Changing the system drive

[Grant Anderson]

In an earlier post, I asked about having two installations of Windows XP
simultaneously. Having done this, I now want the system drive to be the
drive with the new installation of Windows. I've Googled around, and
discovered that the ntdetect.com, ntldr and boot.ini files are important
- is it enough to just copy these over and adjust my BIOS? (I noticed
(when I was booting from CD to install the second Windows) that I have
the option of booting from HDD0, 1, 2 or 3 - presumably this would be
useful).

Current situation is:
C: contains first install of Windows, is the system drive (I believe),
and is currently untrustworthy, hence the wish to shift the system drive
responsibilities to the new drive
D: contains second install of Windows, and I can boot from it by
selecting it from the boot menu, but as I understand it, this doesn't
mean it's a system drive, merely a boot drive (or is it not even that?)

I'd like to make D: the system drive. Is the system drive determined by
having the three files I mention above? (like msdos.sys, io.sys and
command.com in the old days) or is there more that needs to be changed?

Cheers,
Grant

 

[Guest]

Specifying the Default Operating System for Startup
If you have more than one operating system on your computer, you can set the
operating system that you want to use as the default one for when you start
your computer:
• Click Start, click Control Panel, and then double-click System.
• On the Advanced tab, under Startup and Recovery, click Settings.
• Under System startup, in the Default operating system list, click the
operating system that you want to start when you turn on or restart your
computer.
• Select the Display list of operating systems for check box, and then type
the number of seconds for which you want the list displayed before the
default operating system starts automatically.

To manually edit the boot options file, click Edit. Microsoft strongly
recommends that you do not modify the boot options file (Boot.ini), because
doing so may render your computer unusable.


How to create a multiple-boot system in Windows XP

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=306559

 

[Grant Anderson]

Specifying the Default Operating System for Startup
If you have more than one operating system on your computer, you can set the
operating system that you want to use as the default one for when you start
your computer:
• Click Start, click Control Panel, and then double-click System.
• On the Advanced tab, under Startup and Recovery, click Settings.
• Under System startup, in the Default operating system list, click the
operating system that you want to start when you turn on or restart your
computer.
• Select the Display list of operating systems for check box, and then type
the number of seconds for which you want the list displayed before the
default operating system starts automatically.

To manually edit the boot options file, click Edit. Microsoft strongly
recommends that you do not modify the boot options file (Boot.ini), because
doing so may render your computer unusable.


How to create a multiple-boot system in Windows XP

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=306559

I'm not sure that this is what I need. Currently I can boot from either
drive, but as I understand it, the master boot information is all stored
on drive C:, the first Windows installation. If drive C: goes down, I
won't be able to boot at all. I want to shift that information to the
D: drive, so that the C: drive (which has given me cause for concern)
isn't being relied upon at startup.

Cheers,
Grant

 

[Guest]

K... the letters of the drive mean very little, you should have the master
drive set as the "higher" letter though (so mmaster is "C:" and slave is "D:"
you can change the drive leters with start > administrative tools > computer
management > disc management -right click the drive/partition and select
"change drive letter ans path" but it isnt thaat important...

....Whats is more important is that you have your jumper sttings on your
HDD's set properly and the cable set up right. If youre changing the master
boot C: to F:, you have ot swap the calble and jumpers. It will work without
doing so but will give you problems at some point.

There are a lot of documented sites on hoh to do that, if in doubt check
with your HDD manufacturer. For proper installation

Western digital
http://www.wdc.com/en/products/index.asp?Cat=3

maxto
http://www.maxtor.com/portal/site/M.../?channelpath=/en_us/Products/Desktop Storage

good luck

 

[Guest]

"I understand it, the master boot information is all stored on drive C:" ,

Whenever you do an installation you create a MBR ,boot.ini, NTLDR and
Ntdetect.com on that same drive. So you should be set to go, just follow the
instructions below and re-read the "Startup and Recovery", there is where
you set your master boot drive.

