Boot.ini

Bob · Aug 17, 2005

Let's say you have two hard disks on the IDE controller. The first one
is a master on channel 0 and the second one is a master on channel 1.
Both are active boot disks with the operating system present.

The boot.ini file specifies where the operating system is located. For
example

multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)

says that the operating system is on the disk conntected to primary
IDE controller, master, channel 0, first partition.

What would that line look like if you wanted to boot and load the
operating system from the second disk?

You would have to tell the BIOS to boot from the second disk. If you
do that, but do not change the line above in boot.ini, then the boot
process will begin on the second disk as desired, but then will switch
to the first disk to load the operating system. You have to add
another line in boot.ini to load the operating system on the second
disk.

--

Map of the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy
http://home.houston.rr.com/rkba/vrwc.html

The ideological elites at the U.N. see the world as a collection of
helpless and victimized peoples beset by an ever-widening array of
"problems" ranging from civil wars to racial inequality that can be
solved only by an outside, all-knowing bureaucracy - the U.N. itself.
Their ultimate agenda is the disappearance of the sovereign nations
they claim to represent and the advent of a uniform global
government in which no one will be represented except the elites
themselves.

Robert Heiling · Aug 17, 2005

Bob said:
Let's say you have two hard disks on the IDE controller. The first one
is a master on channel 0 and the second one is a master on channel 1.
Both are active boot disks with the operating system present.

The boot.ini file specifies where the operating system is located. For
example

multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)

says that the operating system is on the disk conntected to primary
IDE controller, master, channel 0, first partition.

What would that line look like if you wanted to boot and load the
operating system from the second disk?

Assuming the OS is on the 1st partition
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(1)

You would have to tell the BIOS to boot from the second disk.

I don't know about your BIOS, but that is a special menu at boot time
and not a BIOS setting in mine. The choice there is to get to that menu
by holding down the Esc key at boot or letting it default to primary
master HD active partition.

If you
do that, but do not change the line above in boot.ini, then the boot
process will begin on the second disk as desired, but then will switch
to the first disk to load the operating system. You have to add
another line in boot.ini to load the operating system on the second
disk.

No. The boot.ini that is used is the one on the drive that has been
booted from in any given case.

Bob

Mike Walsh · Aug 17, 2005

The system BIOS specifies which drive to boot from. The boot partition is the active partition on that drive, usually but not always the first partition. The Boot.ini on the boot partition is used. The boot drive is rdisk(0) because it is the fist drive found. Other disks will be rdisk(1) rdisk(2) etc. If you boot from the drive on channel 0, the drive on channel 0 will be rdisk(0) and the drive on channel 1 will be rdisk(1). If you boot from the drive on channel 1, the drive on channel 1 will be rdisk(0) and the drive on channel 0 will be rdisk(1). You can boot from either disk and load the OS from the other disk by specifying rdisk(1).

You can multi-boot by using a Boot.ini something like this:

[boot loader]
timeout=5
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(2)\WINNT

[operating systems]
C:\="Windows 98"
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(2)partition(2)\WINNT="WinNT Second SCSI" /sos/NOSERIALMICE
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(2)\WINNT="WinNT First SCSI" /sos/NOSERIALMICE
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINNT="WinNT Maxtor IDE" /sos/NOSERIALMICE

Timothy Daniels · Aug 17, 2005

Bob said:
Let's say you have two hard disks on the IDE controller.
The first one is a master on channel 0 and
the second one is a master on channel 1.
Both are active boot disks with the operating system present.

Meaning that the partition on each HD that contains the boot
sector and boot.ini/ntldr/ntdectect.com is marked "active".

The boot.ini file specifies where the operating system is located.
For example,

multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)

says that the operating system is on the disk conntected to primary
IDE controller, master, channel 0, first partition.

Only by default are the HDs on channel 0 at higher boot
priority than the HD on channel 1. That can be reversed
and rearranged manually in the BIOS.

What would that line look like if you wanted to boot and load the
operating system from the second disk?

Assuming that the original HD that was previously at
the head of the HD boot order is still connected and
the BIOS not readjusted and the same partition on
that HD is marked "active", its boot.ini/ntldr/
ntdectect.com files will be used, and the menu entry
in boot.ini would have to be:

multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(1)

i.e. it would point to the 1st partition on the 2nd HD,
that 2nd HD occupying relative position 1 in the
BIOS's HD boot order, symbolized by "rdisk(1)"
in boot.ini, and being the 2nd position in the
HD boot order. (The positions start with 0.)

