Boot to either of two drives, then only one

[William B. Lurie]

With a Master Drive and as exact a copy of it as I
can make operating in Slave position, jumpered as
Slave, I change only HDD-0 to HDD-1 in BIOS to boot
to the Slave. The XP on the Slave operates just fine.

But I want to plug that "Slave" drive in as the single
drive, alone on the system, jumpered as "Single or
"master", boot to it as HDD-0 and run. This is my way
of having foolproof backup----an exact duplicate,
runnable drive, to swap in, in place of the Master,
at any time.

What do I have to do? I can change boot.ini or anything
else on the "Slave" before switching over, but exactly
what? Sometimes it boots, sometimes it hangs in the
blue Windows logo screen (with the "loading personal
settings" message missing).

 

[Alphonse]

How are you making the copy of one to the other?
My suggestion is that you get a mirroring program and make an image of your
Master onto the Slave, just to make sure that in fact they are identical,
not "as exact copy as I can make"... if and when emergency strikes you do
not want only the latter to be true.

 

[William B. Lurie]

Thank you, Alphonse. I'm making the copy any one of three
ways....Symantec (Power Quest) Drive Image 7 in "Copy a Drive"
mode.......or that Drive Image 7 in "Make a Drive Image and
then Restore" mode.......or Symantec (Power Quest) Partition
Magic in "Copy a Partition" mode.

I don't know what you mean by a "mirroring program". And if and
when emergency strikes I am quite satisfied to have as exact a
copy as I can make, because the I'll be able to put everything
back in operation as of the date I made the copy. The stuff
that will be "out of date" I update daily by copying a few
data files to a CD.

 

[Alphonse]

By mirroring program I meant exactly what you are using. I'm sorry that I
understood your initial statement for what so many people try to do, which
is to manually copy one drive to the other. By the way, I would copy the
drive, not the partition, unless you have two identical drives--meaning size
and brand--or the second larger than the first.

I suppose you have only one partition on each drive. When your HDD-1 does
boot being stand-alone, what letter does Win give it? Do you still have a C
drive or has it kept the letter attributed to it from when it was a Slave?

If you get it to boot, check your Event Viewer for the failed times.

 

[William B. Lurie]

By mirroring program I meant exactly what you are using. I'm sorry that I
understood your initial statement for what so many people try to do, which
is to manually copy one drive to the other. By the way, I would copy the
drive, not the partition, unless you have two identical drives--meaning size
and brand--or the second larger than the first.

Please note that all of the programs I referenced will only
copy one partition...which is fine with me.

I suppose you have only one partition on each drive. When your HDD-1 does
boot being stand-alone, what letter does Win give it? Do you still have a C
drive or has it kept the letter attributed to it from when it was a Slave?

Maybe I wasn't extra clear on that. When it boots to HDD-1, it is
given the next available letter....after the Master, which stays C,
and remembering that A is the floppy, and I have a CD-writable drive
and a CD/DVD reader drive.

The 'copy' boots in Slave position, HDD-1.....my goal is to find a way
to get it to boot all the way when it is jumpered as Master, is in
Master position on the ribbon cable, and there is no other hard
drive around (simulating the condition where the real Master has died).

If you get it to boot, check your Event Viewer for the failed times.

I wouldn't know where to look...it fails when it is alone on
the system and hasn't yet made it past that light blue Windows
logo screen where it 'hangs'.
William B. Lurie

 

[Alphonse]

Stupid question:
Have you tried making a copy of HDD-0 onto HDD-1, turn PC off at end, remove
HDD-0, change jumper of HDD-1 to Master, and turn PC on? Basically, to boot
using HDD-1 without having used it to boot while HDD-0 is still connected.

You must understand that if you use HDD-1 to boot and Windows gives it
letter D:, let's say, that the registry in that drive will get modified
accordingly. Since your HDD-0 is C:, when you boot using HDD-1 you have to
force it to being C: by removing HDD-0. If you run into Windows being
stubborn, and maybe you can do this beforehand, you can right-click on My
Computer, Manage, Disk Management, then on the upper half of the right pane,
right-click on HDD-1 and Change Drive Letter, choose not to attribute a
drive letter... then turn PC off, remove HDD-0, ..., ...

