Creating a new boot drive

  • Thread starter Thread starter Graham
  • Start date Start date
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Graham

I currently have a dual boot WinMe/Win2K setup that includes the folowing
drives. The dual boot is done manually from BIOS - WinMe is on IDE , other
drives on ATA100 controller.

Disk 0 - Drives E: and G: (partitioned) IDE - E: WinMe System/G: Data
Disk 1 - Drive C: ATA100 Primary - C: Win2K System
Disk 2 - Drive F: ATA100 Primary Slave - F: Data
Disk 3 - Drive D: ATA100 Secondary - Spare drive

The W2k system drive is making noises on initial bootup and sometimes
displays 'Push a Key" to restart! Once running it seems fine and it tests
out fine using Ontrack's software. But, I have a complete spare 80Gig drive
so thought I should use it as the W2K boot drive.

I used Partition Magic 6.0 to copy Disk 1 to Disk 3 (which was blank). I
made Disk 3 active and then switched cables between the two drives. I then
rebooted and the system booted fine using the new drive.

But, the boot drive was now Drive D: instead of Drive C:. I tried changing
drive C: to Drive Y (so I could change D: to C: after a reboot). But, when I
rebooted, I received a message saying there was no page file and I could not
get beyond the sign-in page. Had to switch off computer to restart. I tried
safe mode and had same problem.

It seems that the page file must point to Drive C: which was no longer
there! And I could not rename D: to C: while within W2K.

Question:
- How should I have done this so that the new boot drive become C:, the old
boot drive becomes drive D: and the page file location pointer is not
affected?

Thanks!
 
Be aware that Microsoft use the term boot partition for the partition where
the operating system is installed, while the system partition is the first
primary active partition (where the boot sector and files required to start
the operating system reside) The system and boot partition can be
one-and-the-same.

You can't alter the boot partition drive letter from the original install.
These articles may help.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/223188/
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/249321/


--

Regards,

Dave Patrick ....Please no email replies - reply in newsgroup.
Microsoft Certified Professional
Microsoft MVP [Windows]
http://www.microsoft.com/protect
 
Thanks for those links Dave.

Lets see if this will work:

Start again, and copy C: to D: . make D: active.
Then reboot (after switching cables) from D: but with C: still in place so
paging file is found.
Go into registry and change C:->Z and D:->C as per first link
Restart - should have C: as boot/system drive and old boot/system drive
should be Z.

Is this correct?

Question - Backing up and cloning drives is commonly done - Surely most
users would not go through edit of registry in order to reboot from cloed
drive? Would a disk image program make this easier?

Graham

Dave Patrick said:
Be aware that Microsoft use the term boot partition for the partition where
the operating system is installed, while the system partition is the first
primary active partition (where the boot sector and files required to start
the operating system reside) The system and boot partition can be
one-and-the-same.

You can't alter the boot partition drive letter from the original install.
These articles may help.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/223188/
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/249321/


--

Regards,

Dave Patrick ....Please no email replies - reply in newsgroup.
Microsoft Certified Professional
Microsoft MVP [Windows]
http://www.microsoft.com/protect

Graham said:
I currently have a dual boot WinMe/Win2K setup that includes the folowing
drives. The dual boot is done manually from BIOS - WinMe is on IDE , other
drives on ATA100 controller.

Disk 0 - Drives E: and G: (partitioned) IDE - E: WinMe System/G: Data
Disk 1 - Drive C: ATA100 Primary - C: Win2K System
Disk 2 - Drive F: ATA100 Primary Slave - F: Data
Disk 3 - Drive D: ATA100 Secondary - Spare drive

The W2k system drive is making noises on initial bootup and sometimes
displays 'Push a Key" to restart! Once running it seems fine and it tests
out fine using Ontrack's software. But, I have a complete spare 80Gig
drive
so thought I should use it as the W2K boot drive.

I used Partition Magic 6.0 to copy Disk 1 to Disk 3 (which was blank). I
made Disk 3 active and then switched cables between the two drives. I then
rebooted and the system booted fine using the new drive.

But, the boot drive was now Drive D: instead of Drive C:. I tried
changing
drive C: to Drive Y (so I could change D: to C: after a reboot). But, when
I
rebooted, I received a message saying there was no page file and I could
not
get beyond the sign-in page. Had to switch off computer to restart. I
tried
safe mode and had same problem.

It seems that the page file must point to Drive C: which was no longer
there! And I could not rename D: to C: while within W2K.

Question:
- How should I have done this so that the new boot drive become C:, the
old
boot drive becomes drive D: and the page file location pointer is not
affected?

Thanks!
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
 
Probably your biggest downfall (issue/ confusion) is the fact that you're
doing the drive swapping in cmos setup.

--

Regards,

Dave Patrick ....Please no email replies - reply in newsgroup.
Microsoft Certified Professional
Microsoft MVP [Windows]
http://www.microsoft.com/protect
 
Dave Patrick said:
Probably your biggest downfall (issue/ confusion) is the fact that you're
doing the drive swapping in cmos setup.
Click to expand...

Dave,

Why would that be a factor? I don't see that it has anything to do with my
question.

In fact I seldom even use the IDE boot to WinMe and when I do it desn't
even see teh NTFS drives. Unlike the MS dual booting system, choosing a boot
drive in cmos setup whether it be the IDE drive, the ATA100 drive, CDROM or
Floppy or wharever means that the different systems do not interfere at all
with each other. Far superior than using the MS Dual Booting options and
does not give any problems.

All I 'm trying to do here, is copy my w2k drive boot/system to a new
physical drive and end up wth same drive letters. That's all!

I am sure I will figure it out for myself - just thought someone here might
be able to save me some time.

Graham
 
Graham said:
Dave,

Why would that be a factor? I don't see that it has anything to do with my
question.

In fact I seldom even use the IDE boot to WinMe and when I do it desn't
even see teh NTFS drives. Unlike the MS dual booting system, choosing a
boot
drive in cmos setup whether it be the IDE drive, the ATA100 drive, CDROM
or
Floppy or wharever means that the different systems do not interfere at
all
with each other. Far superior than using the MS Dual Booting options and
does not give any problems.
Click to expand...
* Some insight to this.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/q51978/
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;234048
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;[LN];314470

All I 'm trying to do here, is copy my w2k drive boot/system to a new
physical drive and end up wth same drive letters. That's all!

I am sure I will figure it out for myself - just thought someone here
might
be able to save me some time.
Click to expand...
* Use the steps in the two earlier articles to restore the drive letter.


--

Regards,

Dave Patrick ....Please no email replies - reply in newsgroup.
Microsoft Certified Professional
Microsoft MVP [Windows]
http://www.microsoft.com/protect
 
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