error loading os

[Walter Clayton]

This structure looks better as long as you don't introduce a logical volume
in the mix at some point in time, based on what you're intending. If you do,
you're going to have some issues with partition enumeration.

I'm looking at the Acronis web site and what I don't see right off hand is a
boot manager as part of your package. It appears that with a different
package, you can get a boot manager, but I don't have any hands on with it.
I can't tell if it's capable of doing what needs be done in order to
actually fire up an OS image from a different BIOS enumerated device. It
sort of implies that it can, but I since they make a rather outrageous claim
regarding performance, I can't trust what I'm reading. Regardless, one of
the issues is going to revolve around the mounteddevices key and the
secondary issue is with how devices and partitions are enumerated during
system startup. I don't see a practical way, with the tools you have, to
validate a partition image outside of restoring it in-situ. Even if you clip
the mounteddevices key in advance of snapping an image, and configure the
BIOS to bootstrap HD1 instead of HD0 you're going to get hosed when
partitions are reenumerated. And if you don't clip the key, you're going to
get hosed when the system attempts to mount the first partition on HD0 as
the system image.

You're either going to have to trust the product or not. If not, then use
what I use which is a little bit cheaper and that's BootItNG.

BTW: I do have to disagree with a site that claims, right on their main
page:

"Partitioning The Hard Disk Increases Performance ..".

when it does exactly the opposite. It's sort of an instant turn off for me
especially when I dig into the details of the article and see the other
mistakes. Then again, when talking about marketing hype...

--
Walter Clayton
Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced.

Walter,
I had a play around with all this, but gave up in the end, and reinstalled
XP.

Could you have a look at this and tell me if it now seems 'normal'.

At this stage I would like to take regular backup images, (ideally using
Acronis, as I have that), and restore them to the Maxtor (HD1) for
checking. Can you forsee any problems now?

Finally, I believe it would be relatively easy to restore images to any of
the other partitions on say the Maxtor (there are three). Do I need to
modify boot.ini in order to access them. My BIOS has a boot loader if I
press F8 so would they then appear on it's menu?

Thanks,

Dave

[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 Home
Edition" /fastdetect /NoExecute=OptIn


PARTINFO 1.09
Copyright (C) 1996-2003, TeraByte Unlimited. All rights reserved.

Run date: 04/26/2005 0:36

====================================================================
MBR Partition Information (HD0):
+====+====+=============+====+=============+===========+===========+
| 0: | 80 | 0 1 1 | 7 | 1023 254 63 | 63 | 61432497 |
| 1: | 0 | 1023 0 1 | 7 | 1023 254 63 | 61432560 | 262309320 |
| 2: | 0 | 1023 0 1 | 7 | 1023 254 63 | 323741880 | 262325385 |
| 3: | 0 | 0 0 0 | 0 | 0 0 0 | 0 | 0 |
+====+====+=============+====+=============+===========+===========+
BOOT SECTOR INFORMATION
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
File System ID: 0x7 LBA: 63 Total Sectors: 61432497 ID: 0x1
Jump: EB 52 90
OEM Name: NTFS
Bytes Per Sec: 512
Sec Per Clust: 8
Res Sectors: 0
Zero 1: 0x0
Zero 2: 0x0
NA 1: 0x0
Media: 0xF8
Zero 3: 0x0
Sec Per Track: 63
Heads: 255
Hidden Secs: 63
NA 2: 0x0
NA 3: 0x800080
Total Sectors: 0x03A962B0
MFT LCN: 0x0C0000
MFT Mirr LCN: 0x03A962B
Clust Per FRS: 0xF6
Clust Per IBlock: 0x1
Volume SN: 0x844C0F974C0F8362
Checksum: 0x0
Boot Flag: 0xAA55
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
File System ID: 0x7 LBA: 61432560 Total Sectors: 262309320 ID: 0x2
Jump: EB 52 90
OEM Name: NTFS
Bytes Per Sec: 512
Sec Per Clust: 8
Res Sectors: 0
Zero 1: 0x0
Zero 2: 0x0
NA 1: 0x0
Media: 0xF8
Zero 3: 0x0
Sec Per Track: 63
Heads: 255
Hidden Secs: 61432560
NA 2: 0x0
NA 3: 0x800080
Total Sectors: 0x0FA285C7
MFT LCN: 0x0C0000
MFT Mirr LCN: 0x0FA285C
Clust Per FRS: 0xF6
Clust Per IBlock: 0x1
Volume SN: 0xF2281E1A281DDF03
Checksum: 0x0
Boot Flag: 0xAA55
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
File System ID: 0x7 LBA: 323741880 Total Sectors: 262325385 ID: 0x3
Jump: EB 52 90
OEM Name: NTFS
Bytes Per Sec: 512
Sec Per Clust: 8
Res Sectors: 0
Zero 1: 0x0
Zero 2: 0x0
NA 1: 0x0
Media: 0xF8
Zero 3: 0x0
Sec Per Track: 63
Heads: 255
Hidden Secs: 323741880
NA 2: 0x0
NA 3: 0x800080
Total Sectors: 0x0FA2C488
MFT LCN: 0x0C0000
MFT Mirr LCN: 0x0FA2C48
Clust Per FRS: 0xF6
Clust Per IBlock: 0x1
Volume SN: 0x7AB4DECCB4DE89D1
Checksum: 0x0
Boot Flag: 0xAA55
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
====================================================================
MBR Partition Information (HD1):
+====+====+=============+====+=============+===========+===========+
| 0: | 80 | 0 1 1 | 7 | 1023 254 63 | 63 | 38539872 |
| 1: | 0 | 1023 0 1 | 7 | 1023 254 63 | 38539935 | 274036770 |
| 2: | 0 | 0 0 0 | 0 | 0 0 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 3: | 0 | 0 0 0 | 0 | 0 0 0 | 0 | 0 |
+====+====+=============+====+=============+===========+===========+
BOOT SECTOR INFORMATION
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
File System ID: 0x7 LBA: 63 Total Sectors: 38539872 ID: 0x1
Jump: EB 52 90
OEM Name: NTFS
Bytes Per Sec: 512
Sec Per Clust: 8
Res Sectors: 0
Zero 1: 0x0
Zero 2: 0x0
NA 1: 0x0
Media: 0xF8
Zero 3: 0x0
Sec Per Track: 63
Heads: 255
Hidden Secs: 63
NA 2: 0x0
NA 3: 0x800080
Total Sectors: 0x024C1258
MFT LCN: 0x0B42FF
MFT Mirr LCN: 0x03D54EA
Clust Per FRS: 0xF6
Clust Per IBlock: 0x1
Volume SN: 0x4228D79E28D78EF3
Checksum: 0x0
Boot Flag: 0xAA55
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
File System ID: 0x7 LBA: 38539935 Total Sectors: 274036770 ID: 0x2
Jump: EB 52 90
OEM Name: NTFS
Bytes Per Sec: 512
Sec Per Clust: 8
Res Sectors: 0
Zero 1: 0x0
Zero 2: 0x0
NA 1: 0x0
Media: 0xF8
Zero 3: 0x0
Sec Per Track: 63
Heads: 255
Hidden Secs: 38539935
NA 2: 0x0
NA 3: 0x800080
Total Sectors: 0x010557821
MFT LCN: 0x0C0000
MFT Mirr LCN: 0x01055782
Clust Per FRS: 0xF6
Clust Per IBlock: 0x1
Volume SN: 0x7E38F7BF38F7750D
Checksum: 0x0
Boot Flag: 0xAA55

 

[David Cockram]

OK, thanks for all that advice Walter. I used a trial version of BootItNG
some years ago, so I'll check it out again.

One final thing. Presumably it's ok to restore a cloned HD0 partition
to HD1. Then to remove HD0 and replace it with HD1 and reboot. That isn't
going to
affect anything when I revert back to normal is it?

Dave

This structure looks better as long as you don't introduce a logical
volume in the mix at some point in time, based on what you're intending.
If you do, you're going to have some issues with partition enumeration.