If you were to modify your boot.ini file so as to have a dual boot system,
you wouldn't have to mess in the BIOS, and Windows would be the one taking
charge of the changes in drives and therefore drive letters. However, even
in this manner, I believe that no drive letter can be manually attributed to
the second booting drive.

 

[William B. Lurie]

Not stupid at all. Important to make sure we understand each other.
Yes, I make copy of HDD-0 onto HDD-1. Yes, turn off PC. Yes,
remove the HD from the HDD-0 position on the ribbon cable and
set it aside. Yes, change jumper on the drive that was in HDD-1
position from "Slave" to "Master or Single", but I have been
under the impression that I then am obliged to put the hard
drive onto the ribbon cable in "Master" position. You are, I
believe suggesting that I leave it in "Slave" position although
it has been re-jimpered as "Master", and that I have not tried.
Nothing to lose, of course. nd then there is also the "Cable
Select" jumpering which I haven't tried.
W B L

 

[William B. Lurie]

Just tried next step....the copied drive jumpered as master or as
"Cable select"....in either of the available places on the
ribbon cable....all results same, namely, boots to where it
*should* show "Loading your Personal Settings" but doesn't.
W B L

Not stupid at all. Important to make sure we understand each other.
Yes, I make copy of HDD-0 onto HDD-1. Yes, turn off PC. Yes,
remove the HD from the HDD-0 position on the ribbon cable and
set it aside. Yes, change jumper on the drive that was in HDD-1
position from "Slave" to "Master or Single", but I have been
under the impression that I then am obliged to put the hard
drive onto the ribbon cable in "Master" position. You are, I
believe suggesting that I leave it in "Slave" position although
it has been re-jimpered as "Master", and that I have not tried.
Nothing to lose, of course. nd then there is also the "Cable
Select" jumpering which I haven't tried.
W B L

 

[Alphonse]

If you have a cable that actually says Master on the end and Slave on the
middle, then you should respect them... otherwise it doesn't matter, due to
the jumper. When you use Cable Select, then Master has to be on the end and
Slave, of course, in the middle.

However, there is still the issue of which drive letter has Windows given
that drive, and if it is changeable or "permanent"; Windows recognizes all
drives which have ever been connected in that PC, such that one can remove a
drive which one had given drive letter X, bring it back some time later, and
it gets set again as drive X unless there is some other occupying that
letter. When you boot with HDD-1 as HDD-0, you should have a drive C in
Windows Explorer. Drives which are set as Active/System drives usually get
stuck with the drive letter, thus I had asked you to right-click on My
Computer, Manage, Disk Management, then on the upper half of the right pane,
right-click on HDD-1 and Change Drive Letter, choose not to attribute a
drive letter.

Last thing that I have up my sleeve is to ask you to make sure that the Copy
you make is a Full system copy, not an update of a prior.

This being said, after this I will be at a loss of words, I think, so my
apologies beforehand and I hope that someone else reading this has better
suggestions or a solution.

Not stupid at all. Important to make sure we understand each other.
Yes, I make copy of HDD-0 onto HDD-1. Yes, turn off PC. Yes,
remove the HD from the HDD-0 position on the ribbon cable and
set it aside. Yes, change jumper on the drive that was in HDD-1
position from "Slave" to "Master or Single", but I have been
under the impression that I then am obliged to put the hard
drive onto the ribbon cable in "Master" position. You are, I
believe suggesting that I leave it in "Slave" position although
it has been re-jimpered as "Master", and that I have not tried.
Nothing to lose, of course. nd then there is also the "Cable
Select" jumpering which I haven't tried.
W B L

 

[William B. Lurie]

See interspersed comments, Al:

If you have a cable that actually says Master on the end and Slave on the
middle, then you should respect them... otherwise it doesn't matter, due to
the jumper. When you use Cable Select, then Master has to be on the end and
Slave, of course, in the middle.

*** (Note that I tried all possibilities, just in case........)

However, there is still the issue of which drive letter has Windows given
that drive, and if it is changeable or "permanent"; Windows recognizes all
drives which have ever been connected in that PC, such that one can remove a
drive which one had given drive letter X, bring it back some time later, and
it gets set again as drive X unless there is some other occupying that
letter. When you boot with HDD-1 as HDD-0, you should have a drive C in
Windows Explorer. Drives which are set as Active/System drives usually get
stuck with the drive letter, thus I had asked you to right-click on My
Computer, Manage, Disk Management, then on the upper half of the right pane,
right-click on HDD-1 and Change Drive Letter, choose not to attribute a
drive letter.

