primary IDE burned out. How to install windows xp?

M

Mike245

I have a slight challenge here. Long ago the primary IDE controller died
on one of my computers. Somehow I managed to get windows 2k running on
it, I believe windows saw itself as being on
multi(0)disk(1)rdisk(0)partition(1). Now I'm trying to install XP on it
with a different drive and I keep getting some NTLDR errors like how the
path isnt correct.

So I goto the recovery console and do a "map arc" only to see
scsi(1)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1). Huh? There aint no scsi drive or
card anywhere near here.

The current setup is the drive as master and the CD as slave on the 2nd
IDE channel. I cant really replace the MB because its a wacky mini-ATX
and finding one that works with my 200fsb duron will probably be expensive.

I really want this to work as I could use a nice spare computer to beat
around with. So I loaded Knoppix on there and changed boot.ini to
multi(0)disk(1)rdisk(0)partition(1), which the old win2k installtion was
using. No dice, then I get NTLDR is missing.

This is an old compaq 5000us with a uwave motherboard.

Any suggestions?
 
V

_Vanguard_

Mike245 said:
I have a slight challenge here. Long ago the primary IDE controller
died on one of my computers. Somehow I managed to get windows 2k
running on it, I believe windows saw itself as being on
multi(0)disk(1)rdisk(0)partition(1). Now I'm trying to install XP on
it with a different drive and I keep getting some NTLDR errors like
how the path isnt correct.

So I goto the recovery console and do a "map arc" only to see
scsi(1)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1). Huh? There aint no scsi drive or
card anywhere near here.

The current setup is the drive as master and the CD as slave on the
2nd IDE channel. I cant really replace the MB because its a wacky
mini-ATX and finding one that works with my 200fsb duron will
probably be expensive.

I really want this to work as I could use a nice spare computer to
beat around with. So I loaded Knoppix on there and changed boot.ini
to multi(0)disk(1)rdisk(0)partition(1), which the old win2k
installtion was using. No dice, then I get NTLDR is missing.

This is an old compaq 5000us with a uwave motherboard.

Any suggestions?

According to
http://www.microsoft.com/resources/documentation/Windows/XP/all/reskit/en-us/prmc_str_masc.asp,
multi() gets used when the NT loader uses BIOS to specify the boot
partition and scsi() when it uses a device driver (NTBOOTDD.SYS) to load
the boot partition (see http://support.microsoft.com/?id=314470
regarding Microsoft's definition of system and boot partitions).

Did you disable the primary IDE channel in BIOS? I cannot find
NTBOOTDD.SYS in the root folder of my system drive. Do you have it in
yours?
 
M

Mike245

_Vanguard_ said:
Did you disable the primary IDE channel in BIOS? I cannot find
NTBOOTDD.SYS in the root folder of my system drive. Do you have it in
yours?

I do, and according to the MS article its because I made a FAT partition
larger than 7.8 gigs. I also have signature(some value) instead of
either multi(0) or scsi(1) now in boot.ini. I did have the broken
primary disabled in BIOS but I turned it back on. Was this a mistake?

Okay, so if I make an NTFS partition I can't edit the boot.ini file as I
dont know anything that can boot up and let me edit files on an NTFS.
So I'm guessing I should make a FAT patition smaller that 7 gigs soley
to be able to edit boot.ini so the correct disk() value is one. Am I
missing the obvious? How can I edit a file on an NTFS file system
without the OS running? The console doesnt have any editors and bootcfg,
fixmbr, etc don't let me edit that single character which I think is
holding this whole install back. My understanding is my broken MB
claims there is a disk(0) thus my real disk should be written as disk(1)
in boot.ini

Now I'm going to make a FAT boot partition of 6 gigs or so, edit
boot.ini to correct disk(0) with Knoppix, and reboot.

Sound right? I feel like I'm missing a much simpler solution or something.
 
S

Skeleton Man

Okay, so if I make an NTFS partition I can't edit the boot.ini file as I
dont know anything that can boot up and let me edit files on an NTFS.

NTFSDOS Pro if you can get hold of it.. (free version is read-only, so you
need the pro version)

That will allow you to use NTFS partitions from a DOS boot disk..