It goes like this:
C:\is your primary master , boot disk
F:\is the primary slave

If you want to use F:\ as the new boot drive you must change jumper settings
and cable ribbon positions (its a simple reverse but Check your HDD jumper
settings), edit the boot.ini from windows (thats the "Startup and Recovery"
from system properties...) so windows doesn't get confused between the 2
Operating Systems (OS's)

In Addition,
If your concerned about backing up your boot files

From the root folder of the system partition of your hard disk drive
ie: C:\ - copy the following files to a floppy disk:
Boot.ini
NTLDR
Ntdetect.com
--------------------------
Create a Boot Disk for XP

Creating a Boot Disk for an NTFS or FAT Partition
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=311073

How To Create a Boot Disk for an NTFS or FAT Partition in Windows XP
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/305595

How to use System files to create a boot disk to guard against being unable
to start Windows XP
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314079

I hope this helped

 

[Grant Anderson]

"I understand it, the master boot information is all stored on drive C:" ,

Whenever you do an installation you create a MBR ,boot.ini, NTLDR and
Ntdetect.com on that same drive. So you should be set to go, just follow the
instructions below and re-read the "Startup and Recovery", there is where
you set your master boot drive.

It goes like this:
C:\is your primary master , boot disk
F:\is the primary slave

If you want to use F:\ as the new boot drive you must change jumper settings
and cable ribbon positions (its a simple reverse but Check your HDD jumper
settings), edit the boot.ini from windows (thats the "Startup and Recovery"
from system properties...) so windows doesn't get confused between the 2
Operating Systems (OS's)

Aha, this is the sort of thing I was after. Is it possible to use the
CMOS settings to choose to boot off the other drive? When I go into the
BIOS to choose boot order, I can choose from CD-Rom, floppy, HDD0, HDD1,
HDD2, HDD3. Is this different to switching the jumpers?

Cheers,
Grant

 

[Andy]

In an earlier post, I asked about having two installations of Windows XP
simultaneously. Having done this, I now want the system drive to be the
drive with the new installation of Windows. I've Googled around, and
discovered that the ntdetect.com, ntldr and boot.ini files are important
- is it enough to just copy these over and adjust my BIOS? (I noticed
(when I was booting from CD to install the second Windows) that I have
the option of booting from HDD0, 1, 2 or 3 - presumably this would be
useful).

Current situation is:
C: contains first install of Windows, is the system drive (I believe),
and is currently untrustworthy, hence the wish to shift the system drive
responsibilities to the new drive
D: contains second install of Windows, and I can boot from it by
selecting it from the boot menu, but as I understand it, this doesn't
mean it's a system drive, merely a boot drive (or is it not even that?)

I'd like to make D: the system drive. Is the system drive determined by
having the three files I mention above? (like msdos.sys, io.sys and
command.com in the old days) or is there more that needs to be changed?

In addition to copying those three files, in order to boot from the D:
drive, it has to have an appropriate boot sector. Boot from the CD and
run the recovery console. Then execute fixboot on the D: drive. Also,
references to rdisk(1) in boot.ini has to be changed to rdisk(0) if
the drive is physically changed to be the first drive.

 

[Grant Anderson]

In addition to copying those three files, in order to boot from the D:
drive, it has to have an appropriate boot sector. Boot from the CD and
run the recovery console. Then execute fixboot on the D: drive. Also,
references to rdisk(1) in boot.ini has to be changed to rdisk(0) if
the drive is physically changed to be the first drive.

I know all too well what fdisk was capable of doing to hard drives.
Does fixboot have any nasty side effects? Will it shift the master
boot record to the D: drive as well?

I've Googled up boot.ini, and I have some idea of how to manipulate the
settings in that file, but I'm still not sure exactly what fixboot does,
and whether, once executed, it'll remove any reliance the system has on
the C: drive.

Cheers,
Grant

 

[Timothy Daniels]

I know all too well what fdisk was capable of doing to hard drives.
Does fixboot have any nasty side effects? Will it shift the master
boot record to the D: drive as well?

I've Googled up boot.ini, and I have some idea of how to manipulate
the settings in that file, but I'm still not sure exactly what fixboot does,
and whether, once executed, it'll remove any reliance the system has
on the C: drive.