***Well, Al, I will have to go in and experiment with Drive Letters,
which I have simply accepted as the system assigned them. When the copy
boots up in HDD-1, it definitely becomes "G" or "H" depending on how
many other partitions Windows finds. Remember that that drive refuses
to boot up to Desktop, in HDD-0 position, so it has never shown up as
the "C: drive. Are you telling me that you want me to force it to be
known as "C" somehow? I can't when it's the Slave, because the Master
is "C"....... Maybe you have something there, but what sequence of
operations would you suggest?

Last thing that I have up my sleeve is to ask you to make sure that the Copy
you make is a Full system copy, not an update of a prior.

The Copy I've made is a brand new copy on a blank formatted drive,
from my full Master, system, applications, files, just using Drive
Image's "Copy Drive" methodology.

Scratch your head some more, I like your thinking. Jump back in
any time. Notice that if anybody who is a part of Symantec ever
reads these conversations, they never step in.................

 

[Alphonse]

Hi Bill,
Here is something that I found that might help you... I can't see why it'd
be necessary, but even as a work-around it might be a solution.

1) Boot the new system from the Win CD or XP boot floppies. (If the hard
drive is accessible, you can run Winnt32.exe from the \I386 directory on the
hard drive, or Setup.exe on the CD). Have your CDKEY ready.

2) Setup will find the existing Win installation (usually C:\Windows, else
C:\Winnt) and ask if you wish to install over it or repair it. At this
second prompt, select Repair.

Note: If the Setup program does not detect a previous installation but just
continues to the partitioning screen, there is a problem. An in-place
upgrade may not be possible.

3) Setup will run the upgrade code that will re-enumerate the hardware and
set itself to boot from the new controller. The upgrade will retain all
settings but will update drivers for the current motherboard and hardware.
(You can reinstall windows over windows with no problems. It basically just
skims over your existing installation and fixes bad files and fills in the
blanks if something is missing. Everything will be the same after your
reinstall.)

4) All programs, settings, and configurations will still exist after this
upgrade, however, all drivers might be reset to Windows basic, and Microsoft
updates will need to be reapplied. Run Microsoft Windows Upgrade (on
Windows Start menu) to reapply updates as needed. Reports state that IE
will be back to IE5.0 and will need to be updated. Any Service Packs will
need to be reinstalled. All security updates that have been installed need
to be reinstalled. It is best to install the security updates based on the
time order.
=================================

Something that you could try as well, being that you are not in dire need of
this second drive at this moment, is to install HD2 by itself, boot from a
Win diskette and at the DOS prompt type
fdisk /mbr
Reboot after you remove the diskette. I know that this used to work with Win
NT, so it just might with XP. Anyway, at worse you get to re-copy your HD1
to HD2 again, with my apollogies.

Hope one of these works... let us know?
Cheers

 

[William B. Lurie]

Al, this string is getting long, but if I cut a
bunch, people will say I'm not letting other groupies
see the whole story. Now, after a weekend away, I
refer to your suggesting way down below, that I change
Drive Letters. That's an intriguing idea, but let me
set forth exactly what my system looks like right now:

If I boot to HDD-0, My Computer lists the following drives:

A Floppy
C Master 80GB (SP1)
D D-I 91604
E CD-RW Drive
F DVD drive
G My Spare, with SP-2 (Slave position)
H D-I 0713
I D-I 091504

If I boot to HDD-1, My Computer lists the following drives:

A Floppy
C Spare drive, with SP-2
D Master 80GB (SP1)
E CD-RW Drive
F DVD Drive
G D-I 91604
H D-I 0713
J D-I 091504

I am able to boot to HDD-0 and run my Master 80GB SP1.....and
I am able to boot to HDD-1 and run my Spare Drive, with SP2.

But if I put the SP2 drive into Master position on the cable,
jumper it as Master, and try to boot to it as HDD-0, I get to
the blue Windows logo screen but not the Loading your personal
settings....and it hangs there.