If you change the BIOS's HD boot order so that the
2nd HD is at the head of the HD boot order (i.e. put
it at relative position 0 in the boot order, symbolized
by "rdisk(0)" in boot.ini), the menu entry in boot.ini
would be the same as originally:

multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)

This would select partition 1 on the HD at the head
of the HD boot order (now the 2nd HD) as the location
of the OS.

You would have to tell the BIOS to boot from the second disk. If you
do that, but do not change the line above in boot.ini, then the boot
process will begin on the second disk as desired, but then will switch
to the first disk to load the operating system. You have to add
another line in boot.ini to load the operating system on the second
disk.

Almost right, but you don't quite understand the boot process:

The BIOS selects the HD at the head of its HD boot order
(which may be rearranged manually).
The BIOS passes control to the MBR (master boot record)
on that HD.
The MBR finds the "active" partition on its HD and passes
control to the boot sector on that partition.
The boot sector loads ntldr found on its partition, which in turn,
presents the contents of boot.ini as the boot menu on the
screen.
The entry selected by the operator (or by time-out) directs
ntldr to any partition on any HD in the system (even a
logical partition) from which to load the OS.
Since only primary partitions can have a boot sector,
boot.ini/ntldr/ntdetect.com must be on a primary partition,
so the boot menu must be on the "active" partition,
but the OS can be loaded from anywhere.

Microsoft, in its Disk Management utility and in its documentation,
refers to the partition containing the boot menu and the loader
the "system" partition, and the partition from which the OS is
loaded the "boot" partition. It is totally counter-intuitive, but that's
how Microsoft is. In most systems, the "boot" partition and the
"system" partitions are one and the same, but Disk Management
calls it the "system" partition, that is, by the partition which loaded
the OS - not by the partition where the OS resided.

*TimDaniels*

Bob · Aug 17, 2005

Assuming the OS is on the 1st partition
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(1)

OK, so it is rdisk.

I don't know about your BIOS, but that is a special menu at boot time
and not a BIOS setting in mine. The choice there is to get to that menu
by holding down the Esc key at boot or letting it default to primary
master HD active partition.

I have the Phoenix Award BIOS on a MSI mainboard. To select a
different hard disk from which to boot, I have to enter the BIOS (Del
key at startup) and select the one I want from the list available.
Sometimes under unsual circumstances the default boot disk is not the
main on IDE master channel 0.

For the sake of this thread, imagine I did enter the BIOS and did
select the second drive to boot from, the one on IDE master channel 1.

No. The boot.ini that is used is the one on the drive that has been
booted from in any given case.

I should have been clearer. Indeed the actual "boot.ini" file is the
one on the boot disk, in this case IDE master channel 1. But once
Windows reads that file, it learns that the operating system is on the
first drive, IDE master channel 0, so it starts loading the OS from
that disk.

--

Map of the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy
http://home.houston.rr.com/rkba/vrwc.html

The ideological elites at the U.N. see the world as a collection of
helpless and victimized peoples beset by an ever-widening array of
"problems" ranging from civil wars to racial inequality that can be
solved only by an outside, all-knowing bureaucracy - the U.N. itself.
Their ultimate agenda is the disappearance of the sovereign nations
they claim to represent and the advent of a uniform global
government in which no one will be represented except the elites
themselves.

Bob · Aug 17, 2005

The system BIOS specifies which drive to boot from. The boot partition is the active partition on that drive, usually but not always the first partition. The Boot.ini on the boot partition is used. The boot drive is rdisk(0) because it is the fist drive found. Other disks will be rdisk(1) rdisk(2) etc. If you boot from the drive on channel 0, the drive on channel 0 will be rdisk(0) and the drive on channel 1 will be rdisk(1). If you boot from the drive on channel 1, the drive on channel 1 will be rdisk(0) and the drive on channel 0 will be rdisk(1). You can boot from either disk and load the OS from the other disk by specifying rdisk(1).

