A 2 XP system on 2 separate disks -> boot problem

I

Igal.Hunter

Hi All!

I got this strange oroblem that kinda caught me offguard.
I used to have 2 HDs on my PC, 1st the boot (Pimary master, let's call
it "Alfa") and 2nd dump (Primary slave let it be "Betta").
At some point my boot HD (Alfa) was being fixed and I got another HD
(call it "Gamma") on which I installed another copy of XP thus having a
configuration of 1 boot HD "Gamma" (SATA 1) and the dump HD
"Betta"(primary slave). Everything worked just fine.
Now my old Alfa HD got back from the fix and offcause I naively
installed it, planning to use the Gamma HD as a primary boot (it's
larger and faster), however, strangely enough now my system recognizes
only my old Alfa HD as a OS and disregards the newer XP install on the
Gamma HD (the drive is there, it's assigned letter H).
What I'd like to have is to run my new Gamma HD (SATA1) as an only OS,
and turn the old Alfa boot (primary master) to another dump drive.

My best guess is that it has something to do with the boot.ini (on
which of the 3 physical dives I wonder...)

Currently I'm running my old OS, and my boot.ini files look like this
(why I say files... wait and see):
The one that is on C:\ (Which corresponds to Alfa when alfa is booted))
looks 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

And the one I see (when Alfa is booted)) through system->start up
(which is for some reason on drive d:, my Betta dump drive, not the old
boot drive) looks like this:
[boot loader]
timeout=15
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP
Professional - SATA" /fastdetect /NoExecute=OptIn
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP
Professional" /fastdetect

Gamma drive has no boot.ini on it, even though I installed the copy of
XP on it.

You can see the confusion here. 2 separate boot.ini files (kill me if I
know which one the system uses... during the start up the one located
on D "Betta" seems to pop, but it's second option - the one not marked
SATA points to nowhere... nothing's there, and the 1st option still
points to the Alfa boot device.

All this is a bit confusing, so I home that someone can pinpoint the
general idea in here and maybe give me some good advice how to fix all
this.

If any info is missing - please tell.

Thank you.
 
G

Guest

Hi
I think the first place for you to look is going to be the system bios,
press delete on boot(sometimes another key) to access the bios.
depending on the bios you will be looking for the initial boot device menu
and making sure the bios chooses sata over ide as the boot device.

Good luck on this

Jason

[email protected] said:
Hi All!

I got this strange oroblem that kinda caught me offguard.
I used to have 2 HDs on my PC, 1st the boot (Pimary master, let's call
it "Alfa") and 2nd dump (Primary slave let it be "Betta").
At some point my boot HD (Alfa) was being fixed and I got another HD
(call it "Gamma") on which I installed another copy of XP thus having a
configuration of 1 boot HD "Gamma" (SATA 1) and the dump HD
"Betta"(primary slave). Everything worked just fine.
Now my old Alfa HD got back from the fix and offcause I naively
installed it, planning to use the Gamma HD as a primary boot (it's
larger and faster), however, strangely enough now my system recognizes
only my old Alfa HD as a OS and disregards the newer XP install on the
Gamma HD (the drive is there, it's assigned letter H).
What I'd like to have is to run my new Gamma HD (SATA1) as an only OS,
and turn the old Alfa boot (primary master) to another dump drive.

My best guess is that it has something to do with the boot.ini (on
which of the 3 physical dives I wonder...)

Currently I'm running my old OS, and my boot.ini files look like this
(why I say files... wait and see):
The one that is on C:\ (Which corresponds to Alfa when alfa is booted))
looks 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

And the one I see (when Alfa is booted)) through system->start up
(which is for some reason on drive d:, my Betta dump drive, not the old
boot drive) looks like this:
[boot loader]
timeout=15
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP
Professional - SATA" /fastdetect /NoExecute=OptIn
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP
Professional" /fastdetect

Gamma drive has no boot.ini on it, even though I installed the copy of
XP on it.

You can see the confusion here. 2 separate boot.ini files (kill me if I
know which one the system uses... during the start up the one located
on D "Betta" seems to pop, but it's second option - the one not marked
SATA points to nowhere... nothing's there, and the 1st option still
points to the Alfa boot device.

All this is a bit confusing, so I home that someone can pinpoint the
general idea in here and maybe give me some good advice how to fix all
this.

If any info is missing - please tell.

Thank you.
Click to expand...
 
A

Andy

Hi All!

I got this strange oroblem that kinda caught me offguard.
I used to have 2 HDs on my PC, 1st the boot (Pimary master, let's call
it "Alfa") and 2nd dump (Primary slave let it be "Betta").
At some point my boot HD (Alfa) was being fixed and I got another HD
(call it "Gamma") on which I installed another copy of XP thus having a
configuration of 1 boot HD "Gamma" (SATA 1) and the dump HD
"Betta"(primary slave). Everything worked just fine.
Now my old Alfa HD got back from the fix and offcause I naively
installed it, planning to use the Gamma HD as a primary boot (it's
larger and faster), however, strangely enough now my system recognizes
only my old Alfa HD as a OS and disregards the newer XP install on the
Gamma HD (the drive is there, it's assigned letter H).
What I'd like to have is to run my new Gamma HD (SATA1) as an only OS,
and turn the old Alfa boot (primary master) to another dump drive.
Click to expand...
My best guess is that it has something to do with the boot.ini (on
which of the 3 physical dives I wonder...)

Currently I'm running my old OS, and my boot.ini files look like this
(why I say files... wait and see):
The one that is on C:\ (Which corresponds to Alfa when alfa is booted))
looks 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

And the one I see (when Alfa is booted)) through system->start up
(which is for some reason on drive d:, my Betta dump drive, not the old
boot drive) looks like this:
[boot loader]
timeout=15
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP
Professional - SATA" /fastdetect /NoExecute=OptIn
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP
Professional" /fastdetect

Gamma drive has no boot.ini on it, even though I installed the copy of
XP on it.
Click to expand...

Windows XP setup places the boot files in the active primary partition
on the disk that the BIOS is set to boot from. Since the boot files
ended up on the IDE disk, either the SATA disk was not set as first
under hard disk boot priority in BIOS setup, or the BIOS is unable to
designate the SATA disk as the first disk if an IDE disk is also
connected.
You can see the confusion here. 2 separate boot.ini files (kill me if I
know which one the system uses... during the start up the one located
on D "Betta" seems to pop, but it's second option - the one not marked
SATA points to nowhere... nothing's there, and the 1st option still
points to the Alfa boot device.

All this is a bit confusing, so I home that someone can pinpoint the
general idea in here and maybe give me some good advice how to fix all
this.

If any info is missing - please tell.
Click to expand...

What motherboard are you using?
 
I

Igal.Hunter

Gigabyte,
WEll, nm I got it all fixed, just changed the boot.ini manually (added
2 more disks and found out which one boots what the deleted the
dummies). Thanks anyway.
 

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