Now back to the interesting advice you gave, which was:
given that drive, and if it is changeable or "permanent"; Windows
recognizes all drives which have ever been connected in that PC, such
that one can remove a drive which one had given drive letter X, bring it
back some time later, and it gets set again as drive X unless there is
some other occupying that letter. When you boot with HDD-1 as HDD-0,
you should have a drive C in Windows Explorer. Drives which are set as
Active/System drives usually get stuck with the drive letter, thus I had
asked you to right-click on My Computer, Manage, Disk Management, then
on the upper half of the right pane, right-click on HDD-1 and Change
Drive Letter, choose not to attribute a drive letter.
Having seen my description and definition of the two modes
of operation of my system, can you tell me specifically what
you want me to do, when the system is running in which mode, to
get it so that it will boot all the way under the condition
that I described above as "hanging". I feel strongly about not
changing any drive letters on the Master SP1 system....as my firm
goal in all this is to create a runnable clone while guaranteeing
100% absolutely that the Master SP1 will not be harmed.

Bill Lurie 10/26/04

 

[Alphonse]

Hi Bill,
You just complicated things a bit by adding partitions to this equation...
maybe. ;-)
We're just going to need to clarify some things, that's all.
1- When you boot from HD-0, where is your pagefile.sys?
2- Which drive is partitioned, HD-0 or HD-1?
a- Boot using HD-0, right-click My Computer, Manage, Disk Mgmt. Please
describe what the bars in the lower right-hand side look like, as follows:
(skip the CD drives)
Disk 0:
- Partition name, if any, (Letter), Type (from list in upper half of
screen)
- Partition name, if any, (Letter), Type (from list in upper half of
screen)
- etc.
Disk 1:
- Partition name, if any, (Letter), Type (from list in upper half of
screen)
- Partition name, if any, (Letter), Type (from list in upper half of
screen)
- etc.
3- If the partitions belong to HD-0, do you have any programs installed in
them?
Basically, do you use them for other than simply storing data?
4- What do you mean by SP1 & SP2? (I thought one was the image of the
other.)
5- Are there any other factors involved?

I have the impression that your "mirror" drive is getting confused when it's
alone, looking for something that lives in one of the other partitions? But
without knowing your precise setup and what is in the other partitions... If
the partitions belong to HD-0, why not do a full drive copy, meaning that
both would end up having equal number of partitions?

This is how things should "normally" look in a "generic" setup with more
than one HD, where HD-0 is the physical drive set to Master, and BIOS is set
to boot from HD-0.
A = Floppy
C = HD-0 (Primary Master), Partition 1
D = HD-1 (Primary Slave), Partition 1
E = CD drive of whichever type (Secondary Master)
F = (Secondary Slave, if any installed. If not, change G...Z to F...Z below)
G...Z = Other partitions, if any, first of HD-0, then of HD-1.
If the BIOS or the jumpers on the drives are changed, the above "should"
remain true as well. If a physical drive or partition is added after
initial installation, drive letters "should" be added as the next drive
letter available.

 

[William B. Lurie]

Hi Bill,
You just complicated things a bit by adding partitions to this equation...
maybe. ;-)

Perhaps so, but on every drive, the system partition is first,
and has nothing in front of it, and is obviously bootable. I
think it only *looks* more complicated.

We're just going to need to clarify some things, that's all.
1- When you boot from HD-0, where is your pagefile.sys?

I have no idea. I don't know where it is, or what it is,
but I'll go looking for it if you need it.

2- Which drive is partitioned, HD-0 or HD-1?

Answer: Both drives are partitioned. I'll do it as you request (later),
but for now let me clarify a bit:
As indicated by Partition Magic:
Master 80GB drive has
Master 80GB (SP1) ----- Active ---Primary
D-I-91604 ----- none ---Logical
D-I 0713 ----- none ---Logical
'Slave' drive has
SP2 102004 ----- Active ---Primary
D-I 091504 ----- none ---Logical

a- Boot using HD-0, right-click My Computer, Manage, Disk Mgmt. Please
describe what the bars in the lower right-hand side look like, as follows:
(skip the CD drives)
Disk 0:
- Partition name, if any, (Letter), Type (from list in upper half of
screen)
- Partition name, if any, (Letter), Type (from list in upper half of
screen)
- etc.
Disk 1:
- Partition name, if any, (Letter), Type (from list in upper half of
screen)
- Partition name, if any, (Letter), Type (from list in upper half of
screen)
- etc.
3- If the partitions belong to HD-0, do you have any programs installed in
them?

