ok, I think I understand all those instructions. I probably won't have a
chance to do this until the weekend, but I will let you know how it turns
out. Thanks so much.
"Timothy Daniels" wrote:
> "relativenewbie" wrote:
> > I'm sorry, I don't know what PATA and SATA means.
>
> "PATA" stands for Parallel ATA, i.e. the old "IDE" HDs.
> The later ones use a flat ribbon cable with 80 wires.
> "SATA" stands for Serial ATA, i.e. the newer HDs.
> They us a narrower fatter cable that is somewhat stiff.
>
> > My boot order in bios is cdrom, C, A.
>
> That's the Device Boot Order. It means that the BIOS
> first looks for a CD in the CD drive from which to boot,
> then it will look for a hard drive, then it will look for a
> floppy drive.
>
> The Hard Drive Boot Order is a prioritized list of the
> physical hard drives that the BIOS finds in the system.
> They may be named by their model numbers.
> The 1st HD, i.e. at position 0 in the list, is the one that
> the loader will go to first to look for a valid Master
> Boot Record (MBR). If a valid MBR is found, the
> MBR will direct the loader to that Primary partition (as
> opposed to an Extended partition) which is marked "active",
> and the Boot Sector in that partition is expected to contain
> the boot files: ntldr, boot.ini, and ntdetect.com . To find
> the BIOS's Hard Drive Boot Order (which it may call the
> "hard drive priority" or something similar) you may have
> to explore the BIOS's menu.
>
> > The first selection of windows when I boot up takes me to
> > the new install.
>
> OK, that's the one that corresponds to "rdisk(2)" in
> your boot.ini file.
>
> > The second selection, which I hadn't tried until now, boots up
> > with the installation I was trying to fix, my old settings, startup
> > programs, desktop, etc.
>
> OK, that one corresponds to "rdisk(0)" in your boot.ini .
>
> > I was trying to "install over" that one because it had a virus and
> > some missing file problems. When I installed windows the
> > second time, I noticed it made a drive F:\ partition, which was
> > corrupted and unreadable. I looked up steps on the Microsoft
> > website to use the device manager to remove it.
>
> If both your hard drives are SATA, you may have connected
> the 1st drive to port 0, and the 2nd drive to port 2. Not
> knowing what computer you have and not knowing the details
> of your BIOS, I cannot with certainty know why there is no
> "rdisk(1)" in your system. In any event, the creation and
> deletion of a partition wouldn't have affected the hard drive
> boot order in the BIOS.
>
> So, ignoring the unknown and working with what *is* known -
> that "rdisk(2)" is the 2nd drive and "rdisk(0)" is the 1st drive,
> let's get rid of the OS in the 1st HD, the one with the virus(es).
>
> First, make a generic boot.ini file that will work with all values
> of "rdisk()" and put it on both of the hard drives so if we guess
> wrong, we can still boot one or the other OS from the boot files
> on either HD. To do that, duplicate the entries under
> "[operating systems]" so that there are 4 entries instead of the
> current 2 entries. Make each entry have a different value of
> "x" in "rdisk(x)" for values of x ranging from 0 to 3, and also
> put that value somewhere in the character string, i.e. between
> the two quotation marks, so you can see it in the boot menu
> when it appears on the screen. Then copy that boot.ini, along
> with ntldr and ntdetect.com over to the 2nd hard drive at
> positions just below E: . Then restart the PC, and choose the
> boot menu entry with "ridisk(2)" in it. The new OS in the 2nd
> HD should start up with "E:" as the root of its file system.
>
> If the new OS starts up OK, you can then swap the HDs' cable
> positions (resetting the Master/Slave jumpers if they are PATA
> HDs) and restart again. From the boot menu (which comes from
> the boot.ini in the 2nd HD, verify the previous results by selecting
> the entry that has "rdisk(0)" - indicating the 2nd HD that is now
> in position 0. Your newly installed OS should again start up OK
> with "E:" as the root of the file system.
>
> If it does, you can pare the entries under "[operating systems]"
> in the boot.ini of the 2nd HD (now in position 0) down to just
> the entry with "rdisk(0)", and you might as well reset the timeout
> value to 0 (but not necessary since ntldr will ignore it if there is
> only one OS entry). You can now transfer your data files
> from the old HD to the new HD. After that, you can reformat
> the old hard drive and use it for storage. Your new OS will
> always call its partition "E:", but it doesn't really matter.
>
> If the new OS does NOT start up after the HD swap, re-swap
> the HDs, and restart the PC, and see which of the 4 menu
> entries loads each OS, and report back here.
>
> *TimDaniels*
>
> > "Timothy Daniels" wrote:
> >
> >> Very strange. The boot.ini file refers to "rdisk(2)" as the
> >> physical hard drive containing the partition that has the default
> >> OS. It also has "rdisk(0)" as the physical hard drive containing
> >> the partition that has the 2nd OS. This implies that there is a
> >> 3rd physical hard drive in your system that would correspond
> >> to "rdisk(1)".
> >> 1) Do you by chance have a mix of PATA and SATA hard
> >> drives such that a PATA hard drive that would otherwise
> >> be "rdisk(1)" is absent so the numbering resumes with a
> >> SATA hard drive as "rdisk(2)"?
> >> 2) How does the BIOS list your hard drives (i.e. in what order)?
> >> 3) What happens when you choose each of the menu selections
> >> at boot time?
> >>
> >> "relativenewbie" wrote:
> >> > Oh whoops, here's the text from C:\boot.ini:
> >> > [boot loader]
> >> > timeout=30
> >> > default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(2)partition(1)\WINDOWS
> >> > [operating systems]
> >> > multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(2)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP
> >> > Professional" /fastdetect /NoExecute=OptIn
> >> > multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP
> >> > Professional" /fastdetect
> >> >
> >> > There was no file found for E:\boot.ini
> >> >
> >> >
> >> > "Timothy Daniels" wrote:
> >> >
> >> >> "relativenewbie" wrote:
> >> >> > I have two hard drives in my computer, one designated C: and
> >> >> > the other E:. Recently, due to a virus problem, I had to reinstall
> >> >> > windows on my computer. Now I have windows on both hard
> >> >> > drives. How do I determine which drive has the "working" copy
> >> >> > of windows and which one I can format to get rid of the
> >> >> > unnecessary files?
> >> >>
> >> >> Unless you've diddled with the BIOS, the same hard drive gets
> >> >> control at startup now as before. But that hard drive's boot menu
> >> >> file, "boot.ini", which is in the hard drive's "active" partition, is
> >> >> capable
> >> >> of telling the boot loader, "ntldr", to load Windows from any partition
> >> >> on any hard drive in the system. But assuming that each of your hard
> >> >> drives has only one partition, check just below the root level of that
> >> >> partition for boot.ini, i.e. at C:\boot.ini and E:\boot.ini, and post
> >> >> their
> >> >> contents here. If only one of the hard drives (i.e. partitions) has a
> >> >> boot.ini file, just post that one, but state that only one was present.
> >> >> Also state whether the old Windows XP was on C: or E:
> >> >>
> >> >> If you can't see boot.ini, you may have to "unhide" your system's
> >> >> "hidden files":
> >> >> ControlPanel/FolderOptions/View tab/HiddenFilesAndFolders/
> >> >> check "Show hidden files and folders".
> >> >>
> >> >> *TimDaniels*
> >> >>
> >>
> >>
>
>