I'm looking at the Acronis web site and what I don't see right off hand is
a boot manager as part of your package. It appears that with a different
package, you can get a boot manager, but I don't have any hands on with
it. I can't tell if it's capable of doing what needs be done in order to
actually fire up an OS image from a different BIOS enumerated device. It
sort of implies that it can, but I since they make a rather outrageous
claim regarding performance, I can't trust what I'm reading. Regardless,
one of the issues is going to revolve around the mounteddevices key and
the secondary issue is with how devices and partitions are enumerated
during system startup. I don't see a practical way, with the tools you
have, to validate a partition image outside of restoring it in-situ. Even
if you clip the mounteddevices key in advance of snapping an image, and
configure the BIOS to bootstrap HD1 instead of HD0 you're going to get
hosed when partitions are reenumerated. And if you don't clip the key,
you're going to get hosed when the system attempts to mount the first
partition on HD0 as the system image.

You're either going to have to trust the product or not. If not, then use
what I use which is a little bit cheaper and that's BootItNG.

BTW: I do have to disagree with a site that claims, right on their main
page:

"Partitioning The Hard Disk Increases Performance ..".

when it does exactly the opposite. It's sort of an instant turn off for
me especially when I dig into the details of the article and see the other
mistakes. Then again, when talking about marketing hype...

--
Walter Clayton
Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced.

Walter,
I had a play around with all this, but gave up in the end, and
reinstalled XP.

Could you have a look at this and tell me if it now seems 'normal'.

At this stage I would like to take regular backup images, (ideally using
Acronis, as I have that), and restore them to the Maxtor (HD1) for
checking. Can you forsee any problems now?

Finally, I believe it would be relatively easy to restore images to any
of the other partitions on say the Maxtor (there are three). Do I need to
modify boot.ini in order to access them. My BIOS has a boot loader if I
press F8 so would they then appear on it's menu?

Thanks,

Dave

[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 Home
Edition" /fastdetect /NoExecute=OptIn


PARTINFO 1.09
Copyright (C) 1996-2003, TeraByte Unlimited. All rights reserved.

Run date: 04/26/2005 0:36

====================================================================
MBR Partition Information (HD0):
+====+====+=============+====+=============+===========+===========+
| 0: | 80 | 0 1 1 | 7 | 1023 254 63 | 63 | 61432497 |
| 1: | 0 | 1023 0 1 | 7 | 1023 254 63 | 61432560 | 262309320 |
| 2: | 0 | 1023 0 1 | 7 | 1023 254 63 | 323741880 | 262325385 |
| 3: | 0 | 0 0 0 | 0 | 0 0 0 | 0 | 0 |
+====+====+=============+====+=============+===========+===========+
BOOT SECTOR INFORMATION
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
File System ID: 0x7 LBA: 63 Total Sectors: 61432497 ID: 0x1
Jump: EB 52 90
OEM Name: NTFS
Bytes Per Sec: 512
Sec Per Clust: 8
Res Sectors: 0
Zero 1: 0x0
Zero 2: 0x0
NA 1: 0x0
Media: 0xF8
Zero 3: 0x0
Sec Per Track: 63
Heads: 255
Hidden Secs: 63
NA 2: 0x0
NA 3: 0x800080
Total Sectors: 0x03A962B0
MFT LCN: 0x0C0000
MFT Mirr LCN: 0x03A962B
Clust Per FRS: 0xF6
Clust Per IBlock: 0x1
Volume SN: 0x844C0F974C0F8362
Checksum: 0x0
Boot Flag: 0xAA55
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
File System ID: 0x7 LBA: 61432560 Total Sectors: 262309320 ID: 0x2
Jump: EB 52 90
OEM Name: NTFS
Bytes Per Sec: 512
Sec Per Clust: 8
Res Sectors: 0
Zero 1: 0x0
Zero 2: 0x0
NA 1: 0x0
Media: 0xF8
Zero 3: 0x0
Sec Per Track: 63
Heads: 255
Hidden Secs: 61432560
NA 2: 0x0
NA 3: 0x800080
Total Sectors: 0x0FA285C7
MFT LCN: 0x0C0000
MFT Mirr LCN: 0x0FA285C
Clust Per FRS: 0xF6
Clust Per IBlock: 0x1
Volume SN: 0xF2281E1A281DDF03
Checksum: 0x0
Boot Flag: 0xAA55
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
File System ID: 0x7 LBA: 323741880 Total Sectors: 262325385 ID: 0x3
Jump: EB 52 90
OEM Name: NTFS
Bytes Per Sec: 512
Sec Per Clust: 8
Res Sectors: 0
Zero 1: 0x0
Zero 2: 0x0
NA 1: 0x0
Media: 0xF8
Zero 3: 0x0
Sec Per Track: 63
Heads: 255
Hidden Secs: 323741880
NA 2: 0x0
NA 3: 0x800080
Total Sectors: 0x0FA2C488
MFT LCN: 0x0C0000
MFT Mirr LCN: 0x0FA2C48
Clust Per FRS: 0xF6
Clust Per IBlock: 0x1
Volume SN: 0x7AB4DECCB4DE89D1
Checksum: 0x0
Boot Flag: 0xAA55
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
====================================================================
MBR Partition Information (HD1):
+====+====+=============+====+=============+===========+===========+
| 0: | 80 | 0 1 1 | 7 | 1023 254 63 | 63 | 38539872 |
| 1: | 0 | 1023 0 1 | 7 | 1023 254 63 | 38539935 | 274036770 |
| 2: | 0 | 0 0 0 | 0 | 0 0 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 3: | 0 | 0 0 0 | 0 | 0 0 0 | 0 | 0 |
+====+====+=============+====+=============+===========+===========+
BOOT SECTOR INFORMATION
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
File System ID: 0x7 LBA: 63 Total Sectors: 38539872 ID: 0x1
Jump: EB 52 90
OEM Name: NTFS
Bytes Per Sec: 512
Sec Per Clust: 8
Res Sectors: 0
Zero 1: 0x0
Zero 2: 0x0
NA 1: 0x0
Media: 0xF8
Zero 3: 0x0
Sec Per Track: 63
Heads: 255
Hidden Secs: 63
NA 2: 0x0
NA 3: 0x800080
Total Sectors: 0x024C1258
MFT LCN: 0x0B42FF
MFT Mirr LCN: 0x03D54EA
Clust Per FRS: 0xF6
Clust Per IBlock: 0x1
Volume SN: 0x4228D79E28D78EF3
Checksum: 0x0
Boot Flag: 0xAA55
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
File System ID: 0x7 LBA: 38539935 Total Sectors: 274036770 ID: 0x2
Jump: EB 52 90
OEM Name: NTFS
Bytes Per Sec: 512
Sec Per Clust: 8
Res Sectors: 0
Zero 1: 0x0
Zero 2: 0x0
NA 1: 0x0
Media: 0xF8
Zero 3: 0x0
Sec Per Track: 63
Heads: 255
Hidden Secs: 38539935
NA 2: 0x0
NA 3: 0x800080
Total Sectors: 0x010557821
MFT LCN: 0x0C0000
MFT Mirr LCN: 0x01055782
Clust Per FRS: 0xF6
Clust Per IBlock: 0x1
Volume SN: 0x7E38F7BF38F7750D
Checksum: 0x0
Boot Flag: 0xAA55

 

[Walter Clayton]

If you remove HD0 then anything that goes splat will happen only on the
exposed partitions on HD1. The problem you're may have is if that particular
OS image is looking for a volume that was just physically removed (unless
you clip the mounteddevices key in advance and the partitions enumerate
correctly thereafter). If you can live with that, then you're OK.

I'd be hesitant about doing too much physical recabling though. That's how
connectors wear out and get bent or broken. ;-)

--
Walter Clayton
Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced.

OK, thanks for all that advice Walter. I used a trial version of BootItNG
some years ago, so I'll check it out again.

One final thing. Presumably it's ok to restore a cloned HD0 partition
to HD1. Then to remove HD0 and replace it with HD1 and reboot. That isn't
going to
affect anything when I revert back to normal is it?

Dave

This structure looks better as long as you don't introduce a logical
volume in the mix at some point in time, based on what you're intending.
If you do, you're going to have some issues with partition enumeration.