The D-I partitions are simply drive-image-7 condensations of
the Master, done on various days. They are all D-I images,

Basically, do you use them for other than simply storing data?
4- What do you mean by SP1 & SP2? (I thought one was the image of the
other.)

The status of the Master is XP-Pro-SP1 update.
The status of the other is the same, but updated to SP2.
It was a direct copy of the Master, except that I upgraded
it to SP2. I did that in preparation for upgrading the
Master to SP2, which I don't want to do until I am sure
that I can run the Slave (i.e., the drive which is already
upgraded to SP2), alone on the system.

5- Are there any other factors involved?

Not that I know of. I can delete the Drive Images from both
drives, or store them elsewhere on other drives, but I can't see
why they could be complicating the issue at hand.

I have the impression that your "mirror" drive is getting confused when it's
alone, looking for something that lives in one of the other partitions? But
without knowing your precise setup and what is in the other partitions... If
the partitions belong to HD-0, why not do a full drive copy, meaning that
both would end up having equal number of partitions?

I don't see that that would help me any. Please note that Symantec
(ex-PowerQuest) Drive Image 7 makes an exact copy of one drive
to another location....and by one drive, it means one partition.
I see no option for copying a full hard drive, multi-partition,
and in fact I wouldn't want to.

This is how things should "normally" look in a "generic" setup with more
than one HD, where HD-0 is the physical drive set to Master, and BIOS is set
to boot from HD-0.
A = Floppy
C = HD-0 (Primary Master), Partition 1
D = HD-1 (Primary Slave), Partition 1
E = CD drive of whichever type (Secondary Master)
F = (Secondary Slave, if any installed. If not, change G...Z to F...Z below)
G...Z = Other partitions, if any, first of HD-0, then of HD-1.
If the BIOS or the jumpers on the drives are changed, the above "should"
remain true as well. If a physical drive or partition is added after
initial installation, drive letters "should" be added as the next drive
letter available.

Please note that I don't assign the letters for the various partitions.
Partition Magic and XP assign them, and I reported what they show up as.
What each partition shows up as, is different, depending on whether
I boot to HD-0 or HD-1

Again, thanks for working with me!!
W B L

 

[William B. Lurie]

Alphonse, to answer you specifically, now that I have looked at
Win Explorer etcetera, I see:
When booted to HDD-0 ....
D-I 0713 H: Basic, NTFS, Healthy
D-I 91604 D: " " "
D-I 91504 I: " " "
Master 80GB C: Basic, NTFS, Healthy (System)
SP2-102004 G: Basic, NTFS, Healthy,(Active)

When booted to HDD-1 ....
D-I 0713 H: Basic, NTFS, Healthy
D-I 91604 G: Basic, NTFS, Healthy
D-I 91504 J: Basic, NTFS, Healthy
Master 80GB D: Basic, NTFS, Healthy (Active)
SP2-102004 C: Basic, NTFS, Healthy (System)
So now I have given all the information.......and please note that
on HDD-1, what exists is the SP2 system, and also D-I 91504. None
of the Drive Image partitions show as Active. To me they are all
"dead storage", and I'll delete them all if you think that'll help.
W B L

 

[William B. Lurie]

William B. Lurie wrote:
Short note: pagefile.sys is on C:\ now, while I am
running on HDD-0, and is 737 MB in size.

 

[William B. Lurie]

William B. Lurie wrote:
Short note: pagefile.sys is on C:\ now, while I am
running on HDD-0, and is 737 MB in size.

Further progress, Alphonse:
I deleted everything other than the two XP systems,
from both drives. Now they both boot, the Master 80GB in HDD0
position, and the SP2 in Slave position. What is left to do is
shut down, jumper the SP2 drive as Master, plug it in as
HDD0 and see if it boots. That will be 5 hours from now.....

