selected: booted:
(80GB part 1 boot.ini) rdisk 0, part 1 80GB, part 1
(80GB part 1 boot.ini) rdisk 1, part 1 120GB, part 1
(80GB part 1 boot.ini) rdisk 2, part 1 40GB, part 1

HD boot order: 40GB, 80GB, 120GB
menu option selected: booted:
(40GB part 1 boot.ini) rdisk 0, part 1 40GB, part 1
(40GB part 1 boot.ini) rdisk 1, part 1 80GB, part 1
(40GB part 1 boot.ini) rdisk 2, part 1 120GB, part 1

HD boot order: 40GB, 120GB, 80GB
menue option selected: booted:
(40GB part 1 boot.ini) rdisk 0, part 1 40GB, part 1
(40GB part 1 boot.ini) rdisk 1, part 1 120GB, part 1
(40GB part 1 boot.ini) rdisk 2, part 1 80GB, part 1

HD boot order: 120GB, 40GB, 80GB
menue option selected: booted:
(120GB part 1 boot.ini) rdisk 0, part 1 120GB, part 1
(120GB part 1 boot.ini) rdisk 1, part 1 40GB, part 1
(120GB part 1 boot.ini) rdisk 2, part 1 80GB, part 1

HD boot order: 120GB, 80GB, 40GB
menue option selected: booted:
(120GB part 1 boot.ini) rdisk 0, part 1 120GB, part 1
(120GB part 1 boot.ini) rdisk 1, part 1 80GB, part 1
(120GB part 1 boot.ini) rdisk 2, part 1 40GB, part 1


DISCUSSION

The "rdisk()" parameter was seen to always correspond to the
position of the hard drive in the Phoenix Tech BIOS's hard drive
boot order through all permutations of the hard drive boot order.
Whether this correspondence is found in other BIOSes is unknown
by this investigator, but since the Phoenix Tech's BIOSes are used
by several large manufacturers of PCs, it is probably a very
common meaning for "rdisk()" among modern PCs running a
Microsoft Windows operating system.


*TimDaniels*, Investigator

 

[Rod Speed]

ABSTRACT

This experiment shows that the Phoenix Technologies BIOS
exposes the hard drive boot order to ntldr such that the para-
meter "rdisk(x)" in the boot.ini file corresponds to the hard
drive having a displacement "x" from the head of the hard drive
boot order, where "x" is a positive integer starting with 0.

No it doesnt.

HARDWARE

Dell Dimension XPS-R450 with a Phoenix Tech BIOS,
(3) Maxtor DiamondMaxPlus 9 hard drives connected to

(1) SIIG IDE PCI controller card.

That alone is a problem. You dont get the effect you
are claiming with drives on the motherboard IDE ports.

Bet that is the real reason you have ****ed up so spectacularly.

HARD DRIVE CONFIGURATION

IDE channel 0, Master - 80GB hard drive
IDE channel 0, Slave - 40GB hard drive
IDE channel 1, Master - 120GB hard drive

Each HD has a Master Boot Record (MBR),
each HD has as its partition #1 a Primary partition
that
1) has a Boot Sector,
2) is marked "Active", and which
3) contains the boot files ntldr, boot.ini, and ntdetect.com .

SOFTWARE CONFIGURATION

Microsoft WindowsXP Pro installed in partition #1 of each HD.

boot.ini file in 80GB HD:

[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS=
"(80GB part 1 boot.ini) rdisk 0, part 1" /fastdetect
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(1)\WINDOWS=
"(80GB part 1 boot.ini) rdisk 1, part 1" /fastdetect
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(2)partition(1)\WINDOWS=
"(80GB part 1 boot.ini) rdisk 2, part 1" /fastdetect

That boot.ini is just plain wrong on the comments on each
entry, they arent all for the 80G drive, there is one for
each physical drive because the rdisk value varies.

Otherwise fine up till here.