I'm looking at the Acronis web site and what I don't see right off hand
is a boot manager as part of your package. It appears that with a
different package, you can get a boot manager, but I don't have any hands
on with it. I can't tell if it's capable of doing what needs be done in
order to actually fire up an OS image from a different BIOS enumerated
device. It sort of implies that it can, but I since they make a rather
outrageous claim regarding performance, I can't trust what I'm reading.
Regardless, one of the issues is going to revolve around the
mounteddevices key and the secondary issue is with how devices and
partitions are enumerated during system startup. I don't see a practical
way, with the tools you have, to validate a partition image outside of
restoring it in-situ. Even if you clip the mounteddevices key in advance
of snapping an image, and configure the BIOS to bootstrap HD1 instead of
HD0 you're going to get hosed when partitions are reenumerated. And if
you don't clip the key, you're going to get hosed when the system
attempts to mount the first partition on HD0 as the system image.

You're either going to have to trust the product or not. If not, then use
what I use which is a little bit cheaper and that's BootItNG.

BTW: I do have to disagree with a site that claims, right on their main
page:

"Partitioning The Hard Disk Increases Performance ..".

when it does exactly the opposite. It's sort of an instant turn off for
me especially when I dig into the details of the article and see the
other mistakes. Then again, when talking about marketing hype...

--
Walter Clayton
Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced.

Walter,
I had a play around with all this, but gave up in the end, and
reinstalled XP.

Could you have a look at this and tell me if it now seems 'normal'.

At this stage I would like to take regular backup images, (ideally using
Acronis, as I have that), and restore them to the Maxtor (HD1) for
checking. Can you forsee any problems now?

Finally, I believe it would be relatively easy to restore images to any
of the other partitions on say the Maxtor (there are three). Do I need
to modify boot.ini in order to access them. My BIOS has a boot loader if
I press F8 so would they then appear on it's menu?

Thanks,

Dave

[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 Home
Edition" /fastdetect /NoExecute=OptIn


PARTINFO 1.09
Copyright (C) 1996-2003, TeraByte Unlimited. All rights reserved.

Run date: 04/26/2005 0:36

====================================================================
MBR Partition Information (HD0):
+====+====+=============+====+=============+===========+===========+
| 0: | 80 | 0 1 1 | 7 | 1023 254 63 | 63 | 61432497 |
| 1: | 0 | 1023 0 1 | 7 | 1023 254 63 | 61432560 | 262309320 |
| 2: | 0 | 1023 0 1 | 7 | 1023 254 63 | 323741880 | 262325385 |
| 3: | 0 | 0 0 0 | 0 | 0 0 0 | 0 | 0 |
+====+====+=============+====+=============+===========+===========+
BOOT SECTOR INFORMATION
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
File System ID: 0x7 LBA: 63 Total Sectors: 61432497 ID: 0x1
Jump: EB 52 90
OEM Name: NTFS
Bytes Per Sec: 512
Sec Per Clust: 8
Res Sectors: 0
Zero 1: 0x0
Zero 2: 0x0
NA 1: 0x0
Media: 0xF8
Zero 3: 0x0
Sec Per Track: 63
Heads: 255
Hidden Secs: 63
NA 2: 0x0
NA 3: 0x800080
Total Sectors: 0x03A962B0
MFT LCN: 0x0C0000
MFT Mirr LCN: 0x03A962B
Clust Per FRS: 0xF6
Clust Per IBlock: 0x1
Volume SN: 0x844C0F974C0F8362
Checksum: 0x0
Boot Flag: 0xAA55
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
File System ID: 0x7 LBA: 61432560 Total Sectors: 262309320 ID: 0x2
Jump: EB 52 90
OEM Name: NTFS
Bytes Per Sec: 512
Sec Per Clust: 8
Res Sectors: 0
Zero 1: 0x0
Zero 2: 0x0
NA 1: 0x0
Media: 0xF8
Zero 3: 0x0
Sec Per Track: 63
Heads: 255
Hidden Secs: 61432560
NA 2: 0x0
NA 3: 0x800080
Total Sectors: 0x0FA285C7
MFT LCN: 0x0C0000
MFT Mirr LCN: 0x0FA285C
Clust Per FRS: 0xF6
Clust Per IBlock: 0x1
Volume SN: 0xF2281E1A281DDF03
Checksum: 0x0
Boot Flag: 0xAA55
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
File System ID: 0x7 LBA: 323741880 Total Sectors: 262325385 ID: 0x3
Jump: EB 52 90
OEM Name: NTFS
Bytes Per Sec: 512
Sec Per Clust: 8
Res Sectors: 0
Zero 1: 0x0
Zero 2: 0x0
NA 1: 0x0
Media: 0xF8
Zero 3: 0x0
Sec Per Track: 63
Heads: 255
Hidden Secs: 323741880
NA 2: 0x0
NA 3: 0x800080
Total Sectors: 0x0FA2C488
MFT LCN: 0x0C0000
MFT Mirr LCN: 0x0FA2C48
Clust Per FRS: 0xF6
Clust Per IBlock: 0x1
Volume SN: 0x7AB4DECCB4DE89D1
Checksum: 0x0
Boot Flag: 0xAA55
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
====================================================================
MBR Partition Information (HD1):
+====+====+=============+====+=============+===========+===========+
| 0: | 80 | 0 1 1 | 7 | 1023 254 63 | 63 | 38539872 |
| 1: | 0 | 1023 0 1 | 7 | 1023 254 63 | 38539935 | 274036770 |
| 2: | 0 | 0 0 0 | 0 | 0 0 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 3: | 0 | 0 0 0 | 0 | 0 0 0 | 0 | 0 |
+====+====+=============+====+=============+===========+===========+
BOOT SECTOR INFORMATION
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
File System ID: 0x7 LBA: 63 Total Sectors: 38539872 ID: 0x1
Jump: EB 52 90
OEM Name: NTFS
Bytes Per Sec: 512
Sec Per Clust: 8
Res Sectors: 0
Zero 1: 0x0
Zero 2: 0x0
NA 1: 0x0
Media: 0xF8
Zero 3: 0x0
Sec Per Track: 63
Heads: 255
Hidden Secs: 63
NA 2: 0x0
NA 3: 0x800080
Total Sectors: 0x024C1258
MFT LCN: 0x0B42FF
MFT Mirr LCN: 0x03D54EA
Clust Per FRS: 0xF6
Clust Per IBlock: 0x1
Volume SN: 0x4228D79E28D78EF3
Checksum: 0x0
Boot Flag: 0xAA55
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
File System ID: 0x7 LBA: 38539935 Total Sectors: 274036770 ID: 0x2
Jump: EB 52 90
OEM Name: NTFS
Bytes Per Sec: 512
Sec Per Clust: 8
Res Sectors: 0
Zero 1: 0x0
Zero 2: 0x0
NA 1: 0x0
Media: 0xF8
Zero 3: 0x0
Sec Per Track: 63
Heads: 255
Hidden Secs: 38539935
NA 2: 0x0
NA 3: 0x800080
Total Sectors: 0x010557821
MFT LCN: 0x0C0000
MFT Mirr LCN: 0x01055782
Clust Per FRS: 0xF6
Clust Per IBlock: 0x1
Volume SN: 0x7E38F7BF38F7750D
Checksum: 0x0
Boot Flag: 0xAA55

 

[David Cockram]

Understood. Now that would have been it. BUT. . .

I've just been reinstalling XP Home Ed on HD0. I completely wiped the disk
of partitions because of the earlier problems, and started again. During
installation, I had a restored clone on HD1 which seemed harmless, and I
wasn't accessing or booting from it.

Then I started having problems. The machine stalled during booting, and
wouldn't reboot. I tried the other drive, HD1. It booted but then started
locking up and it eventually hung. I tried removing HD0 and HD1 wouldn't
boot at all. It became apparent that the drives had become dependent on each
other.One wouldn't boot without the other. Also my new partitions on HD0
were all over the place, with C: now being a logical drive.

