Windows 2000 SP4. Drive loaded as primary master.
works great.
I plugged in an XP disk into secondary master and fiddled
around with it.
Removed XP disk.
Now, my w2K disk no longer boots as primary master.
If I move it to secondary master, it works fine.

This has happened more than once, although the process
to make it happen is not clear. Seems random.

When it happens, I can ghost the image back to the drive
and it works fine as primary master again.

This is my test system with plug-in ide drives that get
swapped around frequently. I NEED to swap drives around...
Win98 drives don't have this problem.

Hpw do I fix/patch/recover/prevent this?
Thanks, mike

We've no idea since you didn't tell us what happens when you try?

--

Regards,

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

"mike" wrote:
| Windows 2000 SP4. Drive loaded as primary master.
| works great.
| I plugged in an XP disk into secondary master and fiddled
| around with it.
| Removed XP disk.
| Now, my w2K disk no longer boots as primary master.
| If I move it to secondary master, it works fine.
|
| This has happened more than once, although the process
| to make it happen is not clear. Seems random.
|
| When it happens, I can ghost the image back to the drive
| and it works fine as primary master again.
|
| This is my test system with plug-in ide drives that get
| swapped around frequently. I NEED to swap drives around...
| Win98 drives don't have this problem.
|
| Hpw do I fix/patch/recover/prevent this?
| Thanks, mike

Dave Patrick wrote:
> We've no idea since you didn't tell us what happens when you try?
>
When I try what?

--

Regards,

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

"mike" wrote:
| Windows 2000 SP4. Drive loaded as primary master.
| works great.
| I plugged in an XP disk into secondary master and fiddled
| around with it.
| Removed XP disk.
| Now, my w2K disk no longer boots as primary master.
| If I move it to secondary master, it works fine.
|
| This has happened more than once, although the process
| to make it happen is not clear. Seems random.
|
| When it happens, I can ghost the image back to the drive
| and it works fine as primary master again.
|
| This is my test system with plug-in ide drives that get
| swapped around frequently. I NEED to swap drives around...
| Win98 drives don't have this problem.
|
| Hpw do I fix/patch/recover/prevent this?
| Thanks, mike

Hmm .... well the clue I have is subject line: "2k no longer boots as
primary"

--

Regards,

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

"mike" wrote:
| When I try what?

Dave Patrick wrote:
> Hmm .... well the clue I have is subject line: "2k no longer boots as
> primary"
>

Taking a wild guess at what you're asking:
I push the power switch, Disks and fans whirr...

"Missing operating system"

That what you meant?
mike

Regards,

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

"mike" wrote:
| Windows 2000 SP4. Drive loaded as primary master.
| works great.
| I plugged in an XP disk into secondary master and fiddled
| around with it.
| Removed XP disk.
| Now, my w2K disk no longer boots as primary master.
| If I move it to secondary master, it works fine.
|
| This has happened more than once, although the process
| to make it happen is not clear. Seems random.
|
| When it happens, I can ghost the image back to the drive
| and it works fine as primary master again.
|
| This is my test system with plug-in ide drives that get
| swapped around frequently. I NEED to swap drives around...
| Win98 drives don't have this problem.
|
| Hpw do I fix/patch/recover/prevent this?
| Thanks, mike

Mike: see <http://www.jsifaq.com/subk/tip5100/rh5185.htm>

mike wrote:

>
> "Missing operating system"
>



---
avast! Antivirus: Outbound message clean.
Virus Database (VPS): 0613-2, 03/31/2006
Tested on: 4/1/2006 6:01:04 PM
avast! - copyright (c) 1988-2004 ALWIL Software.
http://www.avast.com

Hard to say with what you provide. Give one of these a go.

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q...ting+system%22

--

Regards,

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

"mike" wrote:
| Taking a wild guess at what you're asking:
| I push the power switch, Disks and fans whirr...
|
| "Missing operating system"
|
| That what you meant?
| mike

Dave Patrick wrote:
> Hard to say with what you provide. Give one of these a go.
>
> http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q...ting+system%22
>

Thank you very much for the suggestion to search google and get 65000
hits. I've already done that and wouldn't be asking if I had
found anything helpful.