'fixboot' just writes a boot sector to the partition designated
in the command line. (A boot sector is specific to a partition,
a master boot record is specific to a physical hard drive.)
The boot sector on the partition marked "active" will get
control from the MBR on that drive and then look for ntldr in
the partition and pass control to it. ntldr takes the entries in
the boot.ini file to see where to find the OS folder (usually
named "WINDOWS"). If boot.ini has more than one entry,
signifying more than one OS to choose for booting, ntlder
awaits keyboard input from the user to tell it which OS to boot.

*TimDaniels*

 

[Bob I]

Yes.

Aha, this is the sort of thing I was after. Is it possible to use the
CMOS settings to choose to boot off the other drive? When I go into the
BIOS to choose boot order, I can choose from CD-Rom, floppy, HDD0, HDD1,
HDD2, HDD3. Is this different to switching the jumpers?

Cheers,
Grant

 

[Grant Anderson]

'fixboot' just writes a boot sector to the partition designated
in the command line. (A boot sector is specific to a partition,
a master boot record is specific to a physical hard drive.)
The boot sector on the partition marked "active" will get
control from the MBR on that drive and then look for ntldr in
the partition and pass control to it. ntldr takes the entries in
the boot.ini file to see where to find the OS folder (usually
named "WINDOWS"). If boot.ini has more than one entry,
signifying more than one OS to choose for booting, ntlder
awaits keyboard input from the user to tell it which OS to boot.

So each physical drive has an active partition? And when you boot from
a physical drive, the MBR on that drive looks for a boot sector on the
active partition for that drive? And it's the boot sector that looks
for ntldr.

In Disk Management I have the option to set my D: to active. If it's
the only partition on the physical drive, is it active by default? If
it's not, will setting it to active cause any problems if I take no
other actions yet? Disk Management has the C: marked as System and the
D: marked as Boot. Is there a way to find out whether it already has a
boot sector and/or MBR?

Cheers,
Grant

 

[Andy]

So each physical drive has an active partition? And when you boot from
a physical drive, the MBR on that drive looks for a boot sector on the
active partition for that drive? And it's the boot sector that looks
for ntldr.

Only primary partitions can be made active. A disk that has only an
extended partition won't be bootable.

In Disk Management I have the option to set my D: to active. If it's
the only partition on the physical drive, is it active by default?

It depends on the software or person that created the primary
partition. Setting a primary partition active enables the BIOS to boot
up from it.

If
it's not, will setting it to active cause any problems if I take no
other actions yet?
No.

Disk Management has the C: marked as System and the
D: marked as Boot. Is there a way to find out whether it already has a
boot sector and/or MBR?

D: has an MBR; it also has boot sector that hasn't been initialized
with any code.

 

[Timothy Daniels]

So each physical drive has an active partition? And when you
boot from a physical drive, the MBR on that drive looks for a
boot sector on the active partition for that drive? And it's the
boot sector that looks for ntldr.

Only a Primary partition can be "active" and only a Primary
partition can have a boot sector that will find ntldr and ntdetect.com.
An OS can be loaded from a logical drive in an Extended partition,
but the loader must be in a Primary partition somewhere in the
system.

In Disk Management I have the option to set my D: to active.
If it's the only partition on the physical drive, is it active by default?

I *believe* that to be true. On single-partition HDs with boot files
and an OS, I don't see the partition marked "active". It may be that
the MBR only looks for the "active" flag if there are more than one
Primary partition on the HD.

If it's not, will setting it to active cause any problems if I take no
other actions yet?

Just being able to boot doesn't cause problems. That's
the situation in the vanilla case of one partition on one HD
in the system.

Disk Management has the C: marked as System

In Microsoft terminology, that means that C: is where
ntldr, boot.ini, and ntdetect.com that were used for booting
were found.

and the D: marked as Boot.

In Microsoft terminology, that means that D: is where
the running operating system was loaded from.
Yes, it's intuitively backwards - that the boot files are
in the System local disk, and the operating system is in
the Boot local disk - but that's Microsoft.

Is there a way to find out whether it already has a
boot sector and/or MBR?

I think Partition Magic will list that stuff. But without
a 3rd party utility, you'd have to determine that from
observed behavior. A HD without an MBR is pretty
crippled, and a partition without a boot sector is
pretty inaccessible as it has information about the file
system that's on the partition.

