How to remove a hard drive? Not so simple as it first appears. HAL.DLL?

[x-eyed-bear]

Apologies if this seems like a daft question; I don't actually think it is.

1. My current mobo is an ASUS A8V (Socket 939). It supports the usual 2
IDE channels as well as 2 SATA channels.

2. I had a working Windows XP Professional system, using 2 IDE channels
only:
1ary: Master = 60 Gb hard disk; Slave = Lite-On DVD RW
2ary: Master = 40 Gb hard disk; Slave = Lite-On DVD ROM

3. I wanted to move to this configuration:
1ary IDE: Master = 60 Gb hard disk
2ary IDE: Master = Lite-On DVD RW
SATA Channel 1 = 250 GB
SATA Channel 2 = 250 GB
The 2 SATA drives will be configured into a RAID-1 (Mirroring) Array

4. AS an intermediate step I got the system working to expectation with
both IDE drives and both SATA drives installed. That is I had a C:, D:
and E: (SCSIO) drives showing in MY Computer.

5. In this configuration I was able to copy all the data from the D:
drive to the E: drive (and by heck its quick to read off the E: drive
too - I chose RAID for security, not performance; the performance is a
great surprise to me).

6.To remove the D: drive I uninstalled it in Device Manager then
physically removed it. Now the system will not boot to Windows. After
about 5 minutes or so of disk activity Windows announces to me that
HAL.DLL is missing or corrupt and that I should re-install this file.

There are plenty of MS knowledge base entries about this, but they don't
make sense to me. The implication is that Windows cannot load because
the entries in BOOT.INI do not match my hardware configuration. But when
I examine BOOT.INI there is no reference to anything other than my boot
drive - the C: drive. How can removing the D: drive alter the loading of
Windows in any way? The page file is on the C: drive.

If I reinstall the D: drive the system boot without problem.

Not so easy to remove a hard drive, is it?

Any of you experts out there got any advice?


(Also posted on Windows.Hardware)

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

Apologies if this seems like a daft question; I don't actually think it is.

1. My current mobo is an ASUS A8V (Socket 939). It supports the usual 2
IDE channels as well as 2 SATA channels.

2. I had a working Windows XP Professional system, using 2 IDE channels
only:
1ary: Master = 60 Gb hard disk; Slave = Lite-On DVD RW
2ary: Master = 40 Gb hard disk; Slave = Lite-On DVD ROM

3. I wanted to move to this configuration:
1ary IDE: Master = 60 Gb hard disk
2ary IDE: Master = Lite-On DVD RW
SATA Channel 1 = 250 GB
SATA Channel 2 = 250 GB
The 2 SATA drives will be configured into a RAID-1 (Mirroring) Array

4. AS an intermediate step I got the system working to expectation with
both IDE drives and both SATA drives installed. That is I had a C:, D:
and E: (SCSIO) drives showing in MY Computer.

5. In this configuration I was able to copy all the data from the D:
drive to the E: drive (and by heck its quick to read off the E: drive
too - I chose RAID for security, not performance; the performance is a
great surprise to me).

6.To remove the D: drive I uninstalled it in Device Manager then
physically removed it. Now the system will not boot to Windows. After
about 5 minutes or so of disk activity Windows announces to me that
HAL.DLL is missing or corrupt and that I should re-install this file.

There are plenty of MS knowledge base entries about this, but they don't
make sense to me. The implication is that Windows cannot load because
the entries in BOOT.INI do not match my hardware configuration. But when
I examine BOOT.INI there is no reference to anything other than my boot
drive - the C: drive. How can removing the D: drive alter the loading of
Windows in any way? The page file is on the C: drive.

If I reinstall the D: drive the system boot without problem.

Not so easy to remove a hard drive, is it?

Any of you experts out there got any advice?