I'm coming to the conlusion that either a) I've got some strange unresolved
hardware issues, although I had no problems prior to having 2 bootable
drives, or b) XP really doesn't like having 2 bootable drives, although I
always thought it was ok with this.

So, yet another reinstall, having first deleted the bootable partition on
HD1. When I eventually get back on track, I will make a clone, check it
works on it's own, and then remove it completely until such time as it may
be needed.

Would you expect this to happen with two bootable drives?

Dave

If you remove HD0 then anything that goes splat will happen only on the
exposed partitions on HD1. The problem you're may have is if that
particular OS image is looking for a volume that was just physically
removed (unless you clip the mounteddevices key in advance and the
partitions enumerate correctly thereafter). If you can live with that,
then you're OK.

I'd be hesitant about doing too much physical recabling though. That's how
connectors wear out and get bent or broken. ;-)

--
Walter Clayton
Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced.

OK, thanks for all that advice Walter. I used a trial version of BootItNG
some years ago, so I'll check it out again.

One final thing. Presumably it's ok to restore a cloned HD0 partition
to HD1. Then to remove HD0 and replace it with HD1 and reboot. That isn't
going to
affect anything when I revert back to normal is it?

Dave

This structure looks better as long as you don't introduce a logical
volume in the mix at some point in time, based on what you're intending.
If you do, you're going to have some issues with partition enumeration.

I'm looking at the Acronis web site and what I don't see right off hand
is a boot manager as part of your package. It appears that with a
different package, you can get a boot manager, but I don't have any
hands on with it. I can't tell if it's capable of doing what needs be
done in order to actually fire up an OS image from a different BIOS
enumerated device. It sort of implies that it can, but I since they make
a rather outrageous claim regarding performance, I can't trust what I'm
reading. Regardless, one of the issues is going to revolve around the
mounteddevices key and the secondary issue is with how devices and
partitions are enumerated during system startup. I don't see a practical
way, with the tools you have, to validate a partition image outside of
restoring it in-situ. Even if you clip the mounteddevices key in advance
of snapping an image, and configure the BIOS to bootstrap HD1 instead of
HD0 you're going to get hosed when partitions are reenumerated. And if
you don't clip the key, you're going to get hosed when the system
attempts to mount the first partition on HD0 as the system image.

You're either going to have to trust the product or not. If not, then
use what I use which is a little bit cheaper and that's BootItNG.

BTW: I do have to disagree with a site that claims, right on their main
page:

"Partitioning The Hard Disk Increases Performance ..".

when it does exactly the opposite. It's sort of an instant turn off for
me especially when I dig into the details of the article and see the
other mistakes. Then again, when talking about marketing hype...

--
Walter Clayton
Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced.


Walter,
I had a play around with all this, but gave up in the end, and
reinstalled XP.

Could you have a look at this and tell me if it now seems 'normal'.

At this stage I would like to take regular backup images, (ideally
using Acronis, as I have that), and restore them to the Maxtor (HD1)
for checking. Can you forsee any problems now?

Finally, I believe it would be relatively easy to restore images to any
of the other partitions on say the Maxtor (there are three). Do I need
to modify boot.ini in order to access them. My BIOS has a boot loader
if I press F8 so would they then appear on it's menu?

Thanks,

Dave

[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 Home
Edition" /fastdetect /NoExecute=OptIn


PARTINFO 1.09
Copyright (C) 1996-2003, TeraByte Unlimited. All rights reserved.

Run date: 04/26/2005 0:36

====================================================================
MBR Partition Information (HD0):
+====+====+=============+====+=============+===========+===========+
| 0: | 80 | 0 1 1 | 7 | 1023 254 63 | 63 | 61432497 |
| 1: | 0 | 1023 0 1 | 7 | 1023 254 63 | 61432560 | 262309320 |
| 2: | 0 | 1023 0 1 | 7 | 1023 254 63 | 323741880 | 262325385 |
| 3: | 0 | 0 0 0 | 0 | 0 0 0 | 0 | 0 |
+====+====+=============+====+=============+===========+===========+
BOOT SECTOR INFORMATION
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
File System ID: 0x7 LBA: 63 Total Sectors: 61432497 ID: 0x1
Jump: EB 52 90
OEM Name: NTFS
Bytes Per Sec: 512
Sec Per Clust: 8
Res Sectors: 0
Zero 1: 0x0
Zero 2: 0x0
NA 1: 0x0
Media: 0xF8
Zero 3: 0x0
Sec Per Track: 63
Heads: 255
Hidden Secs: 63
NA 2: 0x0
NA 3: 0x800080
Total Sectors: 0x03A962B0
MFT LCN: 0x0C0000
MFT Mirr LCN: 0x03A962B
Clust Per FRS: 0xF6
Clust Per IBlock: 0x1
Volume SN: 0x844C0F974C0F8362
Checksum: 0x0
Boot Flag: 0xAA55
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
File System ID: 0x7 LBA: 61432560 Total Sectors: 262309320 ID: 0x2
Jump: EB 52 90
OEM Name: NTFS
Bytes Per Sec: 512
Sec Per Clust: 8
Res Sectors: 0
Zero 1: 0x0
Zero 2: 0x0
NA 1: 0x0
Media: 0xF8
Zero 3: 0x0
Sec Per Track: 63
Heads: 255
Hidden Secs: 61432560
NA 2: 0x0
NA 3: 0x800080
Total Sectors: 0x0FA285C7
MFT LCN: 0x0C0000
MFT Mirr LCN: 0x0FA285C
Clust Per FRS: 0xF6
Clust Per IBlock: 0x1
Volume SN: 0xF2281E1A281DDF03
Checksum: 0x0
Boot Flag: 0xAA55
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
File System ID: 0x7 LBA: 323741880 Total Sectors: 262325385 ID:
0x3
Jump: EB 52 90
OEM Name: NTFS
Bytes Per Sec: 512
Sec Per Clust: 8
Res Sectors: 0
Zero 1: 0x0
Zero 2: 0x0
NA 1: 0x0
Media: 0xF8
Zero 3: 0x0
Sec Per Track: 63
Heads: 255
Hidden Secs: 323741880
NA 2: 0x0
NA 3: 0x800080
Total Sectors: 0x0FA2C488
MFT LCN: 0x0C0000
MFT Mirr LCN: 0x0FA2C48
Clust Per FRS: 0xF6
Clust Per IBlock: 0x1
Volume SN: 0x7AB4DECCB4DE89D1
Checksum: 0x0
Boot Flag: 0xAA55
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
====================================================================
MBR Partition Information (HD1):
+====+====+=============+====+=============+===========+===========+
| 0: | 80 | 0 1 1 | 7 | 1023 254 63 | 63 | 38539872 |
| 1: | 0 | 1023 0 1 | 7 | 1023 254 63 | 38539935 | 274036770 |
| 2: | 0 | 0 0 0 | 0 | 0 0 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 3: | 0 | 0 0 0 | 0 | 0 0 0 | 0 | 0 |
+====+====+=============+====+=============+===========+===========+
BOOT SECTOR INFORMATION
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
File System ID: 0x7 LBA: 63 Total Sectors: 38539872 ID: 0x1
Jump: EB 52 90
OEM Name: NTFS
Bytes Per Sec: 512
Sec Per Clust: 8
Res Sectors: 0
Zero 1: 0x0
Zero 2: 0x0
NA 1: 0x0
Media: 0xF8
Zero 3: 0x0
Sec Per Track: 63
Heads: 255
Hidden Secs: 63
NA 2: 0x0
NA 3: 0x800080
Total Sectors: 0x024C1258
MFT LCN: 0x0B42FF
MFT Mirr LCN: 0x03D54EA
Clust Per FRS: 0xF6
Clust Per IBlock: 0x1
Volume SN: 0x4228D79E28D78EF3
Checksum: 0x0
Boot Flag: 0xAA55
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
File System ID: 0x7 LBA: 38539935 Total Sectors: 274036770 ID: 0x2
Jump: EB 52 90
OEM Name: NTFS
Bytes Per Sec: 512
Sec Per Clust: 8
Res Sectors: 0
Zero 1: 0x0
Zero 2: 0x0
NA 1: 0x0
Media: 0xF8
Zero 3: 0x0
Sec Per Track: 63
Heads: 255
Hidden Secs: 38539935
NA 2: 0x0
NA 3: 0x800080
Total Sectors: 0x010557821
MFT LCN: 0x0C0000
MFT Mirr LCN: 0x01055782
Clust Per FRS: 0xF6
Clust Per IBlock: 0x1
Volume SN: 0x7E38F7BF38F7750D
Checksum: 0x0
Boot Flag: 0xAA55

 

[Walter Clayton]

Tricky question to answer.

