Ramdisk and harddisk

[Pieter]

Hi,

I have made a ramdisk image. In this image I included the FAT and NTFS
tools. And I added the diskmanagement console.
After booting from the ramdisk and opening the diskmanagement, the
wizzard appears to create a partition. This al works fine (as far as I
can see) After that I try to format the harddisk (FAT32 or NTFS) I get
the following message: "System partition is not allowed to be
formatted" Trying to delete the partition or the volume with
dispart.exe gives the following message: "The selected partition may
be nessecary to the operation of your computer and may not be
deleted."

Did I do something wrong? Why is XPe saying that DISK 0 is my system
partition.

Regard,

Pieter

 

[Nandini [MS]]

Pieter,

What do you have on that partition? Did you try the override switch?
ex: delete partition override.

-Nandini
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights

 

[Pieter]

Nandini,

Yes I tried that.
As far as I know there was only an active primary partition. (no data
on disk(

I did some testing.
I deleted the partitions with Win98 fdisk. Recreated the master boot
record with fdisk /mbr.

After that iI booted from the ramdisk. Started DISKMGMT.MSC.
I see DISK 0. Which is 19 GB and unallocated.
After that I start diskpart and thit the following:
select disk 0
create primary partition.

At this point I see in diskmgmt DISK 0 -> BASIC, 19 GB, online,
healthy.

After that I cannot assign a driverletter or delete the partition
(even with override). Diskpart keeps telling me that this actions are
not allowed on a system/boot or pagefile volumes.

Pieter

 

[Slobodan Brcin]

Pieter,

I'm experiencing same problem, have you found solution?

Yes, disk part is behaving strangely on HDD volume that should be C, if it
was not masked by Ramdisk.

I hope that this is only limitation of diskpart. Since Saad said that Sdimgr
can write to disk partition directly.
I really hope that there is a way to move Ramdisk letter to let say Z:, then
probably we would not have any problems.


Does anybody know purpose of number x from ramdisk(x) switch in boot.ini?
Since in every example it is 0.


Best regards,
Slobodan

 

[Pieter]

Slobodan,

I just wanted to kick this threat

No, I don't have a clue how to solve it. I'm waiting for feedback from
Nandini.
It is not only diskpart that have this problem. Ít also happens when I
am using diskmanager.

Pieter

 

[Slobodan Brcin]

Slobodan,

I just wanted to kick this threat

No, I don't have a clue how to solve it. I'm waiting for feedback from
Nandini.
It is not only diskpart that have this problem. Ít also happens when I
am using diskmanager.

diskpart is superset of diskmanager, so if diskpart have problems
diskmanager will have them also

If anyone from MS could provide work around to the problem it would be nice.
If not I'll try to find some way to access volume C, and let you know if I
do.

Best regards,
Slobodan

Pieter

Pieter,

I'm experiencing same problem, have you found solution?

Yes, disk part is behaving strangely on HDD volume that should be C, if it
was not masked by Ramdisk.

I hope that this is only limitation of diskpart. Since Saad said that Sdimgr
can write to disk partition directly.
I really hope that there is a way to move Ramdisk letter to let say Z:, then
probably we would not have any problems.


Does anybody know purpose of number x from ramdisk(x) switch in boot.ini?
Since in every example it is 0.


Best regards,
Slobodan

Nandini,

Yes I tried that.
As far as I know there was only an active primary partition. (no data
on disk(

I did some testing.
I deleted the partitions with Win98 fdisk. Recreated the master boot
record with fdisk /mbr.

After that iI booted from the ramdisk. Started DISKMGMT.MSC.
I see DISK 0. Which is 19 GB and unallocated.
After that I start diskpart and thit the following:
select disk 0
create primary partition.

At this point I see in diskmgmt DISK 0 -> BASIC, 19 GB, online,
healthy.

After that I cannot assign a driverletter or delete the partition
(even with override). Diskpart keeps telling me that this actions are
not allowed on a system/boot or pagefile volumes.

Pieter


On Thu, 25 Sep 2003 15:47:27 -0700, "Nandini [MS]"

Pieter,

What do you have on that partition? Did you try the override switch?
ex: delete partition override.

-Nandini
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights

Hi,

I have made a ramdisk image. In this image I included the FAT and NTFS
tools. And I added the diskmanagement console.
After booting from the ramdisk and opening the diskmanagement, the
wizzard appears to create a partition. This al works fine (as far as I
can see) After that I try to format the harddisk (FAT32 or NTFS) I get
the following message: "System partition is not allowed to be
formatted" Trying to delete the partition or the volume with
dispart.exe gives the following message: "The selected partition may
be nessecary to the operation of your computer and may not be
deleted."