(Also posted on Windows.Hardware)

I suggest you take one step at a time.
1. Disconnect your SATA disks.
2. Connect your two IDE disks.
3. Get the system up and running.
4. Run diskmgmt.msc and find out which partition is marked
active. It should be the single partition on the 60 GByte disk.
5. Shut down the system and disconnect the 40 GByte disk.
Do not uninstall or disable anything. Can you still boot?
6. If you can, reboot with your SATA disks connected.
The results might be revealing.

 

[Ron Sommer]

Do you have a boot.ini on D?
Are you saying that C is multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)?
Is C or D marked active?
--
Ronald Sommer

: Apologies if this seems like a daft question; I don't actually think it
is.
:
: 1. My current mobo is an ASUS A8V (Socket 939). It supports the usual 2
: IDE channels as well as 2 SATA channels.
:
: 2. I had a working Windows XP Professional system, using 2 IDE channels
: only:
: 1ary: Master = 60 Gb hard disk; Slave = Lite-On DVD RW
: 2ary: Master = 40 Gb hard disk; Slave = Lite-On DVD ROM
:
: 3. I wanted to move to this configuration:
: 1ary IDE: Master = 60 Gb hard disk
: 2ary IDE: Master = Lite-On DVD RW
: SATA Channel 1 = 250 GB
: SATA Channel 2 = 250 GB
: The 2 SATA drives will be configured into a RAID-1 (Mirroring) Array
:
: 4. AS an intermediate step I got the system working to expectation with
: both IDE drives and both SATA drives installed. That is I had a C:, D:
: and E: (SCSIO) drives showing in MY Computer.
:
: 5. In this configuration I was able to copy all the data from the D:
: drive to the E: drive (and by heck its quick to read off the E: drive
: too - I chose RAID for security, not performance; the performance is a
: great surprise to me).
:
: 6.To remove the D: drive I uninstalled it in Device Manager then
: physically removed it. Now the system will not boot to Windows. After
: about 5 minutes or so of disk activity Windows announces to me that
: HAL.DLL is missing or corrupt and that I should re-install this file.
:
: There are plenty of MS knowledge base entries about this, but they don't
: make sense to me. The implication is that Windows cannot load because
: the entries in BOOT.INI do not match my hardware configuration. But when
: I examine BOOT.INI there is no reference to anything other than my boot
: drive - the C: drive. How can removing the D: drive alter the loading of
: Windows in any way? The page file is on the C: drive.
:
: If I reinstall the D: drive the system boot without problem.
:
: Not so easy to remove a hard drive, is it?
:
: Any of you experts out there got any advice?
:
:
: (Also posted on Windows.Hardware)

 

[x-eyed-bear]

Do you have a boot.ini on D?
Are you saying that C is multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)?
Is C or D marked active?

There is no BOOT.INI on D: - this was one of the first things I checked
for (and I cannot conceive of any circumstance under which there would
be one).

The Entry for [boot loader] and [operating system], which is on C, is
exactly as you have documented.

Is the only drive marked active, when examined in the the disk
management plug-in shows C as 'Healthy(System)' I can't remember what D;
is shown as, but since I have to almost identical computer installations
on my LAN I assume it says the same as this one: Healthy. I am guessing
that it is not marked Active beacuse this status applies only to the
drive from which the system boots. Is this correct?

 

[x-eyed-bear]

I suggest you take one step at a time.
1. Disconnect your SATA disks.
2. Connect your two IDE disks.
3. Get the system up and running.
4. Run diskmgmt.msc and find out which partition is marked
active. It should be the single partition on the 60 GByte disk.
5. Shut down the system and disconnect the 40 GByte disk.
Do not uninstall or disable anything. Can you still boot?
6. If you can, reboot with your SATA disks connected.
The results might be revealing.

After booting with the signal cables to the SATA drives unplugged (btw,
they are not very secure are they?), the disk management plug in on the
management console shows that neother drive is marked as 'Active'. The C
drive status is marked as 'Healthy(system); the D drive status is marked
as 'Healthy'

Disconnecting the D drive (40 Gb) prevents the system from booting, with
the usual error message about HAL.DLL being missing or corrupt, as
previously reported.