You can multi-boot by using a Boot.ini something like this:

[boot loader]
timeout=5
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(2)\WINNT

[operating systems]
C:\="Windows 98"
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(2)partition(2)\WINNT="WinNT Second SCSI" /sos/NOSERIALMICE
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(2)\WINNT="WinNT First SCSI" /sos/NOSERIALMICE
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINNT="WinNT Maxtor IDE" /sos/NOSERIALMICE

I am not sure I fully understand that. Maybe you can show me the exact
way to do what I want.

I select the boot disk in the BIOS. I want to be able to select either
the first disk or the second disk. Now the boot loader starts from the
disk I selected and now I want to load the operating system from the
same disk. That means I must have the ability to select which disk in
from statements in the boot.ini file.

My system might look like this:

[boot loader]
timeout=3
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT
[operating systems]
C:\="Win2K"
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT="First Disk"
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(1)\WINNT="Second Disk"

Is that how to do what I want?

--

Map of the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy
http://home.houston.rr.com/rkba/vrwc.html

The ideological elites at the U.N. see the world as a collection of
helpless and victimized peoples beset by an ever-widening array of
"problems" ranging from civil wars to racial inequality that can be
solved only by an outside, all-knowing bureaucracy - the U.N. itself.
Their ultimate agenda is the disappearance of the sovereign nations
they claim to represent and the advent of a uniform global
government in which no one will be represented except the elites
themselves.

Bob · Aug 17, 2005

Meaning that the partition on each HD that contains the boot
sector and boot.ini/ntldr/ntdectect.com is marked "active".

Yes. The second disk is a clone of the first.

Only by default are the HDs on channel 0 at higher boot
priority than the HD on channel 1. That can be reversed
and rearranged manually in the BIOS.

Yes. I have to enter the BIOS to select the boot drive.

multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(1)
Yes.

i.e. it would point to the 1st partition on the 2nd HD,
that 2nd HD occupying relative position 1 in the
BIOS's HD boot order, symbolized by "rdisk(1)"
in boot.ini, and being the 2nd position in the
HD boot order. (The positions start with 0.)

OK, so the numeral in rdisk( ) is the ordinal for the BIOS list.

If you change the BIOS's HD boot order

I don't believe I can do that. The BIOS presents me with its list in
order it chooses, and all I can do is highlight which one I want.

Almost right, but you don't quite understand the boot process:

The BIOS selects the HD at the head of its HD boot order
(which may be rearranged manually).

I will have to look into how that is done because if I do that instead
of just selecting the boot drive, I won't have to do anything to the
boot.ini file, because as pointed out, the ordinal in rdisk ( ) is the
order in the BIOS.

Any hints how I move those BIOS drives manually? I really didn't look
carefully so it may be obvious.

--

Map of the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy
http://home.houston.rr.com/rkba/vrwc.html

The ideological elites at the U.N. see the world as a collection of
helpless and victimized peoples beset by an ever-widening array of
"problems" ranging from civil wars to racial inequality that can be
solved only by an outside, all-knowing bureaucracy - the U.N. itself.
Their ultimate agenda is the disappearance of the sovereign nations
they claim to represent and the advent of a uniform global
government in which no one will be represented except the elites
themselves.

Timothy Daniels · Aug 17, 2005

Bob said:
I don't believe I can do that. The BIOS presents me with its list in
order it chooses, and all I can do is highlight which one I want.

I believe you are referring to the boot menu which ntldr
puts on the screen based on the contents of boot.ini .
That is *not* the HD boot order. The HD boot order can
only be seen by manually entering the BIOS setup routine.
Read your owner's manual to find out how to do that. In a
Dell PC, that is done by pressing Delete sometime after
the RAM test but before the BIOS passes control to the
HD that it finds listed at the top of its HD boot order. The
DEFAULT hard drive boot order is:
Master HD on IDE channel 0,
Slave HD on IDE channel 0,
Master HD on IDE channel 1,
Slave HD on IDE channel 1.
But as I have pointed out, this order can be reset manually
in the BIOS to whatever you want.

I will have to look into how that is done because if I do that instead
of just selecting the boot drive, I won't have to do anything to the
boot.ini file, because as pointed out, the ordinal in rdisk ( ) is the
order in the BIOS.

Any hints how I move those BIOS drives manually? I really didn't
look carefully so it may be obvious.