But you shouldnt have a boot.ini on these other two
drives, that just confuses the issue since you dont
know which boot.ini is actually being used at boot time.

boot.ini file in 40GB HD:

[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS=
"(40GB part 1 boot.ini) rdisk 0, part 1" /fastdetect
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(1)\WINDOWS=
"(40GB part 1 boot.ini) rdisk 1, part 1" /fastdetect
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(2)partition(1)\WINDOWS=
"(40GB part 1 boot.ini) rdisk 2, part 1" /fastdetect

boot.ini file in 120GB HD:

[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS=
"(120GB part 1 boot.ini) rdisk 0, part 1" /fastdetect
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(1)\WINDOWS=
"(120GB part 1 boot.ini) rdisk 1, part 1" /fastdetec
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(2)partition(1)\WINDOWS=
"(120GB part 1 boot.ini) rdisk 2, part 1" /fastdetect

EXPERIMENT

Each HD was in turn put at the head of the BIOS's hard drive boot order
and the PC was started.

You cant do it that way either. You should be leaving the 80G drive
with the only boot.ini at the top of the hard drive boot order list, so
you can be sure that that drive is being booted by the bios.

THEN you should swap JUST the 40G and the 120G
drives in the boot order list, while keeping them at
lower priority in the boot order list than the 80G drive
and see what drive gets booted when you select each
of the boot.ini entrys with rdisk values of 1 and 2.

Each of the three entries in the boot.ini-derived boot menu was selected
and the OS that loaded was recorded. A file with a name identifying the
HD it was on was put on the desktop of each OS in partition #1 of each HD
to aid in
identifying the HD. Since the boot.ini files contained entries
only for the partition #1 on each HD, the experiment was a specific test
for the meaning of the "rdisk()" parameter.

Then the order of the 2nd and 3rd HD in the hard drive boot order was
reversed, and the above experiment was repeated.

HD boot order: 80GB, 40GB, 120GB
menu option selected: booted:
(80GB part 1 boot.ini) rdisk 0, part 1 80GB, part 1
(80GB part 1 boot.ini) rdisk 1, part 1 40GB, part 1
(80GB part 1 boot.ini) rdisk 2, part 1 120GB, part 1

HD boot order: 80GB, 120GB, 40GB
menu option selected: booted:
(80GB part 1 boot.ini) rdisk 0, part 1 80GB, part 1
(80GB part 1 boot.ini) rdisk 1, part 1 120GB, part 1
(80GB part 1 boot.ini) rdisk 2, part 1 40GB, part 1

HD boot order: 40GB, 80GB, 120GB
menu option selected: booted:
(40GB part 1 boot.ini) rdisk 0, part 1 40GB, part 1
(40GB part 1 boot.ini) rdisk 1, part 1 80GB, part 1
(40GB part 1 boot.ini) rdisk 2, part 1 120GB, part 1

HD boot order: 40GB, 120GB, 80GB
menue option selected: booted:
(40GB part 1 boot.ini) rdisk 0, part 1 40GB, part 1
(40GB part 1 boot.ini) rdisk 1, part 1 120GB, part 1
(40GB part 1 boot.ini) rdisk 2, part 1 80GB, part 1

HD boot order: 120GB, 40GB, 80GB
menue option selected: booted:
(120GB part 1 boot.ini) rdisk 0, part 1 120GB, part 1
(120GB part 1 boot.ini) rdisk 1, part 1 40GB, part 1
(120GB part 1 boot.ini) rdisk 2, part 1 80GB, part 1

HD boot order: 120GB, 80GB, 40GB
menue option selected: booted:
(120GB part 1 boot.ini) rdisk 0, part 1 120GB, part 1
(120GB part 1 boot.ini) rdisk 1, part 1 80GB, part 1
(120GB part 1 boot.ini) rdisk 2, part 1 40GB, part 1

DISCUSSION

The "rdisk()" parameter was seen to always correspond to the
position of the hard drive in the Phoenix Tech BIOS's hard drive
boot order through all permutations of the hard drive boot order.

No it wasnt, you confused the issue with the SIIG IDE PCI controller card.

Whether this correspondence is found in other BIOSes is unknown by this
investigator, but since the Phoenix Tech's BIOSes are used by several
large manufacturers of PCs, it is probably a very common meaning for
"rdisk()" among modern PCs running a Microsoft Windows operating system.

Fraid not, and phoenix bios are the least commonly used of the 3
majors. And most dont have their drives on a PCI controller either.

*TimDaniels*, Investigator

Wanker, actually.

 

[Timothy Daniels]

No it doesnt.




That alone is a problem. You dont get the effect you
are claiming with drives on the motherboard IDE ports.

Bet that is the real reason you have ****ed up so spectacularly.