I don't need a google search, I need help from someone with
knowledge/experience.


Please come back if you have something helpful to contribute.
mike

Dan Seur wrote:
> Mike: see <http://www.jsifaq.com/subk/tip5100/rh5185.htm>

Thanks for the input.

The drive is an 80GB parallel IDE drive.
I have a CDRW drive on secondary slave.
If I install the drive as secondary master where it boots but boot from
the win98 floppy:
Ranish partition manager shows 3 fat32 partitions with the first one active.
Fdisk shows two fat32 partitions plus a third with the label ms-ramdrive
like it
was put there by the boot floppy, but it's 8gigabytes which happens
to be the size of the third hard drive partition.??? The order is
C,E,D with E having the ms-ramdrive label.
First partition is still active.
"dir c:" produces a listing of the C drive, as expected.


If I install the drive as primary master where it won't boot and boot
from the win98 floppy:
Ranish partition manager shows the identical 3 fat32 partitions as before.
Fdisk shows the same 3 partitions as before, but the first one is marked
as unknown system type.
"dir c:" gives an error "Invalid media type reading drive C"
fdisk /mbr didn't help

It appears that the partition is being interpreted differently depending
whether the drive is primary master or secondary master.

I HAVE done an extensive web search on this problem. I found several
complaints about similar-sounding problems. Problem was blamed
on win2k renaming it's boot drive letter to something that's no longer
there, but no answers about fixing it.

Remember that I had none of these problems until I temporarily installed
a second hard drive as secondary master. I can ghost the image of the
C drive back and the system will work normally again.

I have tried "fixboot" in the past, but don't remember how I got did it,
'cause the repair console is on the drive that won't boot.

Ideas?
thanks, mike


>
> mike wrote:
>
>>
>> "Missing operating system"
>>
>
>
>
> ---
> avast! Antivirus: Outbound message clean.
> Virus Database (VPS): 0613-2, 03/31/2006
> Tested on: 4/1/2006 6:01:04 PM
> avast! - copyright (c) 1988-2004 ALWIL Software.
> http://www.avast.com
>
>
>

You finally provided something to go on. Check that the correct drive type
is found in cmos setup or try an auto-configure for the drive controller's
channel setup.

--

Regards,

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

"mike" wrote:
| Thanks for the input.
|
| The drive is an 80GB parallel IDE drive.
| I have a CDRW drive on secondary slave.
| If I install the drive as secondary master where it boots but boot from
| the win98 floppy:
| Ranish partition manager shows 3 fat32 partitions with the first one
active.
| Fdisk shows two fat32 partitions plus a third with the label ms-ramdrive
| like it
| was put there by the boot floppy, but it's 8gigabytes which happens
| to be the size of the third hard drive partition.??? The order is
| C,E,D with E having the ms-ramdrive label.
| First partition is still active.
| "dir c:" produces a listing of the C drive, as expected.
|
|
| If I install the drive as primary master where it won't boot and boot
| from the win98 floppy:
| Ranish partition manager shows the identical 3 fat32 partitions as before.
| Fdisk shows the same 3 partitions as before, but the first one is marked
| as unknown system type.
| "dir c:" gives an error "Invalid media type reading drive C"
| fdisk /mbr didn't help
|
| It appears that the partition is being interpreted differently depending
| whether the drive is primary master or secondary master.
|
| I HAVE done an extensive web search on this problem. I found several
| complaints about similar-sounding problems. Problem was blamed
| on win2k renaming it's boot drive letter to something that's no longer
| there, but no answers about fixing it.
|
| Remember that I had none of these problems until I temporarily installed
| a second hard drive as secondary master. I can ghost the image of the
| C drive back and the system will work normally again.
|
| I have tried "fixboot" in the past, but don't remember how I got did it,
| 'cause the repair console is on the drive that won't boot.
|
| Ideas?
| thanks, mike