In some machines, you press the F2 key to enter the BIOS
setup GUI after or during the POST (Power On Self Test)
stage. In Dell and some other machines, you do that by
pressing Delete. Your owner's manual will explain how to
navigate through the setup GUI used by your BIOS. In a
Dell BIOS, you use the up/down arrows to highlight the
entry for a particular HD, and you move that entry up or
down in the list by pressing "+" or "-". The name used for
the entry is taken from the model no. of the HD. If the HDs
have the same model no., you won't be able to tell them
apart, and you're hosed.

*TimDaniels*

Timothy Daniels · Aug 18, 2005

Bob said:
My system might look like this:

[boot loader]
timeout=3
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT
[operating systems]
C:\="Win2K"
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT="First Disk"
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(1)\WINNT="Second Disk"

Is that how to do what I want?

That would require a boot.ini file with those contents
to exist in the partition marked "active" on the HD
at the head of the BIOS's HD boot order (the default
is Master HD on IDE ch. 0). You will then be able
to select the OS on partition 1 of HD1 or HD2.
But remember that HD1 has boot.ini/ntlder/
ntdetect.com files, so it must always be present.
in order to designate and to load whichever OS
is selected by you.

BTW, 3 seconds it too short a time-out, in my opinion.
8-10 seconds would be more comfortable.

*TimDaniels*

Bob · Aug 18, 2005

That would require a boot.ini file with those contents
to exist in the partition marked "active" on the HD
at the head of the BIOS's HD boot order (the default
is Master HD on IDE ch. 0). You will then be able
to select the OS on partition 1 of HD1 or HD2.
But remember that HD1 has boot.ini/ntlder/
ntdetect.com files, so it must always be present.
in order to designate and to load whichever OS
is selected by you.

The second disk is a clone of the first. It therefore has the same
boot.ini, the same active partition, etc.

BTW, 3 seconds it too short a time-out, in my opinion.
8-10 seconds would be more comfortable.

Why? 3 sec has always served me well. What happens with 3 sec?

--

Map of the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy
http://home.houston.rr.com/rkba/vrwc.html

The ideological elites at the U.N. see the world as a collection of
helpless and victimized peoples beset by an ever-widening array of
"problems" ranging from civil wars to racial inequality that can be
solved only by an outside, all-knowing bureaucracy - the U.N. itself.
Their ultimate agenda is the disappearance of the sovereign nations
they claim to represent and the advent of a uniform global
government in which no one will be represented except the elites
themselves.

Bob · Aug 18, 2005

I believe you are referring to the boot menu which ntldr
puts on the screen based on the contents of boot.ini .
That is *not* the HD boot order.

No, I meant the BIOS display.

The HD boot order can
only be seen by manually entering the BIOS setup routine.

That's exactly what I am talking about.

In some machines, you press the F2 key to enter the BIOS
setup GUI after or during the POST (Power On Self Test)
stage. In Dell and some other machines, you do that by
pressing Delete.

Same with the Phoenix Award BIOS.

Your owner's manual will explain how to
navigate through the setup GUI used by your BIOS.

I already know how to navigate the BIOS. I just did not know I could
manually change the order of the entries. I select by highlighting,
not moving the entries around.

The name used for
the entry is taken from the model no. of the HD. If the HDs
have the same model no., you won't be able to tell them
apart, and you're hosed.

Two of my HD do have the same model number, but because I know which
one is the default boot disk, I can sort it out.

--

Map of the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy
http://home.houston.rr.com/rkba/vrwc.html

The ideological elites at the U.N. see the world as a collection of
helpless and victimized peoples beset by an ever-widening array of
"problems" ranging from civil wars to racial inequality that can be
solved only by an outside, all-knowing bureaucracy - the U.N. itself.
Their ultimate agenda is the disappearance of the sovereign nations
they claim to represent and the advent of a uniform global
government in which no one will be represented except the elites
themselves.

Timothy Daniels · Aug 18, 2005

Bob said:
The second disk is a clone of the first. It therefore has the same
boot.ini, the same active partition, etc.

Then your proposed boot.ini would do what you want -
give you the choice via boot menut to boot from either HD.

The other way to do the same thing is to enter the BIOS
and reverse the HD boot order. If you do it that way, the
boot.ini file in both HDs need only have a single entry
which will (I believe) result in ntldr not waiting for operator
input, but rather proceeding directly to the default entry.
In such a case, the admin (you) needn't understand the
syntax of boot.ini file, but can use the clone of the boot.ini
file that results from a mono-boot OS installation.

