Booting issue

[Niniel]

Hello,

I have this issue with W2k, but I think it doesn't matter since this seems
to work the same in XP. So, here's my problem:

I recently dusted off a really old PC of mine (PII-333) because I wanted to
wipe a HD, and that box was the easiest to connect one to since it was easy
to open and has a controller card so that I can add more drives at will.
I had to disconnect a CD-ROM in order to get a power connector though, so my
setup changed from 2 HDs on IDE1, 2 CD-ROM/RW on IDE 2 and 1 HD on PCI100
controller card to 2 HD on IDE1, 1 CD-RW on IDE2 and 2 HDs on PCI100
controller card.
The drive that has/had the c:\drive is actually connected to the controller
card. I has a primary FAT16 partition for Windows98, a primary NTFS partition
for W2k and an extended partition with a couple of logical drives in it.
But then the darn thing wouldn't boot into Windows (I'm pretty certain it
worked the last time I used that machine). Since I also have Zenwalk on
there, I got my nice Lilo boot menu, yet while Zenwalk started fine, W2K did
not. The screen just said "Loading Windows..." and that was that.
So then I installed a newer version of Zenwalk (5) and afterwards fixed Lilo
to point to the correct partition to boot Windows.
However, now I'm getting the following error:

Invalid Boot.ini file
Booting from c:\winnt\
NTDetect failed

Sounds to me that the settings in boot.ini are incorrect, but for the life
of me I can't figure out how to set it up. Can anybody help?
When I change the BIOS to boot from the 1st HD on the controller card vs.
HD1 on IDE1, then I do get the Windows boot menu, but neither Win98 nor W2k
will start (hm, maybe the bootmenu is broken and something else is wrong,
too).

Thanks.


Partitioning information:
HD1 on IDE1
sda1 - extended partition
sda5 - FAT32 logical drive

HD2 on IDE1
sdb1 - swap
sdb2 - Ext3 partition

HD1 on controller card
sdc1 - FAT16 partition
sdc2 - NTFS partition
sdc3 - extended partition
sdc5 - FAT32 logical drive
sdc6 - FAT32 logical drive

HD2 on controller card (the "new" drive)
sdd1 - FAT32 partition

sdb2 and sdc1 are flagged as boot

boot.ini:
[boot loader]
timeout=20
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT="Microsoft Windows 2000"
/fastdetect /nodebug
C:\="Windows 98"

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

Hello,

I have this issue with W2k, but I think it doesn't matter since this seems
to work the same in XP. So, here's my problem:

I recently dusted off a really old PC of mine (PII-333) because I wanted
to
wipe a HD, and that box was the easiest to connect one to since it was
easy
to open and has a controller card so that I can add more drives at will.
I had to disconnect a CD-ROM in order to get a power connector though, so
my
setup changed from 2 HDs on IDE1, 2 CD-ROM/RW on IDE 2 and 1 HD on PCI100
controller card to 2 HD on IDE1, 1 CD-RW on IDE2 and 2 HDs on PCI100
controller card.
The drive that has/had the c:\drive is actually connected to the
controller
card. I has a primary FAT16 partition for Windows98, a primary NTFS
partition
for W2k and an extended partition with a couple of logical drives in it.
But then the darn thing wouldn't boot into Windows (I'm pretty certain it
worked the last time I used that machine). Since I also have Zenwalk on
there, I got my nice Lilo boot menu, yet while Zenwalk started fine, W2K
did
not. The screen just said "Loading Windows..." and that was that.
So then I installed a newer version of Zenwalk (5) and afterwards fixed
Lilo
to point to the correct partition to boot Windows.
However, now I'm getting the following error:

Invalid Boot.ini file
Booting from c:\winnt\
NTDetect failed

Sounds to me that the settings in boot.ini are incorrect, but for the life
of me I can't figure out how to set it up. Can anybody help?
When I change the BIOS to boot from the 1st HD on the controller card vs.
HD1 on IDE1, then I do get the Windows boot menu, but neither Win98 nor
W2k
will start (hm, maybe the bootmenu is broken and something else is wrong,
too).

Thanks.


Partitioning information:
HD1 on IDE1
sda1 - extended partition
sda5 - FAT32 logical drive

HD2 on IDE1
sdb1 - swap
sdb2 - Ext3 partition

HD1 on controller card
sdc1 - FAT16 partition
sdc2 - NTFS partition
sdc3 - extended partition
sdc5 - FAT32 logical drive
sdc6 - FAT32 logical drive

HD2 on controller card (the "new" drive)
sdd1 - FAT32 partition

sdb2 and sdc1 are flagged as boot

boot.ini:
[boot loader]
timeout=20
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT="Microsoft Windows 2000"
/fastdetect /nodebug
C:\="Windows 98"

Since, as you say, this is a Win2000 issue, why not post it in a Win2000
newsgroup (e.g. win2000.general)?

Create yourself a Win2000 boot diskette by copying boot.ini, ntldr and
ntdetect.com on it, then have multiple boot lines of the form
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT="Microsoft Windows 2000"
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINNT="Microsoft Windows 2000"
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(3)\WINNT="Microsoft Windows 2000"
in a:\boot.ini. If you try long enough then you will find the one that boots
you into Win2000.

 

[Niniel]

Since, as you say, this is a Win2000 issue, why not post it in a Win2000
newsgroup (e.g. win2000.general)?

Because this is not all that W2k specific since the bootmenus in W2k and XP
are pretty much the same, and I couldn't find a W2k forum here, so this
seemed like a good place to ask the question.

Create yourself a Win2000 boot diskette by copying boot.ini, ntldr and
ntdetect.com on it, then have multiple boot lines of the form
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT="Microsoft Windows 2000"
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINNT="Microsoft Windows 2000"
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(3)\WINNT="Microsoft Windows 2000"
in a:\boot.ini. If you try long enough then you will find the one that boots
you into Win2000.

Ok, that is certainly an idea worth trying.
In order to cut down on the experimentation a bit though, would you mind
explaining how "multi", "disk", "rdisk" and "partition" relate to the actual
disks and partitions?
That would be swell.
Thanks.

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

Because this is not all that W2k specific since the bootmenus in W2k and
XP
are pretty much the same, and I couldn't find a W2k forum here, so this
seemed like a good place to ask the question.


Ok, that is certainly an idea worth trying.
In order to cut down on the experimentation a bit though, would you mind
explaining how "multi", "disk", "rdisk" and "partition" relate to the
actual
disks and partitions?
That would be swell.
Thanks.

rdisk(0) identifies the physical disk, starting at (0).
partition(3) is the partition on that disk, starting at (1).
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/102873

 

[Niniel]

That was most helpful, thank you very much.
I pretty much managed to fix my problem now - I found a boot.ini
configuration that works when I set the computer to boot from the drive
attached to the controller card.
I will just have to (re)install Lilo to that drive's MBR, and I should be
good to go.

Thanks again.