Shutting down, reconnecting the SATA drives, but not the D drive, also
results in a boot failure.

I also note that a few hours after getting the system working with both
SATA drives and both IDE drives installed, that the system performance
is now appalling. Booting takes 9 minutes. It takes 5 minutes for the
task manager to display its screens. The mouse pointer cannot keep up
with the mouse movement (I have an Athlon 3700 processor with 2 GB of
DDR RAM). A copy of a 120 Mb file from the D drive to the RAID array now
takes about 15 minutes. Shut down takes about 6 minutes. This
performance reminds me of the 386/25 I used to have in 1985..... (with
the exception that it would have been pretty damned difficult to create
a 120 Mb file back then!)

 

[Ron Sommer]

The Bios looks for the first active primary partition.
Windows will only make one partition on a drive active.
Primary partitions on other drives can be active, so the other drives can
boot if the first drive is removed or if your Bios can change the boot order
of drives.

The Windows folder is on C?
--
Ronald Sommer

: Ron Sommer wrote:
: > Do you have a boot.ini on D?
: > Are you saying that C is multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)?
: > Is C or D marked active?
:
: There is no BOOT.INI on D: - this was one of the first things I checked
: for (and I cannot conceive of any circumstance under which there would
: be one).
:
: The Entry for [boot loader] and [operating system], which is on C, is
: exactly as you have documented.
:
: Is the only drive marked active, when examined in the the disk
: management plug-in shows C as 'Healthy(System)' I can't remember what D;
: is shown as, but since I have to almost identical computer installations
: on my LAN I assume it says the same as this one: Healthy. I am guessing
: that it is not marked Active beacuse this status applies only to the
: drive from which the system boots. Is this correct?

 

[x-eyed-bear]

The Bios looks for the first active primary partition.
Windows will only make one partition on a drive active.
Primary partitions on other drives can be active, so the other drives can
boot if the first drive is removed or if your Bios can change the boot order
of drives.

The Windows folder is on C?

Yes, the Windows folder is on C

The boot sequence is set to C, then my DVD-RW, then floppy.

The 2 IDE drives are set up with a single partition each. Only the
partition on the C drive is bootable.

Even with the SATA drives removed form the system, it will not boot
without the D Drive being present. I suspect that if I delete the
partition on the D drive the system will not boot. This is a crazy
situation.

 

[Uncle Grumpy]

Ron Sommer wrote:

Even with the SATA drives removed form the system, it will not boot
without the D Drive being present. I suspect that if I delete the
partition on the D drive the system will not boot. This is a crazy
situation.

Does your C drive require a different jumper setting if it is the only
drive, compared to when it is the master and there is a slave?

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

After booting with the signal cables to the SATA drives unplugged (btw,
they are not very secure are they?), the disk management plug in on the
management console shows that neother drive is marked as 'Active'. The C
drive status is marked as 'Healthy(system); the D drive status is marked
as 'Healthy'

Disconnecting the D drive (40 Gb) prevents the system from booting, with
the usual error message about HAL.DLL being missing or corrupt, as
previously reported.

Shutting down, reconnecting the SATA drives, but not the D drive, also
results in a boot failure.

I also note that a few hours after getting the system working with both
SATA drives and both IDE drives installed, that the system performance
is now appalling. Booting takes 9 minutes. It takes 5 minutes for the
task manager to display its screens. The mouse pointer cannot keep up
with the mouse movement (I have an Athlon 3700 processor with 2 GB of
DDR RAM). A copy of a 120 Mb file from the D drive to the RAID array now
takes about 15 minutes. Shut down takes about 6 minutes. This
performance reminds me of the 386/25 I used to have in 1985..... (with
the exception that it would have been pretty damned difficult to create
a 120 Mb file back then!)