There are potential issues if you're installing with multiple primaries
visible, especially if there are multiple primaries on the target drive. I
touch on one of the issues here
http://www.dcr.net/~w-clayton/Boot and System partitions.htm and I
have a sneaky suspicion, in hind sight, this the route you took.

The biggest issue with multiple primaries is enumeration order, whether or
not you're deleting and recreating the partitions and sequence of events.
Literally. It's best, unfortunately, if you're going to do multiple
partitions, to do partition creation using 3rd party tools (and that also
specifically excludes DOS fdisk/format; they are dangerous on modern
drives).

I'm still debating how to write the issues up since it's rather dynamic. A
classic example is installing with a zip cartridge mounted. In this instance
the target partition will be enumerated as the drive after the zip drive(s)
and all the optical drives are enumerated rather than C: since the zip drive
took that drive letter when the setup engine was initializing.

--
Walter Clayton
Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced.

Understood. Now that would have been it. BUT. . .

I've just been reinstalling XP Home Ed on HD0. I completely wiped the disk
of partitions because of the earlier problems, and started again. During
installation, I had a restored clone on HD1 which seemed harmless, and I
wasn't accessing or booting from it.

Then I started having problems. The machine stalled during booting, and
wouldn't reboot. I tried the other drive, HD1. It booted but then started
locking up and it eventually hung. I tried removing HD0 and HD1 wouldn't
boot at all. It became apparent that the drives had become dependent on
each other.One wouldn't boot without the other. Also my new partitions on
HD0 were all over the place, with C: now being a logical drive.

I'm coming to the conlusion that either a) I've got some strange
unresolved hardware issues, although I had no problems prior to having 2
bootable drives, or b) XP really doesn't like having 2 bootable drives,
although I always thought it was ok with this.

So, yet another reinstall, having first deleted the bootable partition on
HD1. When I eventually get back on track, I will make a clone, check it
works on it's own, and then remove it completely until such time as it may
be needed.

Would you expect this to happen with two bootable drives?

Dave

If you remove HD0 then anything that goes splat will happen only on the
exposed partitions on HD1. The problem you're may have is if that
particular OS image is looking for a volume that was just physically
removed (unless you clip the mounteddevices key in advance and the
partitions enumerate correctly thereafter). If you can live with that,
then you're OK.

I'd be hesitant about doing too much physical recabling though. That's
how connectors wear out and get bent or broken. ;-)

--
Walter Clayton
Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced.

OK, thanks for all that advice Walter. I used a trial version of
BootItNG
some years ago, so I'll check it out again.

One final thing. Presumably it's ok to restore a cloned HD0 partition
to HD1. Then to remove HD0 and replace it with HD1 and reboot. That
isn't going to
affect anything when I revert back to normal is it?

Dave

This structure looks better as long as you don't introduce a logical
volume in the mix at some point in time, based on what you're
intending. If you do, you're going to have some issues with partition
enumeration.

I'm looking at the Acronis web site and what I don't see right off hand
is a boot manager as part of your package. It appears that with a
different package, you can get a boot manager, but I don't have any
hands on with it. I can't tell if it's capable of doing what needs be
done in order to actually fire up an OS image from a different BIOS
enumerated device. It sort of implies that it can, but I since they
make a rather outrageous claim regarding performance, I can't trust
what I'm reading. Regardless, one of the issues is going to revolve
around the mounteddevices key and the secondary issue is with how
devices and partitions are enumerated during system startup. I don't
see a practical way, with the tools you have, to validate a partition
image outside of restoring it in-situ. Even if you clip the
mounteddevices key in advance of snapping an image, and configure the
BIOS to bootstrap HD1 instead of HD0 you're going to get hosed when
partitions are reenumerated. And if you don't clip the key, you're
going to get hosed when the system attempts to mount the first
partition on HD0 as the system image.

You're either going to have to trust the product or not. If not, then
use what I use which is a little bit cheaper and that's BootItNG.

BTW: I do have to disagree with a site that claims, right on their main
page:

"Partitioning The Hard Disk Increases Performance ..".

when it does exactly the opposite. It's sort of an instant turn off
for me especially when I dig into the details of the article and see
the other mistakes. Then again, when talking about marketing hype...

--
Walter Clayton
Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced.


Walter,
I had a play around with all this, but gave up in the end, and
reinstalled XP.

Could you have a look at this and tell me if it now seems 'normal'.

At this stage I would like to take regular backup images, (ideally
using Acronis, as I have that), and restore them to the Maxtor (HD1)
for checking. Can you forsee any problems now?

Finally, I believe it would be relatively easy to restore images to
any of the other partitions on say the Maxtor (there are three). Do I
need to modify boot.ini in order to access them. My BIOS has a boot
loader if I press F8 so would they then appear on it's menu?

Thanks,

Dave

[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 Home
Edition" /fastdetect /NoExecute=OptIn


PARTINFO 1.09
Copyright (C) 1996-2003, TeraByte Unlimited. All rights reserved.