Did I do something wrong? Why is XPe saying that DISK 0 is my system
partition.

Regard,

Pieter

 

[Slobodan Brcin]

Pieter,

After many hours of reading, programming, and hacking I have found really
simple solution.

After FBA completes, and before you restart device for creating SDI file
delete all entries from HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\MountedDevices.
Also as you know you should use C: for XPE.

That's it.

I'll try to respond to my question later, with more details on solution to
this problem.

Best regards,
Slobodan

Slobodan,

I just wanted to kick this threat

No, I don't have a clue how to solve it. I'm waiting for feedback from
Nandini.
It is not only diskpart that have this problem. Ít also happens when I
am using diskmanager.

Pieter

Pieter,

I'm experiencing same problem, have you found solution?

Yes, disk part is behaving strangely on HDD volume that should be C, if it
was not masked by Ramdisk.

I hope that this is only limitation of diskpart. Since Saad said that Sdimgr
can write to disk partition directly.
I really hope that there is a way to move Ramdisk letter to let say Z:, then
probably we would not have any problems.


Does anybody know purpose of number x from ramdisk(x) switch in boot.ini?
Since in every example it is 0.


Best regards,
Slobodan

Nandini,

Yes I tried that.
As far as I know there was only an active primary partition. (no data
on disk(

I did some testing.
I deleted the partitions with Win98 fdisk. Recreated the master boot
record with fdisk /mbr.

After that iI booted from the ramdisk. Started DISKMGMT.MSC.
I see DISK 0. Which is 19 GB and unallocated.
After that I start diskpart and thit the following:
select disk 0
create primary partition.

At this point I see in diskmgmt DISK 0 -> BASIC, 19 GB, online,
healthy.

After that I cannot assign a driverletter or delete the partition
(even with override). Diskpart keeps telling me that this actions are
not allowed on a system/boot or pagefile volumes.

Pieter


On Thu, 25 Sep 2003 15:47:27 -0700, "Nandini [MS]"

Pieter,

What do you have on that partition? Did you try the override switch?
ex: delete partition override.

-Nandini
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights

Hi,

I have made a ramdisk image. In this image I included the FAT and NTFS
tools. And I added the diskmanagement console.
After booting from the ramdisk and opening the diskmanagement, the
wizzard appears to create a partition. This al works fine (as far as I
can see) After that I try to format the harddisk (FAT32 or NTFS) I get
the following message: "System partition is not allowed to be
formatted" Trying to delete the partition or the volume with
dispart.exe gives the following message: "The selected partition may
be nessecary to the operation of your computer and may not be
deleted."

Did I do something wrong? Why is XPe saying that DISK 0 is my system
partition.

Regard,

Pieter

 

[Saad Syed [MS]]

When you boot off a ramdisk, it'll mask your underlying harddisks first
partition. Ramdisk always assign itself drive "C:". This allows you to boot
from the same image regardless of how many drives you've on the machine.

Try having a look at HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\MountedDevices of the target
image.

Free up \DosDevices\C: by renaming
\DosDevices\D: to \DosDevices\E:,
\DosDevices\C: to \DosDevices\D:
and so on.

If the signature matches, D: will be assigned to the drive that was 'C:' and
so on...

Hope this helps,
Thanks,
- Saad, MS

This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.

Slobodan,

I just wanted to kick this threat

No, I don't have a clue how to solve it. I'm waiting for feedback from
Nandini.
It is not only diskpart that have this problem. Ít also happens when I
am using diskmanager.

diskpart is superset of diskmanager, so if diskpart have problems
diskmanager will have them also

If anyone from MS could provide work around to the problem it would be nice.
If not I'll try to find some way to access volume C, and let you know if I
do.

Best regards,
Slobodan

Pieter

Pieter,

I'm experiencing same problem, have you found solution?

Yes, disk part is behaving strangely on HDD volume that should be C, if it
was not masked by Ramdisk.

I hope that this is only limitation of diskpart. Since Saad said that Sdimgr
can write to disk partition directly.
I really hope that there is a way to move Ramdisk letter to let say Z:, then
probably we would not have any problems.


Does anybody know purpose of number x from ramdisk(x) switch in boot.ini?
Since in every example it is 0.