Why? 3 sec has always served me well. What happens with 3 sec?

Just wait until you try, for emergency backup purposes,
saving more than one clone on the 2nd HD. Then the
meaning of the entries in the boot.ini menu gets complex,
and selection takes a while.

BTW, there is a caution that you must observe in booting
the clone system for the 1st time. I've written about it
ad nauseum recently, so I won't repeat it again. Just do
a groups.google.com search on all groups, using
"Timothy Daniels" as the author and the keywords
"clone cloning first time boot-up parent" in the last 12 months.

73,
*TimDaniels*

Timothy Daniels · Aug 18, 2005

Bob said:
I already know how to navigate the BIOS. I just did not know I could
manually change the order of the entries. I select by highlighting,
not moving the entries around.

Re-read the owner's manual to be sure that highlighting
actually affects the boot order. In Dell's BIOS, it doesn't.
The boot order is displayed as a list, the 1st entry being
to head of the boot order. If the order of entries in the list
remains the same, the boot order remains the same.

Two of my HD do have the same model number, but because I
know which one is the default boot disk, I can sort it out.

Well, in *my* BIOS, there would be two identical names
in the HD boot order, and you wouldn't know which physical
disk was which in the list. The only way that I know now is
that all disks (I have 3) have different sizes - which is reflected
in their model nos. Once you diddle with the boot order manually,
you'll never know before bootup which OS you'll get.

73,
*TimDaniels*

Bob · Aug 18, 2005

The other way to do the same thing is to enter the BIOS
and reverse the HD boot order. If you do it that way, the
boot.ini file in both HDs need only have a single entry
which will (I believe) result in ntldr not waiting for operator
input, but rather proceeding directly to the default entry.
In such a case, the admin (you) needn't understand the
syntax of boot.ini file, but can use the clone of the boot.ini
file that results from a mono-boot OS installation.

I finally figured out how to rearrange the boot order in the BIOS so
that it will not only boot off the selected disk but load the
operating system off that same disk. Before all I was doing was
selecting the boot disk, which is not enough. You have to make that
disk the first in the list so that it becomes the one Windows is
loaded from.

Therefore I do not have to fool with boot.ini. By rearranging the
order of the disks in the BIOS, the disk I put at top is the one
referred to as rdisk(0).

Thanks to all in your explanations - it helped me understand what was
going on and now I have the solution I really wanted. Now I can boot
from any disk that is bootable with a simple operation in the BIOS.

Just wait until you try, for emergency backup purposes,
saving more than one clone on the 2nd HD. Then the
meaning of the entries in the boot.ini menu gets complex,
and selection takes a while.

I am totally lost. I only wanted a chioce of two possible disks to
load the OS from. If ever it gets more complicated, I will extend the
time.

BTW, there is a caution that you must observe in booting
the clone system for the 1st time. I've written about it
ad nauseum recently, so I won't repeat it again. Just do
a groups.google.com search on all groups, using
"Timothy Daniels" as the author and the keywords
"clone cloning first time boot-up parent" in the last 12 months.

Your posts refer to Win XP. I must have failed to mention that I am
using Win2K, not XP. If there is an issue with 2K, please let me know.

BTW, were you all aware that Win2K is used almost exclusively by
busineses and its use is about 50%. Furthermore MS states that SP4 is
the last of the service packs, but that Win2K will be supported on a
lesser basis for another 5 years.

--

Map of the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy
http://home.houston.rr.com/rkba/vrwc.html

The ideological elites at the U.N. see the world as a collection of
helpless and victimized peoples beset by an ever-widening array of
"problems" ranging from civil wars to racial inequality that can be
solved only by an outside, all-knowing bureaucracy - the U.N. itself.
Their ultimate agenda is the disappearance of the sovereign nations
they claim to represent and the advent of a uniform global
government in which no one will be represented except the elites
themselves.

Bob · Aug 18, 2005

Re-read the owner's manual to be sure that highlighting
actually affects the boot order.

It does because I can see it on the disk activity light. However, as
mentioned in the previous post, because highlighting does not change
the real order of disks, the OS is loaded from rdisk(0) which is not
the highlighted disk.

As mentioned, the way to do all this is to rearrange the order of the
disks in the BIOS so that the selected disk also becomes the first
disk, ie, rdisk(0), in which case boot.ini will tell the loader to get
the OS from that selected disk. The upshot is that one does not have
to create multiple entries in boot.ini.