I looked in Disk Management after booting each one as
described above, and what they show is:

Boot to HDD0:
First drive says Master 80GB--(C) Healthy (System)
Second drive says SP2-102004 -(G) Healthy (Active)

Boot to HDD1:
First Drive says: Master 80GB (D) Healthy (Active)
Second Drive says: Sp2 102004 -(C) Healthy (System)

All sounds reasonable but I'll be you're going to want me to
change that "G" up there to a "D"......

Hope to hear your further advice......

 

[Alphonse]

Hi Bill,
Thanks for all the info... and while I sort, chew and hopefully digest all
of it a bit, have you tried the "fdisk /mbr"? Boot from a Win diskette and
at the DOS prompt type
fdisk /mbr
Reboot.......................... Results?

 

[William B. Lurie]

Hi Bill,
Thanks for all the info... and while I sort, chew and hopefully digest all
of it a bit, have you tried the "fdisk /mbr"? Boot from a Win diskette and
at the DOS prompt type
fdisk /mbr
Reboot.......................... Results?

No, I haven't, Al.
For one thing, the "WIN boot diskette" that I have, is
a set of 6 that I downloaded from (I think) bootdisk.com .....
For another, I like your "just change the drive letter" idea if I
read you right.
Bill

 

[William B. Lurie]

Al, on that SP2 drive of mine, here is what boot.ini
looks like now:

[boot loader]
timeout=10
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft
Windows XP Professional" /fastdetect /NoExecute=OptIn

Actually that last 2 lines is really all on one
line, but I didn't want to paste it in and let it fold.
What do you want me to change it to?
Bill

Sorry, Al, can't find any Edit where you suggested.
Want to check it and give me more detail?
What you're asking me to change is boot.ini ....
which I am able to access anyway, by other means.

I'm willing to change it, but you do mean only on
HDD-1, my XP2 system, while I'm here on Master.....
so that it will boot differently when I stick IT in as Master, right?
Bill L.

Hello Bill,
You've left me almost speechless... OK, now that you have both drives
with one partition on each, let us try a different approach.
Right-clicking My Computer, Properties, Advanced, Startup and Recovery
Properties, Edit, and do as followings:
- find the line that looks like this
multi(0)disk(1)rdisk(0)partition(1)\Windows="Win XP Pro HD-1"
/fastdetect /NoExecute=OptIn
- copy and paste it right below the first
On this second line
- change disk(0) to disk(1)
- change the comment in quotes to something like I wrote here

(Now it should look something like this)
[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="Microsoft Windows XP
Professional" /fastdetect /NoExecute=OptIn
multi(0)disk(1)rdisk(0)partition(1)\Windows="Win XP Pro HD-1"
/fastdetect /NoExecute=OptIn

- Save, close, and OK out.
- Reboot, and when you get the menu, select 2.

P.S. - To run fdisk /mbr all you need is a win98 bootdisk, if you
can get one or download it.

William B. Lurie wrote:

Alphonse wrote:


Hi Bill,
Thanks for all the info... and while I sort, chew and hopefully
digest all of it a bit, have you tried the "fdisk /mbr"? Boot from
a Win diskette and at the DOS prompt type
fdisk /mbr
Reboot.......................... Results?


No, I haven't, Al.
For one thing, the "WIN boot diskette" that I have, is
a set of 6 that I downloaded from (I think) bootdisk.com .....
For another, I like your "just change the drive letter" idea if I
read you right.
Bill


Continuing on, Alphonse, I took the next step that I thought to
be logical. I made both hard drives just unpartitioned, each
carrying a 'system' as Active, as seen by Partition Magic.
And I corrected the Drive Letter for the non-System drive
when in HDD-0, so that it is now "D". That agrees with
what I see when I boot to HDD-1, namely, the "System" drive is
always "C", and the other, or "Active" drive is "D".

This did not solve my basic problem: I can boot to my regular
Master in HDD-0, or to the SP2 system in HDD-1, when both are
on the cable, by changing the BIOS. And I can use my regular
Master alone in HDD-0 position. But now, when I put the SP2
drive in as Master, alone on the cable, it only come us to
"Boot from CD" in the boot-up. Perhaps a step back from where
we were before I changed from "G" to "D" as above. So now I
have done all that I can, without more advice from you.

Bill L.