Best regards,
Slobodan

Nandini,

Yes I tried that.
As far as I know there was only an active primary partition. (no data
on disk(

I did some testing.
I deleted the partitions with Win98 fdisk. Recreated the master boot
record with fdisk /mbr.

After that iI booted from the ramdisk. Started DISKMGMT.MSC.
I see DISK 0. Which is 19 GB and unallocated.
After that I start diskpart and thit the following:
select disk 0
create primary partition.

At this point I see in diskmgmt DISK 0 -> BASIC, 19 GB, online,
healthy.

After that I cannot assign a driverletter or delete the partition
(even with override). Diskpart keeps telling me that this actions are
not allowed on a system/boot or pagefile volumes.

Pieter


On Thu, 25 Sep 2003 15:47:27 -0700, "Nandini [MS]"

Pieter,

What do you have on that partition? Did you try the override switch?
ex: delete partition override.

-Nandini
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no
rights

Hi,

I have made a ramdisk image. In this image I included the FAT and NTFS
tools. And I added the diskmanagement console.
After booting from the ramdisk and opening the diskmanagement, the
wizzard appears to create a partition. This al works fine (as far

as

I

 

[Slobodan Brcin]

Saad,

Late info as usual , if you have pointed us to this info just few days
before.

And besides deleting values from HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\MountedDevices
Is easier, and more appropriate.

When you do that. Every association with partitions on disk is removed, so
when you make SDI image it will boot on local machine like it would on some
other machine.
I mean that during every start all partition will be detected and given
volume ids from D: up.

During all testing I had to do I have gathered some valuable info on this
and few other topics as side effect on testing. If you are interested I'll
write few tips or article that will explain some things regarding drive
letters and SDI.


Best regards,
Slobodan

When you boot off a ramdisk, it'll mask your underlying harddisks first
partition. Ramdisk always assign itself drive "C:". This allows you to boot
from the same image regardless of how many drives you've on the machine.

Try having a look at HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\MountedDevices of the target
image.

Free up \DosDevices\C: by renaming
\DosDevices\D: to \DosDevices\E:,
\DosDevices\C: to \DosDevices\D:
and so on.

If the signature matches, D: will be assigned to the drive that was 'C:' and
so on...

Hope this helps,
Thanks,
- Saad, MS

This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.

diskpart is superset of diskmanager, so if diskpart have problems
diskmanager will have them also

If anyone from MS could provide work around to the problem it would be nice.
If not I'll try to find some way to access volume C, and let you know

if

I
do.

Best regards,
Slobodan

Pieter


Pieter,

I'm experiencing same problem, have you found solution?

Yes, disk part is behaving strangely on HDD volume that should be C,

if
it

was not masked by Ramdisk.

I hope that this is only limitation of diskpart. Since Saad said that Sdimgr
can write to disk partition directly.
I really hope that there is a way to move Ramdisk letter to let say

Z:,
then

probably we would not have any problems.


Does anybody know purpose of number x from ramdisk(x) switch in boot.ini?
Since in every example it is 0.


Best regards,
Slobodan

Nandini,

Yes I tried that.
As far as I know there was only an active primary partition. (no data
on disk(

I did some testing.
I deleted the partitions with Win98 fdisk. Recreated the master boot
record with fdisk /mbr.

After that iI booted from the ramdisk. Started DISKMGMT.MSC.
I see DISK 0. Which is 19 GB and unallocated.
After that I start diskpart and thit the following:
select disk 0
create primary partition.

At this point I see in diskmgmt DISK 0 -> BASIC, 19 GB, online,
healthy.

After that I cannot assign a driverletter or delete the partition
(even with override). Diskpart keeps telling me that this actions are
not allowed on a system/boot or pagefile volumes.

Pieter


On Thu, 25 Sep 2003 15:47:27 -0700, "Nandini [MS]"

Pieter,

What do you have on that partition? Did you try the override switch?
ex: delete partition override.

-Nandini
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no
rights

Hi,

I have made a ramdisk image. In this image I included the FAT

and
NTFS

tools. And I added the diskmanagement console.
After booting from the ramdisk and opening the diskmanagement, the
wizzard appears to create a partition. This al works fine (as

far

as I
get

 

[Pieter]

Slobodan,

First my apologies for my late reaction. I had some cathing up to do
with an other project.
Thanks for your solution but that only solves the problem with the
masked c-drive.
I still have a problem that XPe thinks that the first partition I
created with diskpart is a system/boot or page volume. And I'm not
allowed to format, delete or assign drive letters.