BTW, in the Phoenix Award BIOS I have, you rotate the order of disks
with the PgUp/PgDn keys. You can rearrange them individually with +
and - keys.

Well, in *my* BIOS, there would be two identical names
in the HD boot order, and you wouldn't know which physical
disk was which in the list.

In the Phoenix Award BIOS that I have, each disk is labeled by its
position on the IDE controller. Thus the first disk (in default order)
is labeled something like "M 0" meaning Master on Channel 0. There is
no confusion possible as long as you know how you wired things.

BTW, I'm using cable-select, which is slicker than owl shit. No more
screwing with jumpers when changing removable drive trays around. It
takes special cables but they are only a couple bucks and are ATA133
certified. They even come with a blue connector for cable-orientation
impaired people.

--

Map of the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy
http://home.houston.rr.com/rkba/vrwc.html

The ideological elites at the U.N. see the world as a collection of
helpless and victimized peoples beset by an ever-widening array of
"problems" ranging from civil wars to racial inequality that can be
solved only by an outside, all-knowing bureaucracy - the U.N. itself.
Their ultimate agenda is the disappearance of the sovereign nations
they claim to represent and the advent of a uniform global
government in which no one will be represented except the elites
themselves.

Timothy Daniels · Aug 18, 2005

Bob said:
I finally figured out how to rearrange the boot order in the BIOS
so that it will not only boot off the selected disk but load the
operating system off that same disk. Before all I was doing was
selecting the boot disk, which is not enough. You have to make
that disk the first in the list so that it becomes the one Windows
is loaded from.

The first in the HS boot order is the HD from which the
boot menu comes and the one that contains the loader.
Remember that the boot menu selection can designate
a partition on another HD from which to load the OS just
as well as a partition on the same HD.

Therefore I do not have to fool with boot.ini. By rearranging the
order of the disks in the BIOS, the disk I put at top is the one
referred to as rdisk(0).

Correct. The MBR that is on rdisk(0) gets control,
and the "active" partition's boot sector is then given
control, and then ntldr presents the boot menu according
to the contents of its associated boot.ini file. And the
entry designated by operator selection (or by default)
in the menu resulting from that boot.ini file frdignates the
from which to load the OS.

Thanks to all in your explanations - it helped me understand what was
going on and now I have the solution I really wanted. Now I can boot
from any disk that is bootable with a simple operation in the BIOS.

Yes. And no diddling with boot.ini entries are necessary.
You can even put multiple clones on the 2nd HD, and you
can select which one boots up next by setting its partition
flag to "active" by using Disk Management in whatever OS
is running at the time.

I am totally lost. I only wanted a chioce of two possible disks to
load the OS from. If ever it gets more complicated, I will extend the
time.

Just as you can clone an OS from a partition in the 1st HD
to a partition in the 2nd HD, you can repeat the process so
that you end up with several clones on the 2nd HD, each
clone occupying its own partition. If you want to keep a simple
one-entry boot.ini file in each one and just designate which
partition boots from the 2nd HD by setting its "active" flag,
each OS must be in a primary partition - of which there can
be a maximum of 4. So by that method of OS selection,
you can have up to 4 OSes stored on the 2nd HD, each ready
for booting.

To make multiple cloned partitions, though, you have to be
able to put the clone on the destination HD as an individual
partition. Ghost lets you do that. So does Casper XP. But
True Image doesn't. With True Image, you have to make an
image file, and then "restore" that image file to the destination
HD. To make a true "clone" directly, True Image demands
that it copy the *entire* 1st HD contents to the *entirety* of the
2nd HD's available space. Give Casper XP a try. A free trial
version is available from http://fssdev.com/products/casperxp/ .
It works on Windows XP and Windows 2000 .

Your posts refer to Win XP. I must have failed to mention that I am
using Win2K, not XP. If there is an issue with 2K, please let me know.

I'm unsure whether Win2K has the "1st boot-up" issue or not.
Since XP is a derivative of 2K, 2K could have it unless the
issue stems from XP's precautions against transfer between
PC platforms.

*TimDaniels*

Robert Heiling · Aug 18, 2005

Bob wrote:

I finally figured out how to rearrange the boot order in the BIOS so
that it will not only boot off the selected disk but load the
operating system off that same disk. Before all I was doing was
selecting the boot disk, which is not enough. You have to make that
disk the first in the list so that it becomes the one Windows is
loaded from.