Run date: 04/26/2005 0:36

====================================================================
MBR Partition Information (HD0):
+====+====+=============+====+=============+===========+===========+
| 0: | 80 | 0 1 1 | 7 | 1023 254 63 | 63 | 61432497 |
| 1: | 0 | 1023 0 1 | 7 | 1023 254 63 | 61432560 | 262309320 |
| 2: | 0 | 1023 0 1 | 7 | 1023 254 63 | 323741880 | 262325385 |
| 3: | 0 | 0 0 0 | 0 | 0 0 0 | 0 | 0 |
+====+====+=============+====+=============+===========+===========+
BOOT SECTOR INFORMATION
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
File System ID: 0x7 LBA: 63 Total Sectors: 61432497 ID: 0x1
Jump: EB 52 90
OEM Name: NTFS
Bytes Per Sec: 512
Sec Per Clust: 8
Res Sectors: 0
Zero 1: 0x0
Zero 2: 0x0
NA 1: 0x0
Media: 0xF8
Zero 3: 0x0
Sec Per Track: 63
Heads: 255
Hidden Secs: 63
NA 2: 0x0
NA 3: 0x800080
Total Sectors: 0x03A962B0
MFT LCN: 0x0C0000
MFT Mirr LCN: 0x03A962B
Clust Per FRS: 0xF6
Clust Per IBlock: 0x1
Volume SN: 0x844C0F974C0F8362
Checksum: 0x0
Boot Flag: 0xAA55
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
File System ID: 0x7 LBA: 61432560 Total Sectors: 262309320 ID:
0x2
Jump: EB 52 90
OEM Name: NTFS
Bytes Per Sec: 512
Sec Per Clust: 8
Res Sectors: 0
Zero 1: 0x0
Zero 2: 0x0
NA 1: 0x0
Media: 0xF8
Zero 3: 0x0
Sec Per Track: 63
Heads: 255
Hidden Secs: 61432560
NA 2: 0x0
NA 3: 0x800080
Total Sectors: 0x0FA285C7
MFT LCN: 0x0C0000
MFT Mirr LCN: 0x0FA285C
Clust Per FRS: 0xF6
Clust Per IBlock: 0x1
Volume SN: 0xF2281E1A281DDF03
Checksum: 0x0
Boot Flag: 0xAA55
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
File System ID: 0x7 LBA: 323741880 Total Sectors: 262325385 ID:
0x3
Jump: EB 52 90
OEM Name: NTFS
Bytes Per Sec: 512
Sec Per Clust: 8
Res Sectors: 0
Zero 1: 0x0
Zero 2: 0x0
NA 1: 0x0
Media: 0xF8
Zero 3: 0x0
Sec Per Track: 63
Heads: 255
Hidden Secs: 323741880
NA 2: 0x0
NA 3: 0x800080
Total Sectors: 0x0FA2C488
MFT LCN: 0x0C0000
MFT Mirr LCN: 0x0FA2C48
Clust Per FRS: 0xF6
Clust Per IBlock: 0x1
Volume SN: 0x7AB4DECCB4DE89D1
Checksum: 0x0
Boot Flag: 0xAA55
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
====================================================================
MBR Partition Information (HD1):
+====+====+=============+====+=============+===========+===========+
| 0: | 80 | 0 1 1 | 7 | 1023 254 63 | 63 | 38539872 |
| 1: | 0 | 1023 0 1 | 7 | 1023 254 63 | 38539935 | 274036770 |
| 2: | 0 | 0 0 0 | 0 | 0 0 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 3: | 0 | 0 0 0 | 0 | 0 0 0 | 0 | 0 |
+====+====+=============+====+=============+===========+===========+
BOOT SECTOR INFORMATION
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
File System ID: 0x7 LBA: 63 Total Sectors: 38539872 ID: 0x1
Jump: EB 52 90
OEM Name: NTFS
Bytes Per Sec: 512
Sec Per Clust: 8
Res Sectors: 0
Zero 1: 0x0
Zero 2: 0x0
NA 1: 0x0
Media: 0xF8
Zero 3: 0x0
Sec Per Track: 63
Heads: 255
Hidden Secs: 63
NA 2: 0x0
NA 3: 0x800080
Total Sectors: 0x024C1258
MFT LCN: 0x0B42FF
MFT Mirr LCN: 0x03D54EA
Clust Per FRS: 0xF6
Clust Per IBlock: 0x1
Volume SN: 0x4228D79E28D78EF3
Checksum: 0x0
Boot Flag: 0xAA55
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
File System ID: 0x7 LBA: 38539935 Total Sectors: 274036770 ID:
0x2
Jump: EB 52 90
OEM Name: NTFS
Bytes Per Sec: 512
Sec Per Clust: 8
Res Sectors: 0
Zero 1: 0x0
Zero 2: 0x0
NA 1: 0x0
Media: 0xF8
Zero 3: 0x0
Sec Per Track: 63
Heads: 255
Hidden Secs: 38539935
NA 2: 0x0
NA 3: 0x800080
Total Sectors: 0x010557821
MFT LCN: 0x0C0000
MFT Mirr LCN: 0x01055782
Clust Per FRS: 0xF6
Clust Per IBlock: 0x1
Volume SN: 0x7E38F7BF38F7750D
Checksum: 0x0
Boot Flag: 0xAA55

 

[David Cockram]

Walter,

I had a look at that link. Very, very interesting! That is exactly what has
happened with my system. I think I'd almost be inclined to treat my cloned
drive like a virus after this.

I had another look at an older version of BootItNG I had. Perhaps it's a
confidence thing but I wasn't sure about the fact that it creates it's own
boot partition, and then I had great difficulty removing it afterwards.
After I removed it I could no longer boot, but I may well have done
something wrong. Is it reasonably easy to use for people like me who may be
computer literate but haven't much of a clue about the intricacies of XP'x
boot process.

Would it enable me to clone, leaving both drives in situ, freely booting
from either, without the worry of all these partion and enumeration
problems?

Dave

Tricky question to answer.

There are potential issues if you're installing with multiple primaries
visible, especially if there are multiple primaries on the target drive. I
touch on one of the issues here
http://www.dcr.net/~w-clayton/Boot and System partitions.htm and I
have a sneaky suspicion, in hind sight, this the route you took.

The biggest issue with multiple primaries is enumeration order, whether or
not you're deleting and recreating the partitions and sequence of events.
Literally. It's best, unfortunately, if you're going to do multiple
partitions, to do partition creation using 3rd party tools (and that also
specifically excludes DOS fdisk/format; they are dangerous on modern
drives).

I'm still debating how to write the issues up since it's rather dynamic. A
classic example is installing with a zip cartridge mounted. In this
instance the target partition will be enumerated as the drive after the
zip drive(s) and all the optical drives are enumerated rather than C:
since the zip drive took that drive letter when the setup engine was
initializing.

--
Walter Clayton
Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced.

Understood. Now that would have been it. BUT. . .

I've just been reinstalling XP Home Ed on HD0. I completely wiped the
disk of partitions because of the earlier problems, and started again.
During installation, I had a restored clone on HD1 which seemed harmless,
and I wasn't accessing or booting from it.

Then I started having problems. The machine stalled during booting, and
wouldn't reboot. I tried the other drive, HD1. It booted but then started
locking up and it eventually hung. I tried removing HD0 and HD1 wouldn't
boot at all. It became apparent that the drives had become dependent on
each other.One wouldn't boot without the other. Also my new partitions on
HD0 were all over the place, with C: now being a logical drive.

I'm coming to the conlusion that either a) I've got some strange
unresolved hardware issues, although I had no problems prior to having 2
bootable drives, or b) XP really doesn't like having 2 bootable drives,
although I always thought it was ok with this.

So, yet another reinstall, having first deleted the bootable partition on
HD1. When I eventually get back on track, I will make a clone, check it
works on it's own, and then remove it completely until such time as it
may be needed.

Would you expect this to happen with two bootable drives?

Dave

If you remove HD0 then anything that goes splat will happen only on the
exposed partitions on HD1. The problem you're may have is if that
particular OS image is looking for a volume that was just physically
removed (unless you clip the mounteddevices key in advance and the
partitions enumerate correctly thereafter). If you can live with that,
then you're OK.

I'd be hesitant about doing too much physical recabling though. That's
how connectors wear out and get bent or broken. ;-)

--
Walter Clayton
Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced.


OK, thanks for all that advice Walter. I used a trial version of
BootItNG
some years ago, so I'll check it out again.

One final thing. Presumably it's ok to restore a cloned HD0 partition
to HD1. Then to remove HD0 and replace it with HD1 and reboot. That
isn't going to
affect anything when I revert back to normal is it?

Dave

This structure looks better as long as you don't introduce a logical
volume in the mix at some point in time, based on what you're
intending. If you do, you're going to have some issues with partition
enumeration.

I'm looking at the Acronis web site and what I don't see right off
hand is a boot manager as part of your package. It appears that with a
different package, you can get a boot manager, but I don't have any
hands on with it. I can't tell if it's capable of doing what needs be
done in order to actually fire up an OS image from a different BIOS
enumerated device. It sort of implies that it can, but I since they
make a rather outrageous claim regarding performance, I can't trust
what I'm reading. Regardless, one of the issues is going to revolve
around the mounteddevices key and the secondary issue is with how
devices and partitions are enumerated during system startup. I don't
see a practical way, with the tools you have, to validate a partition
image outside of restoring it in-situ. Even if you clip the
mounteddevices key in advance of snapping an image, and configure the
BIOS to bootstrap HD1 instead of HD0 you're going to get hosed when
partitions are reenumerated. And if you don't clip the key, you're
going to get hosed when the system attempts to mount the first
partition on HD0 as the system image.

You're either going to have to trust the product or not. If not, then
use what I use which is a little bit cheaper and that's BootItNG.

BTW: I do have to disagree with a site that claims, right on their
main page:

"Partitioning The Hard Disk Increases Performance ..".

when it does exactly the opposite. It's sort of an instant turn off
for me especially when I dig into the details of the article and see
the other mistakes. Then again, when talking about marketing hype...

--
Walter Clayton
Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced.


Walter,
I had a play around with all this, but gave up in the end, and
reinstalled XP.

Could you have a look at this and tell me if it now seems 'normal'.

At this stage I would like to take regular backup images, (ideally
using Acronis, as I have that), and restore them to the Maxtor (HD1)
for checking. Can you forsee any problems now?

Finally, I believe it would be relatively easy to restore images to
any of the other partitions on say the Maxtor (there are three). Do I
need to modify boot.ini in order to access them. My BIOS has a boot
loader if I press F8 so would they then appear on it's menu?