You're grasping at straws. The PCI card is just the controller,
and all it does is connect the hard drives to the BIOS. The BIOS
controls the hard drive boot order and presents them to ntldr and
the OS.

*TimDaniels*

 

[Timothy Daniels]

"Rod Speed" <wrote:

ABSTRACT

This experiment shows that the Phoenix Technologies BIOS
exposes the hard drive boot order to ntldr such that the para-
meter "rdisk(x)" in the boot.ini file corresponds to the hard
drive having a displacement "x" from the head of the hard drive
boot order, where "x" is a positive integer starting with 0.

No it doesnt.

HARDWARE

Dell Dimension XPS-R450 with a Phoenix Tech BIOS,
(3) Maxtor DiamondMaxPlus 9 hard drives connected to
(1) SIIG IDE PCI controller card.

HARD DRIVE CONFIGURATION

IDE channel 0, Master - 80GB hard drive
IDE channel 0, Slave - 40GB hard drive
IDE channel 1, Master - 120GB hard drive

Each HD has a Master Boot Record (MBR),
each HD has as its partition #1 a Primary partition
that
1) has a Boot Sector,
2) is marked "Active", and which
3) contains the boot files ntldr, boot.ini, and ntdetect.com .

SOFTWARE CONFIGURATION

Microsoft WindowsXP Pro installed in partition #1 of each HD.

boot.ini file in 80GB HD:

[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS=
"(80GB part 1 boot.ini) rdisk 0, part 1" /fastdetect
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(1)\WINDOWS=
"(80GB part 1 boot.ini) rdisk 1, part 1" /fastdetect
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(2)partition(1)\WINDOWS=
"(80GB part 1 boot.ini) rdisk 2, part 1" /fastdetect

That boot.ini is just plain wrong on the comments on each
entry, they arent all for the 80G drive, there is one for
each physical drive because the rdisk value varies.

Read again. The comments in the boot options indicate
on which HD the boot.ini file resides. Read on, and you'll
see that there is one boot.ini file on each HD, and the boot.ini
file on each HD says in the comments which HD it's on.
This is so one can see during boot-up which boot.ini file
is being used and thus which HD got control from the BIOS.
"(80GB part 1 boot.ini)" means that the boot.ini file is on
the 80GB HD.

*TimDaniels*

 

[Timothy Daniels]

But you shouldnt have a boot.ini on these other two
drives, that just confuses the issue since you dont
know which boot.ini is actually being used at boot time.

You're not paying attention to what is clearly on the
page. The comments in the boot.ini file's options
that are displayed on the screen during bootup tell
which boot.ini file, and thus which HD, has control.
In the boot.ini contents below, for instance:

boot.ini file in 40GB HD:

[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS=
"(40GB part 1 boot.ini) rdisk 0, part 1" /fastdetect
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(1)\WINDOWS=
"(40GB part 1 boot.ini) rdisk 1, part 1" /fastdetect
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(2)partition(1)\WINDOWS=
"(40GB part 1 boot.ini) rdisk 2, part 1" /fastdetect

the boot.ini files 3 options clearly state that
"(40GB part 1 boot.ini)", meaning that it is on the
40GB HD.

*TimDaniels*

 

[Timothy Daniels]

You cant do it that way either. You should be leaving the 80G drive
with the only boot.ini at the top of the hard drive boot order list, so
you can be sure that that drive is being booted by the bios.

That is clearly being done. First, with the 80GB HD at
the head of the HD boot order, each of the 3 HDs were booted.
Then with the 80GB HD remaining at the head of the HD boot
order and the order of the other 2 HDs reversed, all 3 HDs
were again booted.

Next, with the 40GB HD at the head of the HD boot order,
each of the 3 HDs were booted. Then with the 40GB HD
remaining at the head of the HD boot order and the order
of the other 2 HDs reversed, all 3 HDs were again booted.

Next, with the 120GB HD at the head of the HD boot order,
each of the 3 HDs were booted. Then with the 120GB HD
remaining at the head of the HD boot order and the order
of the other 2 HDs reversed, all 3 HDs were again booted.

You can see, if you study the results, that the HD that
contained the OS that got booted was always the one
corresponding to the value of rdisk(n), where "n" was the
displacement from the head of the HD boot order.

