A7N8X-E Deluxe SATA Boot Drive

[Andy Lee]

Hello the group.

Config

A7N8X E Deluxe obviously

1x WD Raptor 36Gb SATA

1X Maxtor 120Gb SATA

The Raptor is one big Primary partition NTFS Win XP Pro set on channel
one (boots from this drive.

The Maxtor has one 10 Gb partition FAT 32 win Win98SE installed marked
as active the rest is an NTFS Data Storage.

The above config was setup on my previous board A7V8X using the
Promise SATA controller and I had the option to select which drive to
boot from in the Promise Bios.

I just connected the drives to the new Mb and all was fine (after
installing the correct raid drivers via a repair install of XP) until
I went to select the Maxtor drive in the Silicon Image Bios as the
boot drive. There does not appear to be any option to do this unless I
have missed it! Any ideas on how I can get around this short of
installing something like boot commander.

Andy


Regards

Andy Lee

 

[Ben Pope]

Hello the group.

Config

A7N8X E Deluxe obviously

1x WD Raptor 36Gb SATA

1X Maxtor 120Gb SATA

The Raptor is one big Primary partition NTFS Win XP Pro set on channel
one (boots from this drive.

The Maxtor has one 10 Gb partition FAT 32 win Win98SE installed marked
as active the rest is an NTFS Data Storage.

The above config was setup on my previous board A7V8X using the
Promise SATA controller and I had the option to select which drive to
boot from in the Promise Bios.

I just connected the drives to the new Mb and all was fine (after
installing the correct raid drivers via a repair install of XP) until
I went to select the Maxtor drive in the Silicon Image Bios as the
boot drive. There does not appear to be any option to do this unless I
have missed it! Any ideas on how I can get around this short of
installing something like boot commander.

Not really. You could use FDisk or Admin Tools -> Computer Management ->
Disk Management to set or unset the partition on the Raptor active, that
SHOULD do it.

Install a boot manager, there are loads of good ones, I tend to use Grub,
but then, I use Linux too, I wouldn't recommend it for a non Linux User.

Anyway, what's wrong with Windows' boot manager?

Since the Raptor has XP installed, and is the primary boot disk, and
assuming you have the SATA controller booting before any IDE controller, a
boot.ini somewhat like this one should work:

[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"
multi(0)disk(1)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft 9x" /w95

But I haven't tried it.

Actually, you might want to try this, too:

[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"
D:\="Microsoft Windows 98 Second Edition"

Let us know how you get on.

I believe there is a tool for editing boot.ini on XP and later, called
bootcfg, I've never used it but it might simplify things.
http://support.microsoft.com:80/support/kb/articles/Q291/9/80.ASP

Ben

 

[Andy Lee]

Hi Ben

Not really. You could use FDisk or Admin Tools -> Computer Management ->
Disk Management to set or unset the partition on the Raptor active, that
SHOULD do it.

Yup should do it

Install a boot manager, there are loads of good ones, I tend to use Grub,
but then, I use Linux too, I wouldn't recommend it for a non Linux User.

Anyway, what's wrong with Windows' boot manager?

nowt really just wanted to see if there was a firmware trick I missed
before I went down that road

Since the Raptor has XP installed, and is the primary boot disk, and
assuming you have the SATA controller booting before any IDE controller, a
boot.ini somewhat like this one should work:

[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"
multi(0)disk(1)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft 9x" /w95

But I haven't tried it.

Cheers for the examples

Actually, you might want to try this, too:

[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"
D:\="Microsoft Windows 98 Second Edition"

Let us know how you get on.

I cheated and installed OSloader which more or less does what I wanted
I did use linux lilo previously but I wanted to try something
different this time around