Thanks,

Dave

[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
Home Edition" /fastdetect /NoExecute=OptIn


PARTINFO 1.09
Copyright (C) 1996-2003, TeraByte Unlimited. All rights reserved.

Run date: 04/26/2005 0:36

====================================================================
MBR Partition Information (HD0):
+====+====+=============+====+=============+===========+===========+
| 0: | 80 | 0 1 1 | 7 | 1023 254 63 | 63 | 61432497 |
| 1: | 0 | 1023 0 1 | 7 | 1023 254 63 | 61432560 | 262309320 |
| 2: | 0 | 1023 0 1 | 7 | 1023 254 63 | 323741880 | 262325385 |
| 3: | 0 | 0 0 0 | 0 | 0 0 0 | 0 | 0 |
+====+====+=============+====+=============+===========+===========+
BOOT SECTOR INFORMATION
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
File System ID: 0x7 LBA: 63 Total Sectors: 61432497 ID: 0x1
Jump: EB 52 90
OEM Name: NTFS
Bytes Per Sec: 512
Sec Per Clust: 8
Res Sectors: 0
Zero 1: 0x0
Zero 2: 0x0
NA 1: 0x0
Media: 0xF8
Zero 3: 0x0
Sec Per Track: 63
Heads: 255
Hidden Secs: 63
NA 2: 0x0
NA 3: 0x800080
Total Sectors: 0x03A962B0
MFT LCN: 0x0C0000
MFT Mirr LCN: 0x03A962B
Clust Per FRS: 0xF6
Clust Per IBlock: 0x1
Volume SN: 0x844C0F974C0F8362
Checksum: 0x0
Boot Flag: 0xAA55
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
File System ID: 0x7 LBA: 61432560 Total Sectors: 262309320 ID:
0x2
Jump: EB 52 90
OEM Name: NTFS
Bytes Per Sec: 512
Sec Per Clust: 8
Res Sectors: 0
Zero 1: 0x0
Zero 2: 0x0
NA 1: 0x0
Media: 0xF8
Zero 3: 0x0
Sec Per Track: 63
Heads: 255
Hidden Secs: 61432560
NA 2: 0x0
NA 3: 0x800080
Total Sectors: 0x0FA285C7
MFT LCN: 0x0C0000
MFT Mirr LCN: 0x0FA285C
Clust Per FRS: 0xF6
Clust Per IBlock: 0x1
Volume SN: 0xF2281E1A281DDF03
Checksum: 0x0
Boot Flag: 0xAA55
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
File System ID: 0x7 LBA: 323741880 Total Sectors: 262325385 ID:
0x3
Jump: EB 52 90
OEM Name: NTFS
Bytes Per Sec: 512
Sec Per Clust: 8
Res Sectors: 0
Zero 1: 0x0
Zero 2: 0x0
NA 1: 0x0
Media: 0xF8
Zero 3: 0x0
Sec Per Track: 63
Heads: 255
Hidden Secs: 323741880
NA 2: 0x0
NA 3: 0x800080
Total Sectors: 0x0FA2C488
MFT LCN: 0x0C0000
MFT Mirr LCN: 0x0FA2C48
Clust Per FRS: 0xF6
Clust Per IBlock: 0x1
Volume SN: 0x7AB4DECCB4DE89D1
Checksum: 0x0
Boot Flag: 0xAA55
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
====================================================================
MBR Partition Information (HD1):
+====+====+=============+====+=============+===========+===========+
| 0: | 80 | 0 1 1 | 7 | 1023 254 63 | 63 | 38539872 |
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[Walter Clayton]

Walter,

I had a look at that link. Very, very interesting! That is exactly what
has happened with my system. I think I'd almost be inclined to treat my
cloned drive like a virus after this.

I had another look at an older version of BootItNG I had. Perhaps it's a
confidence thing but I wasn't sure about the fact that it creates it's own
boot partition, and then I had great difficulty removing it afterwards.
After I removed it I could no longer boot, but I may well have done
something wrong. Is it reasonably easy to use for people like me who may
be computer literate but haven't much of a clue about the intricacies of
XP'x boot process.

Let me preface things by saying, I'm comfortable with using virtually any
partitioning/boot management tool since I understand things at a rather low
level.

I find BING easy to use albeit a bit awkward for some things. Then again,
it's one of the few tools that is fully functional from diskette, although
you do have to install it to enable boot management. It lacks some of the
fancy GUIs and frills of other tools. When I switched from Partition Magic,
there were some GUI features that I initally missed until I realized how
much functionality PM lacked for twice the cost. Then again I know some
rather technically compotent people that find BING unusable.
It need not go into it's own partition if you have an existing fat partition
handy. Up until last summer I had BING running out of my Me instance until I
finally blew that partition away. However by installing it in it's own
partition you render it totally OS neutral.
As for uninstalling it and leaving your self non-bootable, yes, that's more
an indication of having done things incorrectly.
Part of the problem you're going have regardless, is that you do have to be
aware of some low level things in order to do what you want, exactly the way
you want and I can also state that doing so is going to really adventerous.
Yes, it's possible to do what you want, but it does require that you be
aware of what you're doing. More in a bit...

Would it enable me to clone, leaving both drives in situ, freely booting
from either, without the worry of all these partion and enumeration
problems?

Sort of. There are things you need be aware of and it's going to be a PITA
to do things exactly the way you want with any tool. Keeping multipe OS
images on a single drive and hot booting between them is no large deal. At
one time I had 6 different OS images on a single drive (yes 6 bootable
primaries) I was switching between. When you introduce multiple physical
bootable drives, things get rather complicated when you start talking NT
kernels. 9x kernels could be fired up from any drive rather eaisly. NT
kernels are rather picky since they enumerate the hardware differently. Yes,
BING can make things a bit safer, but you'll have to boot twice when
shifting from HD0 to HD1 with jumping into the BIOS in between a necessity.

Dave

Just so I can understand what you're thinking, exactly why do you want to
copy the OS to a different drive and fire it up from there?

 

[David Cockram]

Thanks for that insight Walter. This is clearly nothing like as simple a job
as many software vendors indicate.

Let me put it on the line. I had an XP installation that started to become
problematic. No real idea why, but some programs stopped working properly,
and wouldn't reinstall. I have a lot of installed apps. Reinstalling XP is a
breeze. Reinstalling all the apps is a complete pita.

So I decided to do something that I used to do with ease on Win98 (xcopy or
xxcopy) and create a clone. That's where my problems started.

Ideally it would be nice to have another bootable XP OS so I could benchtest
certain apps or hardware with peace of mind. However this is a secondary
requirement, and mainly I want a security backup. But the point is, how do I
field test my cloned OS. Obviously I don't want to try it for real in case
there is a problem, so I figured that the obvious way would be to restore
the image to my other SATA drive. I did then intend to just leave it there
and use it occasionally as and when.

Now you know what I'm aiming for, what would you suggest, and can I do it
with Acronis 8.0 which I have?

Many thanks.

Dave

 

[Walter Clayton]

Thanks for that insight Walter. This is clearly nothing like as simple a
job as many software vendors indicate.

Unfortunately that is an absolutely correct statement. There is nothing that
makes the process 'idiot proof'. You really have to know what you're doing
or you'll get into a mess.

Let me put it on the line. I had an XP installation that started to become
problematic. No real idea why, but some programs stopped working properly,
and wouldn't reinstall. I have a lot of installed apps. Reinstalling XP is
a breeze. Reinstalling all the apps is a complete pita.

You're preaching to the choir. :-/
But you've excluded patch time which does vary with how long it's been since
the last SP, whether or not you have it stored locally, etc. It took me over
a week to load my laptop a couple of years ago. And that was then...
I haven't clean installed me desktop since 98/SE. Migrating to XP 64b is
going to be a hassle even once drivers and applications are available just
due to the shear amount of 'stuff' I have installed.
But I digress.

So I decided to do something that I used to do with ease on Win98 (xcopy
or xxcopy) and create a clone. That's where my problems started.