*TimDaniels*

 

[Timothy Daniels]

No it wasnt, you confused the issue with the SIIG IDE PCI
controller card.

Fraid not, and phoenix bios are the least commonly used
of the 3 majors. And most dont have their drives on a PCI
controller either.

You grasp at straws and try to change the subject since
your statements about the meaning of rdisk were shown to
be WRONG.

*TimDaniels*

 

[Rod Speed]

Rod Speed wrote

You're grasping at straws.

Nope, there's a reason MS doesnt mention the hard
drive boot order in the documentation of the ARC path
naming convention and neither does anyone else.

The PCI card is just the controller, and all it does is connect the hard
drives to the BIOS.

Its more complicated than that with the ARC path naming convention.

The BIOS controls the hard drive boot order and presents them to ntldr
and the OS.

But you dont get the effect you are claiming
with drives on the motherboard controller.

 

[Rod Speed]

Rod Speed wrote

Timothy Daniels wrote

ABSTRACT
This experiment shows that the Phoenix Technologies BIOS
exposes the hard drive boot order to ntldr such that the para-
meter "rdisk(x)" in the boot.ini file corresponds to the hard
drive having a displacement "x" from the head of the hard drive
boot order, where "x" is a positive integer starting with 0.

No it doesnt.

HARDWARE
Dell Dimension XPS-R450 with a Phoenix Tech BIOS,
(3) Maxtor DiamondMaxPlus 9 hard drives connected to
(1) SIIG IDE PCI controller card.
HARD DRIVE CONFIGURATION
IDE channel 0, Master - 80GB hard drive
IDE channel 0, Slave - 40GB hard drive
IDE channel 1, Master - 120GB hard drive
Each HD has a Master Boot Record (MBR),
each HD has as its partition #1 a Primary partition
that
1) has a Boot Sector,
2) is marked "Active", and which
3) contains the boot files ntldr, boot.ini, and ntdetect.com .
SOFTWARE CONFIGURATION
Microsoft WindowsXP Pro installed in partition #1 of each HD.
boot.ini file in 80GB HD:
[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS=
"(80GB part 1 boot.ini) rdisk 0, part 1" /fastdetect
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(1)\WINDOWS=
"(80GB part 1 boot.ini) rdisk 1, part 1" /fastdetect
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(2)partition(1)\WINDOWS=
"(80GB part 1 boot.ini) rdisk 2, part 1" /fastdetect

That boot.ini is just plain wrong on the comments on each
entry, they arent all for the 80G drive, there is one for
each physical drive because the rdisk value varies.

Read again.

No point, it stays wrong no matter how often its read.

The comments in the boot options indicate on which HD the boot.ini file
resides.

There is no need for that on every boot option line.

Read on, and you'll see that there is one boot.ini file on each HD,

And that is wrong too, there shouldnt be to simplify the test config.

and the boot.ini file on each HD says in the comments which HD it's on.

There is no need for that on every boot option line in the boot.ini

This is so one can see during boot-up which boot.ini file is being used

There shouldnt be more than one boot.ini

and thus which HD got control from the BIOS.
"(80GB part 1 boot.ini)" means that the boot.ini file is on the 80GB HD.

See above.

 

[Rod Speed]

Rod Speed wrote

You're not paying attention to what is clearly on the page.

Wrong, as always.

The comments in the boot.ini file's options that are displayed on the
screen during bootup tell
which boot.ini file, and thus which HD, has control.
In the boot.ini contents below, for instance:

You should just one boot.ini file and you shouldnt be
changing the drive at the top of the boot order list
when testing what the rdisk parameter refers to.

 

[Rod Speed]

Rod Speed wrote

You grasp at straws and try to change the subject

Lying, as always. There is no change of subject what so ever.

since your statements about the meaning of rdisk were shown to be WRONG.

No they werent, you didnt even do the test with motherboard ports.

If you do, you will find that your claim about
the rdisk parameter is just plain WRONG.

And you cant even manage to put your comments in a single reply either.

 

[Antoine Leca]

En news:[email protected], Rod Speed va escriure:

Where exactly are you getting that from ?

Compaq-Phoenix-Intel, BIOS Boot Specification Version 1.01, 1996, 46 p.
http://www.phoenix.com/NR/rdonlyres/56E38DE2-3E6F-4743-835F-B4A53726ABED/0/specsbbs101.pdf

Would you have read/meant anything else?