 

[Timothy Daniels]

[.....] when you boot from a physical drive, the MBR on
that drive looks for a boot sector on the active partition
for that drive?

Yes. The MBR contains code that is loaded by the BIOS
into memory and that code executes to do that.

And it's the boot sector that looks for ntldr.

Yes. The boot sector, too, has executable code, and it
finds the active partition, loads ntldr into memory, and passes
control to ntldr. Ntldr then reads boot.ini to see where it
should look to find the operating system. The folder that
contains the operating system can be in any partition (Primary
of Extended) on any HD in the system.

*TimDaniels*

 

[Wolf Kirchmeir]

Andy wrote:
[...]

Only primary partitions can be made active. A disk that has only an
extended partition won't be bootable.

That is partly right. It's quite true if you are booting directly from
BIOS, but there is another way.

If you want to make any drive or partition the boot drive/partition, you
can install a boot manager that can boot from any partition, primary or
not, on any drive. The bootmanager will have its own bootable primary
partition on drive zero, and BIOS will boot the boot manager first. Boot
manager will then boot the OS you have selected.

Boot has two stages:

a) start the BIOS (in ROM), and run the MBR (on disk);
b) start the OS boot by executing the OS loader routine (on disk).

The MBR contains information on where to find the OS loader. On a
single-OS system, the loader is usually one the same drive/partition as
the MBR.

BIOS looks for bootable drives in the order specified the BIOS settings.
That is, on each drive it looks for a partition with an MBR. There can
be only one such on any physical drive (or floppy disk, or CD, etc.)
BIOS boots whatever OS the MBR tells it to boot. A boot manager is a
micro-OS whose only function is to run a program that tells BIOS to go
to some other drive or partition, and start the OS loader routine found
there.

Since the boot manager must have its own primary partition, you will
have one less primary partition on your HD.

A boot manager enables you to boot from any partition, primary or not,
which is what OP wants to do. But its main value is that you can have
two or more OSs on one drive, or two or more versions of the same OS on
one HD, each in its own partition. Very handy if there are some legacy
apps you absolutely have to have, and which the newer OS won't run.

There are many boot managers (W2K came with one, I don't know if XP
does), and they vary widely in their capabilities. Since I'm happy with
the one I use (the one packaged with OS/2), I don't know about what's
currently available.

One not so minor caveat: it is essential that all partitions be created
by the same partition managing software. It's possible to create
partitions using fdisk, for example, then repartition using Disk
Management. Windows won't object to partitions created by different
software. However, repartitioning with different software can cause
subtle errors to creep into the partition table, which can cause trouble
if you try to install additional OSs. How do I know? Funny you should
ask...

[...]

HTH

 

[Wolf Kirchmeir]

I think Partition Magic will list that stuff. But without
a 3rd party utility, you'd have to determine that from
observed behavior. A HD without an MBR is pretty
crippled, and a partition without a boot sector is
pretty inaccessible as it has information about the file
system that's on the partition.

DFSee will tell this and more. It can also repair errors in the
partition table, MBR, etc. Steep learning curve, but very powerful if
you have a trashed HD. If you do decide to go with DFSee, make a
bootable floppy and/or CD before you do anything else!

 

[Timothy Daniels]

Andy wrote:
[...]

Only primary partitions can be made active. A disk that has only an
extended partition won't be bootable.

That is partly right. It's quite true if you are booting directly from
BIOS, but there is another way.

If you want to make any drive or partition the boot drive/partition, you
can install a boot manager that can boot from any partition, primary or
not, on any drive. The bootmanager will have its own bootable primary
partition on drive zero, and BIOS will boot the boot manager first. Boot
manager will then boot the OS you have selected.

The boot manager in Windows NT/2K/XP, named "ntldr" and
located at the top level of the C: folder, can boot load a Windows
NT/2K/XP operating system from any partition (Primary or Extended)
on any hard drive in the system. The boot manager itself must reside
in a partition that has a boot sector, so that means a Primary partition.
But that partition doesn't have to be a dedicated partition, useable for
nothing else - in common usage, the boot manager resides in the
same partition as Windows.

*TimDaniels*