Regards,
Pieter

Pieter,

After many hours of reading, programming, and hacking I have found really
simple solution.

After FBA completes, and before you restart device for creating SDI file
delete all entries from HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\MountedDevices.
Also as you know you should use C: for XPE.

That's it.

I'll try to respond to my question later, with more details on solution to
this problem.

Best regards,
Slobodan

Slobodan,

I just wanted to kick this threat

No, I don't have a clue how to solve it. I'm waiting for feedback from
Nandini.
It is not only diskpart that have this problem. Ít also happens when I
am using diskmanager.

Pieter

Pieter,

I'm experiencing same problem, have you found solution?

Yes, disk part is behaving strangely on HDD volume that should be C, if it
was not masked by Ramdisk.

I hope that this is only limitation of diskpart. Since Saad said that Sdimgr
can write to disk partition directly.
I really hope that there is a way to move Ramdisk letter to let say Z:, then
probably we would not have any problems.


Does anybody know purpose of number x from ramdisk(x) switch in boot.ini?
Since in every example it is 0.


Best regards,
Slobodan

Nandini,

Yes I tried that.
As far as I know there was only an active primary partition. (no data
on disk(

I did some testing.
I deleted the partitions with Win98 fdisk. Recreated the master boot
record with fdisk /mbr.

After that iI booted from the ramdisk. Started DISKMGMT.MSC.
I see DISK 0. Which is 19 GB and unallocated.
After that I start diskpart and thit the following:
select disk 0
create primary partition.

At this point I see in diskmgmt DISK 0 -> BASIC, 19 GB, online,
healthy.

After that I cannot assign a driverletter or delete the partition
(even with override). Diskpart keeps telling me that this actions are
not allowed on a system/boot or pagefile volumes.

Pieter


On Thu, 25 Sep 2003 15:47:27 -0700, "Nandini [MS]"

Pieter,

What do you have on that partition? Did you try the override switch?
ex: delete partition override.

-Nandini
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no
rights

Hi,

I have made a ramdisk image. In this image I included the FAT and NTFS
tools. And I added the diskmanagement console.
After booting from the ramdisk and opening the diskmanagement, the
wizzard appears to create a partition. This al works fine (as far as I
can see) After that I try to format the harddisk (FAT32 or NTFS) I get
the following message: "System partition is not allowed to be
formatted" Trying to delete the partition or the volume with
dispart.exe gives the following message: "The selected partition may
be nessecary to the operation of your computer and may not be
deleted."

Did I do something wrong? Why is XPe saying that DISK 0 is my system
partition.

Regard,

Pieter

 

[Slobodan Brcin]

Pieter,

I can't try this, in case it works for me.
Eventually I'll need to do this for out project, but this is low priority,
and there are many thing's to do before this.

If you find solution before let us know.

Best regards,
Slobodan

Slobodan,

First my apologies for my late reaction. I had some cathing up to do
with an other project.
Thanks for your solution but that only solves the problem with the
masked c-drive.
I still have a problem that XPe thinks that the first partition I
created with diskpart is a system/boot or page volume. And I'm not
allowed to format, delete or assign drive letters.


Regards,
Pieter

Pieter,

After many hours of reading, programming, and hacking I have found really
simple solution.

After FBA completes, and before you restart device for creating SDI file
delete all entries from HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\MountedDevices.
Also as you know you should use C: for XPE.

That's it.

I'll try to respond to my question later, with more details on solution to
this problem.

Best regards,
Slobodan

Slobodan,

I just wanted to kick this threat

No, I don't have a clue how to solve it. I'm waiting for feedback from
Nandini.
It is not only diskpart that have this problem. Ít also happens when I
am using diskmanager.

Pieter


Pieter,

I'm experiencing same problem, have you found solution?

Yes, disk part is behaving strangely on HDD volume that should be C,

if
it

was not masked by Ramdisk.

I hope that this is only limitation of diskpart. Since Saad said that Sdimgr
can write to disk partition directly.
I really hope that there is a way to move Ramdisk letter to let say

Z:,
then

probably we would not have any problems.


Does anybody know purpose of number x from ramdisk(x) switch in boot.ini?
Since in every example it is 0.


Best regards,
Slobodan

Nandini,

Yes I tried that.
As far as I know there was only an active primary partition. (no data
on disk(

I did some testing.
I deleted the partitions with Win98 fdisk. Recreated the master boot
record with fdisk /mbr.

After that iI booted from the ramdisk. Started DISKMGMT.MSC.
I see DISK 0. Which is 19 GB and unallocated.
After that I start diskpart and thit the following:
select disk 0
create primary partition.