Regards,
Chris
 
V

_Vanguard_

Mike245 said:
I do, and according to the MS article its because I made a FAT
partition larger than 7.8 gigs. I also have signature(some value)
instead of
either multi(0) or scsi(1) now in boot.ini. I did have the broken
primary disabled in BIOS but I turned it back on. Was this a mistake?

Okay, so if I make an NTFS partition I can't edit the boot.ini file
as I dont know anything that can boot up and let me edit files on an
NTFS.
So I'm guessing I should make a FAT patition smaller that 7 gigs soley
to be able to edit boot.ini so the correct disk() value is one. Am I
missing the obvious? How can I edit a file on an NTFS file system
without the OS running? The console doesnt have any editors and
bootcfg, fixmbr, etc don't let me edit that single character which I
think is holding this whole install back. My understanding is my
broken MB
claims there is a disk(0) thus my real disk should be written as
disk(1) in boot.ini

Now I'm going to make a FAT boot partition of 6 gigs or so, edit
boot.ini to correct disk(0) with Knoppix, and reboot.

Sound right? I feel like I'm missing a much simpler solution or
something.

Powerquest used to provide a utility called NTFSini. You ran it off a
bootable floppy to let you yank any file of an NTFS partition, edit it
under your floppy's OS (MS-DOS, Windows 9x), and then put the modified
copy back on the NTFS partition. I don't think they provide it anymore
but made a different tool to do the same job. My guess is it is the
BTini.zip file under
ftp://ftp.symantec.com/public/english_us_canada/tools/pq/utilities/.
BTini.exe is what now gets installed in the DOS subdirectory for
PartitionMagic 8. I think NTFSini let you actually yank any file (i.e.,
you specified which one) without having to add a driver in config.sys
that would let you access NTFS partitions. BTini only yanks the
boot.ini file; just run "btini" and it will display its help output. It
is available for free via the FTP download.

However, are you unable to edit the boot.ini file (after removing and
restoring the system, hidden, and read-only file attributes using the
'attrib' command) while booted into Recovery Console mode? You said you
could boot into Recovery Console mode, so what would stop you from
editing this file then?
 
M

Mike Walsh

SCSI() is used to boot from an adapter whose BIOS is not loaded. NTBOOTDD.SYS is a copy of the driver for that adapter. This is obviously not needed for an on board IDE port.

_Vanguard_ said:
According to
http://www.microsoft.com/resources/documentation/Windows/XP/all/reskit/en-us/prmc_str_masc.asp,
multi() gets used when the NT loader uses BIOS to specify the boot
partition and scsi() when it uses a device driver (NTBOOTDD.SYS) to load
the boot partition (see http://support.microsoft.com/?id=314470
regarding Microsoft's definition of system and boot partitions).

Did you disable the primary IDE channel in BIOS? I cannot find
NTBOOTDD.SYS in the root folder of my system drive. Do you have it in
yours?

--

When replying by Email include NewSGrouP (case sensitive) in Subject

Mike Walsh
West Palm Beach, Florida, U.S.A.
 
M

Mike245

_Vanguard_ said:
However, are you unable to edit the boot.ini file (after removing and
restoring the system, hidden, and read-only file attributes using the
'attrib' command) while booted into Recovery Console mode? You said you
could boot into Recovery Console mode, so what would stop you from
editing this file then?

Is there a text editor in the RC? There are tools like bootcfg but they
dont seem to let me say "okay, make drive(0) = drive(1)"
 
V

_Vanguard_

Mike245 said:
and > restoring the system, hidden, and read-only file attributes
using the > 'attrib' command) while booted into Recovery Console
mode? You said you > could boot into Recovery Console mode, so what
would stop you from > editing this file then?

Is there a text editor in the RC? There are tools like bootcfg but
they dont seem to let me say "okay, make drive(0) = drive(1)"

You may be able to use edit.com. It's in c:\winodws\system32 and
probably already in the PATH so you can run "edit boot.ini".
Alternatively, you could simply use "echo {string} >> boot.ini" to
append lines into a new file (after first renaming the current one to
boot.old). "type boot.ini", record what was there, rename the file, and
then use echo to build a new file.

--
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