W
wrt
Pegasus, I am interested in a resolution.
I made a "parallel" install of XP PRO as a safety measure (I.e., instead
of wiping out C: and making a fresh install on C bcs of other disks
the parallel install was assigned the letter F:.
I realize now that I should have hidden the C: partition or disconnected
the HD (since C: is in fact on another HD) so as to make my fresh
install independent.
But, as you correctly point out, the boot.ini files etc. reside on C: so
my image of F: for future use is not that useful by itself. I could
delete everything from C: except the boot dependent files and then Image
C: so that in the future I could recreate the C: drive (with boot files)
and the F: drive with the OS; but I would rather make the F: drive
completely independent.
Is this possible?
Several things about this intrigued me, could you shed light on what you
know about the following:
1) When XP loads are the boot files "customized" for the OS environment
(number of HDs, partitions, etc.) or are they generic, I.e. simply
copied from the XP install disk to the HD. IOW, I realize that the
boot.ini file is "customized" to the system - that's obvious - but are
ntldr, ntdetect, and any other boot related files also "customized"? If
they are "customized" than that introduces a hurdle; if not, there is
one less thing to work through.
2) Do the boot files HAVE to reside on C: or is it possible to have a
system were C: is all data files with F: (or some other letter)
containing the boot files at its root? (I ask the above w/o reference
to a 3rd party boot loader)
3) What about all the registry and .ini pointers to F: (or whatever
letter the OS' original home was ("where it saw the light of day")?
This hitch has always seemed obvious to me, viz. What do you do with all
the registry pointers to drive X: (any letter other than C not to
mention the pointers in .ini files? They don't magically change upon
moving an OS to another partition/drive.
I have thought about this especially in terms of Images. If you image a
system residing on F: and then someday wish to restore to C: what do you
do with the registry/ .ini files.
Partition Magic has a drive map utility but it's not clear to me that
this would be very useful in the scenario above.
For what it's worth, my thoughts have brought me to the following:
One must either:
a) recreate the original "partition environment"
or
b) search the registry for all the "F:" pointers and change them to
"C:" (or whatever letter the image will reside in) as well as change the
..ini files (are there others?). Some of these changes could probably be
done on an "as needed" basis. IOW, change as much as you can ahead of
time so that you can get into the OS and when something doesn't work as
it should either the system will complain (looking for F or one must
intuitively resolve the issue. But, obviously this requires enough of
the drive letter issues to be resolved to make the system bootable and
useable so that the remaining issues can simply be mopped up.
4) In my case, since the boot files on C: already successfully load the
system that resides on F:, could I copy the boot files from C: to F:
alter the boot.ini file (I'm not even sure that would be needed) and
then (somehow) get the MBR to point to F:? OR, is the whole point that
Win XP will ONLY boot from C:?
Again, thank you for your patience.
I made a "parallel" install of XP PRO as a safety measure (I.e., instead
of wiping out C: and making a fresh install on C bcs of other disks
the parallel install was assigned the letter F:.
I realize now that I should have hidden the C: partition or disconnected
the HD (since C: is in fact on another HD) so as to make my fresh
install independent.
But, as you correctly point out, the boot.ini files etc. reside on C: so
my image of F: for future use is not that useful by itself. I could
delete everything from C: except the boot dependent files and then Image
C: so that in the future I could recreate the C: drive (with boot files)
and the F: drive with the OS; but I would rather make the F: drive
completely independent.
Is this possible?
Several things about this intrigued me, could you shed light on what you
know about the following:
1) When XP loads are the boot files "customized" for the OS environment
(number of HDs, partitions, etc.) or are they generic, I.e. simply
copied from the XP install disk to the HD. IOW, I realize that the
boot.ini file is "customized" to the system - that's obvious - but are
ntldr, ntdetect, and any other boot related files also "customized"? If
they are "customized" than that introduces a hurdle; if not, there is
one less thing to work through.
2) Do the boot files HAVE to reside on C: or is it possible to have a
system were C: is all data files with F: (or some other letter)
containing the boot files at its root? (I ask the above w/o reference
to a 3rd party boot loader)
3) What about all the registry and .ini pointers to F: (or whatever
letter the OS' original home was ("where it saw the light of day")?
This hitch has always seemed obvious to me, viz. What do you do with all
the registry pointers to drive X: (any letter other than C not to
mention the pointers in .ini files? They don't magically change upon
moving an OS to another partition/drive.
I have thought about this especially in terms of Images. If you image a
system residing on F: and then someday wish to restore to C: what do you
do with the registry/ .ini files.
Partition Magic has a drive map utility but it's not clear to me that
this would be very useful in the scenario above.
For what it's worth, my thoughts have brought me to the following:
One must either:
a) recreate the original "partition environment"
or
b) search the registry for all the "F:" pointers and change them to
"C:" (or whatever letter the image will reside in) as well as change the
..ini files (are there others?). Some of these changes could probably be
done on an "as needed" basis. IOW, change as much as you can ahead of
time so that you can get into the OS and when something doesn't work as
it should either the system will complain (looking for F or one must
intuitively resolve the issue. But, obviously this requires enough of
the drive letter issues to be resolved to make the system bootable and
useable so that the remaining issues can simply be mopped up.
4) In my case, since the boot files on C: already successfully load the
system that resides on F:, could I copy the boot files from C: to F:
alter the boot.ini file (I'm not even sure that would be needed) and
then (somehow) get the MBR to point to F:? OR, is the whole point that
Win XP will ONLY boot from C:?
Again, thank you for your patience.