ALL he is saying to you now is that its only the hard drives
with an MBR that matter in the bios boot order list, as
opposed to all entrys in that list including optical drives etc.

I did not read it this way, but if he said that, it would be very wrong.

Also, the fact there is or not a MBR should not come into play. You can
perfectly boot a computer with a device whose sector LBA0 ends in 55AAh but
lacking a MBR.
Perhaps you'll have to disable the advanced "features" like "virus
protection", though.

And its completely trivial to prove that it doesnt with the test
I posted.

You meant:
] The obvious problem with your claim is trivial to prove.
] Setup a test config where the boot.ini comes off the
] first drive in the boot list in the bios, with an entry to
] boot off a different physical drive. When you move
] that later physical drive in the boot order in the bios,
] that doesnt make any difference to which drive gets
] booted when you select that entry in the boot.ini at
] boot time. The N value changes according to you
] because you have moved it in the bios boot sequence
] list. XP still boots the same physical drive regardless.

The problem with this test is that it does not work in general.

Assume you have two controlers: say two IDE drives and a RAID array.
According to your hypothesis, we will assume that the booting ("system" in
MS parlance) drive would be the first IDE, so 0x80, the second would have
number 0x81, and the array will get the next position, 0x82.
We also assume that Windows is on the RAID array, so BOOT.INI reads
something as
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(2)partition(1)\WINDOWS

Now, if you change the "Hard disk drive sequence" in the BIOS, how could
that ever work?
Changing the sequence will assign 0x80 to the array, so it boots from it; we
should first assume the BOOT.INI had be moved accordingly; but to boot
successfully you also need to correct its content also, here to rdisk(0).
The IDE drives will get 0x81 and 0x82, but they are irrelevant as far as
your scheme is concerned.


Basically, I feel that the NTLDR scheme is dependant upon _both_ the
identification of the system device (the one where BOOT.INI is) and the boot
device a.k.a. where Windows kernel is (indicated by the ARCpath). Moving any
of those results usually in impossibility to boot and need to mess with the
location and content of BOOT.INI (there is hope the new BootMgr scheme will
solve part of these problems, but I am not sure).

Wrong again.

Sorry about the double negative, I thought it could be understood.
I wrote it was my impression you did _not_ know about some BIOS that allows
to _change_ the order the various drives on a single controller/device are
getting assigned.

If I was wrong and you do know about it, please elaborate.


Antoine

 

[Antoine Leca]

En Timothy Daniels va escriure:

Each HD was in turn put at the head of the BIOS's hard drive
boot order and the PC was started.

How do you do that *exactly*.

I do not have a XPS here, but on any of regular (recent) Dimension (4x00),
Optiflex and PowerEdge, I am only able to assign priorities between
_controlers_ (in the "Hard-Disk Drive Sequence" setup submenu); nothing
relevant was settable in the "Boot Sequence" submenu (only relevant is
"Hard-Disk Drive C:", and it is obviously the 0x80 disk as determined by the
above menu).

Then I have another menu, got with F10, which allows to boot from any IDE
drive installed (along other options).


According to your test description, it looks like your (Dell/Phoenix) BIOS
acts differently.

Whether this correspondence is found in other BIOSes is unknown
by this investigator,

Correct so far.

but since the Phoenix Tech's BIOSes are used by several large
manufacturers of PCs

Unfortunately, the feature you are relying upon seems specific, not only to
the maker of the BIOS, but also to the very breed of it.


Antoine

 

[Timothy Daniels]

"Antoine Leca" asked:

Timothy Daniels va escriure:

How do you do that *exactly*.

During POST, I hit the Delete key. That brings up the BIOS.
I hit the RtArrow key 4 times. That brings up the Boot screen.
I hit the DownArrow key 8 times. That passes the
First Boot Device screen, the
Second Boot Device screen, and the
Third Boot Device screen.
Then I hit Enter and up comes the Hard Drive Submenu screen
which contains the hard drive boot order. The order
of the hard drives listed there can be adjusted with
the (+) and (-) keys.
Then I hit the Esc key to get back to the Boot screen.
Then I hit the RtArrow key once to get to the Exit screen.
Then I hit Enter twice to exit the BIOS, and POST restarts.

*TimDaniels*