Therefore I do not have to fool with boot.ini. By rearranging the
order of the disks in the BIOS, the disk I put at top is the one
referred to as rdisk(0).

Thanks to all in your explanations - it helped me understand what was
going on and now I have the solution I really wanted. Now I can boot
from any disk that is bootable with a simple operation in the BIOS.

If that's what you had been looking for, then I'm a little puzzled. My
system is a Compaq and not a Dell, but I'd be surprised if Dell didn't
have similar capabilities. My system specifically (from Everest):
CPU Type Intel Celeron D 325, 2533 MHz (19 x 133)
Motherboard Name MSI Gamila/Giovani/Neon Series
Motherboard Chipset Intel Brookdale-G i845GEV
BIOS Type Award (08/05/04) which identifies itself as Phoenix-Award

At cold start or restart, there are 2 special key options:
F1) Bios CMOS setup utility which is what you've been talking about and
where I can set the boot order of Floppy, CD, HD and also have a display
of the HD's and their current boot priority order and the top HD in the
list is the one that will be booted if no keys are pressed at boot.

ESC) Boot Menu - First select from list - Floppy, CD, HD then HD gives
list of HD's, highlight one and press CR. That's all there is to it if
you want to boot manually!

Bob

Bob · Aug 18, 2005

I'm unsure whether Win2K has the "1st boot-up" issue or not.
Since XP is a derivative of 2K, 2K could have it unless the
issue stems from XP's precautions against transfer between
PC platforms.

I re-read your posts assuming that the same kind of issues are
plaguing Win2K as XP. Here's what I discovered.

I have two 80GB WD HDs. I clone one to the other with Acronis True
Image running on the CD. I try to run both together and I get a BSOD -
Inaccessible Boot Device. I run the original by itself satisfactorily.
I still get the BSOD. Then I reclone the second and instead of running
it as the second disk, I take your advice and run it immediately by
itself. Then I add the original source disk as the second disk. Both
disks now work together.

I don't have that problem if the second disk is a smaller model WD HD,
eg, 30GB. I have enough room to clone the 80GB on it. After cloning I
can add it as a second disk and it mounts and runs - no problems at
all.

This has to be the screwiest thing I have ever seen coming out of
Microsoft. Why is there a problem running the same model HD clone as
the second drive (without running it by itself immediately after
cloning)? You mention something about MS buggering Windows to thwart
cloning, but this is downright idiotic.

The whole saga is chronicled in the thread entitled: Second disk not
"enabled". Your comments would be appreciated as well as those of
anyone else who has an insight into what is going on. In the meatime I
am going to write WD and Acronis to see what they have to say.

Bob · Aug 18, 2005

At cold start or restart, there are 2 special key options:

F1) Bios CMOS setup utility which is what you've been talking about and
where I can set the boot order of Floppy, CD, HD and also have a display
of the HD's and their current boot priority order and the top HD in the
list is the one that will be booted if no keys are pressed at boot.

ESC) Boot Menu - First select from list - Floppy, CD, HD then HD gives
list of HD's, highlight one and press CR. That's all there is to it if
you want to boot manually!

I have to enter the BIOS in order to change the boot disk order. I
have not explored all the options available, so maybe there is another
way.

Robert Heiling · Aug 18, 2005

Bob said:
I have to enter the BIOS in order to change the boot disk order. I
have not explored all the options available, so maybe there is another
way.

The Bios Boot Menu IS an entry in the "BIOS" via a different path. BTW
Selection of a drive and booting from it from the Boot Menu moves it to
the top of the default list. During the period when I was repairing my
wife's PC and had her Win98 HD added in this computer, we used that Boot
Menu to boot her Win98. If she had been the last user of the system any
day, I would get her Win98 instead of my Win2k menu when I turned on the
system the next morning if I forgot to go into the Bios Boot Menu. I
later simplified the process by adding her Win98 to the boot.ini along
with Win2k, WinXP, and Linux.

Bob

Boot.ini

Bob

Robert Heiling

Mike Walsh

Timothy Daniels

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Timothy Daniels

Timothy Daniels

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Timothy Daniels

Timothy Daniels

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Timothy Daniels

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Bob

Robert Heiling