Ideally it would be nice to have another bootable XP OS so I could
benchtest certain apps or hardware with peace of mind. However this is a
secondary requirement, and mainly I want a security backup. But the point
is, how do I field test my cloned OS. Obviously I don't want to try it for
real in case there is a problem, so I figured that the obvious way would
be to restore the image to my other SATA drive. I did then intend to just
leave it there and use it occasionally as and when.

Now you know what I'm aiming for, what would you suggest, and can I do it
with Acronis 8.0 which I have?

With the version of Acronis you have, in short no. One of the issues I've
found with booting an NT kernel from anything other than HD0 is that it gets
rather interesting. I quit trying to do that during the beta of XP since it
was down right ugly. What you can do though, with a tool that allows the
partition table to be loaded on the fly such as BING, is run hot boot
between multiple NT kernal images off of HD0. Generally, that's not
problematic. In fact I have a test version of Pro 64b that I've been toying
with. Regardless, I have one drive that is I've delegated as nothing but OS
images. If I need to back one up, I either use BING to directly burn to
DVD-RW or I simply image the partition to a different drive and if things go
splat blow the image on HD0 away and replace it.

I've since switched to using virtual machines for a lot my experimentation
though. It's easier overall. In fact, I'm playing with a nasty I lifted off
a client machine today that I had to identify by eyeball.

 

[David Cockram]

Walter,

Everything that you've said so far makes sense and tallies with my
experience. So I'll go with what you suggest and have HD0 just for OS's.

I'm happy to do my own research on this, but I gather BootItNG (Is that
BING?) is what you'd suggest, so I'll go with that. If I maybe create 3
partitions on HD0, install XP on the first, followed by BootItNG, could I
then copy clones to partitions 2 & 3 and freely boot from them? Should I
give BootItNG it's own partition? Any obvious pitfalls I should be aware of
when installing BootItNG? Incidentally, do you keep all your program files
with each of your OS's?

You've been very helpful offering all this advice. I'm sure others
appreciate it too.

Many thanks,

Dave

 

[Walter Clayton]

Walter,

Everything that you've said so far makes sense and tallies with my
experience. So I'll go with what you suggest and have HD0 just for OS's.

I'm happy to do my own research on this, but I gather BootItNG (Is that
BING?) is what you'd suggest, so I'll go with that. If I maybe create 3
partitions on HD0, install XP on the first, followed by BootItNG, could I
then copy clones to partitions 2 & 3 and freely boot from them?

That will work but there's a slight twist that can be employed with BING
that makes it even better so that you don't have to worry about the number
of partitions in use, just the ones that you populate into the partition
table at any given time.

Should I give BootItNG it's own partition? Any obvious pitfalls I should
be aware of when installing BootItNG?

By installing BING in it's own partition, which is all of 8M, you isolate it
from OS related stuff.

Pitfalls are going to depend on how you choose to run BING.

The trick to making this work with the least amount of pain is to install
BING and enable the unlimited partitions capability. This does complicate
usage though since in this mode you have to tell it how to populate the
partition table on each drive whenever firing up a given OS instance and
there's not much automation in this regard. The big advantage is that you
can fire up any NT kernel from any primary on HD0 with the same boot.ini.
Without this feature enabled, you'd have to alter boot.ini in each OS
instance to reflect the position of the OS instance in the partition table.

I've got to see if I figure out an easy way to describe what needs be done,
but the best approach may be to have you take a look at the BING support
page and take a look at some of the tutorials (which I haven't done so I
don't know what they contain) and see if you have any questions after that.

Incidentally, do you keep all your program files with each of your OS's?

Actually I attempt to keep the data, applications and OS instances
segregated. Unfortuantely the "All Users" heirarchy has become the common
'dumping' ground for all applications even when overriding the default
installation. It's bad enough that application code is still dropped in
"program files" and/or Windows heiarchy, but still... Unfortunately MS is
just as bad about this as other vendors, especially since they published a
recommendation that some vendors take as gospel. Fortuantely most
applications will allow you to store data outside of the OS partition.

 

[David Cockram]

Walter

I'll keep you posted as to how all this works out. I've looked at the
tutorials on BING website, and they are very clear and helpful.

The trick to making this work with the least amount of pain is to install
BING and enable the unlimited partitions capability.

This does complicate usage though since in this mode you have to tell it
how to populate the partition table on each drive whenever firing up a
given OS instance and there's not much automation in this regard.

Hmmm what exactly is involved here? The tutorials have always opted for
sticking with 4 primary partitions, and once set up correctly you just boot
from the menu, so I wasn't aware of this. Do you mean that if I go for
unlimited partitions then I will have to enter partition table info every
time I boot to a different OS? That seems like quite a high price to pay. Or
is it not as compicated as it sounds?

The big advantage is that you can fire up any NT kernel from any primary
on HD0 with the same boot.ini. Without this feature enabled, you'd have to
alter boot.ini in each OS instance to reflect the position of the OS
instance in the partition table.

Again, if this setting up was a one off process that would be fine. I don't
expect to be testing OS's as a hobby or anything, so once set up not much is
likely to change.

Dave

 

[Walter Clayton]

Walter

I'll keep you posted as to how all this works out. I've looked at the
tutorials on BING website, and they are very clear and helpful.



Hmmm what exactly is involved here? The tutorials have always opted for
sticking with 4 primary partitions, and once set up correctly you just
boot from the menu, so I wasn't aware of this. Do you mean that if I go
for unlimited partitions then I will have to enter partition table info
every time I boot to a different OS? That seems like quite a high price to
pay. Or is it not as compicated as it sounds?

It's a one time configuration per defined OS instance. The only time you'd
need to change it is if you had a drive/partition and then only for the new
drive/partition.

The first time you set up an OS instance, the partition table entries on the
right will be empty. For each physical drive hit the partition table
position then hit the fill button. That will bring up a list of partitions
on that physical HD. Simply select the partition you want to appear in the
select spot and repeat for each partition slot you need to define. In this
instance, you'd only load a single OS instance since you don't want them
seeing each other.

Again, if this setting up was a one off process that would be fine. I
don't expect to be testing OS's as a hobby or anything, so once set up not
much is likely to change.

Not a problem. It's set up once and change only as needed.

 

[David Cockram]

OK Walter, that's excellent. I'm awaiting a new drive which I'll just use
for the OS's and I have my copy of BING ready to go.
From what I've read so far it seems to be a phenomenally useful little prog.
It will do everything I want.

I'll post a follow up when it's working and let you know how it panned out.

Thanks again,

Dave

 

[David Cockram]

Walter,

Great advice - I'm very, very impressed. I have a 120GB drive which so far
has 3 XP partitions cloned at various stages of installation. It really
couldn't be easier using BING. I love being able to resize, and also the
fact that the partitions are all hidden from one another is a great help.
The website videos and tutorials make a complex job seem very
straightforward.

Yes, I'd give BootIt NG 5 stars and wholeheartedly recommend it to anyone.
As you know my hassles with Acronis and Ghost were unbelievable. Yet this
has worked perfectly, first time, and it does more than either of those
programs.

Thanks again!!

Dave Cockram

OK Walter, that's excellent. I'm awaiting a new drive which I'll just use
for the OS's and I have my copy of BING ready to go.
From what I've read so far it seems to be a phenomenally useful little
prog. It will do everything I want.

I'll post a follow up when it's working and let you know how it panned
out.

Thanks again,

Dave

 

[Kelly]

Walter and BING are impressionable. )

--

All the Best,
Kelly (MS-MVP)

Troubleshooting Windows XP
http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com

Walter,

Great advice - I'm very, very impressed. I have a 120GB drive which so far
has 3 XP partitions cloned at various stages of installation. It really
couldn't be easier using BING. I love being able to resize, and also the
fact that the partitions are all hidden from one another is a great help.
The website videos and tutorials make a complex job seem very
straightforward.

Yes, I'd give BootIt NG 5 stars and wholeheartedly recommend it to
anyone. As you know my hassles with Acronis and Ghost were unbelievable.
Yet this has worked perfectly, first time, and it does more than either of
those programs.

Thanks again!!

Dave Cockram