At this point I see in diskmgmt DISK 0 -> BASIC, 19 GB, online,
healthy.

After that I cannot assign a driverletter or delete the partition
(even with override). Diskpart keeps telling me that this actions are
not allowed on a system/boot or pagefile volumes.

Pieter


On Thu, 25 Sep 2003 15:47:27 -0700, "Nandini [MS]"

Pieter,

What do you have on that partition? Did you try the override switch?
ex: delete partition override.

-Nandini
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no
rights

Hi,

I have made a ramdisk image. In this image I included the FAT and NTFS
tools. And I added the diskmanagement console.
After booting from the ramdisk and opening the diskmanagement, the
wizzard appears to create a partition. This al works fine (as far

as
I

can see) After that I try to format the harddisk (FAT32 or NTFS)

I
get

the following message: "System partition is not allowed to be
formatted" Trying to delete the partition or the volume with
dispart.exe gives the following message: "The selected partition may
be nessecary to the operation of your computer and may not be
deleted."

Did I do something wrong? Why is XPe saying that DISK 0 is my system
partition.

Regard,

Pieter

 

[Pieter]

Slobodan,

I think I solved the problem. I deleted de key SystemPartition in
HKLM\SYSTEM\Setup.

Now all seems to work. Thanks for your help.

Pieter

Pieter,

I can't try this, in case it works for me.
Eventually I'll need to do this for out project, but this is low priority,
and there are many thing's to do before this.

If you find solution before let us know.

Best regards,
Slobodan

Slobodan,

First my apologies for my late reaction. I had some cathing up to do
with an other project.
Thanks for your solution but that only solves the problem with the
masked c-drive.
I still have a problem that XPe thinks that the first partition I
created with diskpart is a system/boot or page volume. And I'm not
allowed to format, delete or assign drive letters.


Regards,
Pieter

Pieter,

After many hours of reading, programming, and hacking I have found really
simple solution.

After FBA completes, and before you restart device for creating SDI file
delete all entries from HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\MountedDevices.
Also as you know you should use C: for XPE.

That's it.

I'll try to respond to my question later, with more details on solution to
this problem.

Best regards,
Slobodan

Slobodan,

I just wanted to kick this threat

No, I don't have a clue how to solve it. I'm waiting for feedback from
Nandini.
It is not only diskpart that have this problem. Ít also happens when I
am using diskmanager.

Pieter


Pieter,

I'm experiencing same problem, have you found solution?

Yes, disk part is behaving strangely on HDD volume that should be C, if
it
was not masked by Ramdisk.

I hope that this is only limitation of diskpart. Since Saad said that
Sdimgr
can write to disk partition directly.
I really hope that there is a way to move Ramdisk letter to let say Z:,
then
probably we would not have any problems.


Does anybody know purpose of number x from ramdisk(x) switch in boot.ini?
Since in every example it is 0.


Best regards,
Slobodan

Nandini,

Yes I tried that.
As far as I know there was only an active primary partition. (no data
on disk(

I did some testing.
I deleted the partitions with Win98 fdisk. Recreated the master boot
record with fdisk /mbr.

After that iI booted from the ramdisk. Started DISKMGMT.MSC.
I see DISK 0. Which is 19 GB and unallocated.
After that I start diskpart and thit the following:
select disk 0
create primary partition.

At this point I see in diskmgmt DISK 0 -> BASIC, 19 GB, online,
healthy.

After that I cannot assign a driverletter or delete the partition
(even with override). Diskpart keeps telling me that this actions are
not allowed on a system/boot or pagefile volumes.

Pieter


On Thu, 25 Sep 2003 15:47:27 -0700, "Nandini [MS]"

Pieter,

What do you have on that partition? Did you try the override switch?
ex: delete partition override.

-Nandini
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no
rights

Hi,

I have made a ramdisk image. In this image I included the FAT and
NTFS
tools. And I added the diskmanagement console.
After booting from the ramdisk and opening the diskmanagement, the
wizzard appears to create a partition. This al works fine (as far as
I
can see) After that I try to format the harddisk (FAT32 or NTFS) I
get
the following message: "System partition is not allowed to be
formatted" Trying to delete the partition or the volume with
dispart.exe gives the following message: "The selected partition may
be nessecary to the operation of your computer and may not be
deleted."

Did I do something wrong? Why is XPe saying that DISK 0 is my system
partition.

Regard,

Pieter