Use diskmgmt.msc to mark your boot partition active, then rerun
the tests.

 

[x-eyed-bear]

Does your C drive require a different jumper setting if it is the only
drive, compared to when it is the master and there is a slave?

Well, now there's a most excellent question which I have never
considered before.

For a moment a frison ran through me. There is indeed a jumper setting
on both the IDE drives for Dev 0 to force Dev 1 to be present. There are
also the standard settings to make this device Dev 0 (Master) or Dev 1
(Slave). The 2 IDE drives I have are both Deskstar (ex-IBM, now HDS)
drives of the same age, using identical jumper layouts and options.
These are correctly set for my 60 GB drive to be Dev 0 (Master) and the
40 Gb drive to be Dev 1 (slave). The system will not boot with Dev 1 absent.

 

[Ron Sommer]

The hard drives are not on the same cable.
1ary: Master = 60 Gb hard disk; Slave = Lite-On DVD RW
2ary: Master = 40 Gb hard disk; Slave = Lite-On DVD ROM

I thought you had something.
--
Ronald Sommer

: x-eyed-bear wrote:
: > Ron Sommer wrote:
:
: > Even with the SATA drives removed form the system, it will not boot
: > without the D Drive being present. I suspect that if I delete the
: > partition on the D drive the system will not boot. This is a crazy
: > situation.
:
: Does your C drive require a different jumper setting if it is the only
: drive, compared to when it is the master and there is a slave?
:

 

[x-eyed-bear]

Use diskmgmt.msc to mark your boot partition active, then rerun
the tests.

The operation here is unexpected (to me):

The option to set the partition on the C drive to active is greyed out.
I do not understand why this should be so. It implies that the partition
is already active. But only 1 partition can be active at a time and the
option to set the partition on the D drive is not greyed out. Indeed it
shows 'active' after taking this option.

But there is no option to set it back to 'inactive'. The systems still
will not boot with the D drive absent.

Is there any way that the MBR could be on the D drive and not on the C
drive, as I assume?

 

[Ron Sommer]

: Pegasus (MVP) wrote:
: > : >> Pegasus (MVP) wrote:
: >>
: >>> I suggest you take one step at a time.
: >>> 1. Disconnect your SATA disks.
: >>> 2. Connect your two IDE disks.
: >>> 3. Get the system up and running.
: >>> 4. Run diskmgmt.msc and find out which partition is marked
: >>> active. It should be the single partition on the 60 GByte disk.
: >>> 5. Shut down the system and disconnect the 40 GByte disk.
: >>> Do not uninstall or disable anything. Can you still boot?
: >>> 6. If you can, reboot with your SATA disks connected.
: >>> The results might be revealing.
: >>>
: >>>
: >> After booting with the signal cables to the SATA drives unplugged (btw,
: >> they are not very secure are they?), the disk management plug in on the
: >> management console shows that neother drive is marked as 'Active'. The
C
: >> drive status is marked as 'Healthy(system); the D drive status is
marked
: >> as 'Healthy'
: >>
: >
: > Use diskmgmt.msc to mark your boot partition active, then rerun
: > the tests.
: >
: >
: The operation here is unexpected (to me):
:
: The option to set the partition on the C drive to active is greyed out.
: I do not understand why this should be so. It implies that the partition
: is already active. But only 1 partition can be active at a time and the
: option to set the partition on the D drive is not greyed out. Indeed it
: shows 'active' after taking this option.
:
: But there is no option to set it back to 'inactive'. The systems still
: will not boot with the D drive absent.
:
: Is there any way that the MBR could be on the D drive and not on the C
: drive, as I assume?

You make it inactive by going to another partition and making it active. (C)
Only one partition on a drive can be active. With more than one drive, you
can have more than one active partition.

 

[x-eyed-bear]

The hard drives are not on the same cable.
1ary: Master = 60 Gb hard disk; Slave = Lite-On DVD RW
2ary: Master = 40 Gb hard disk; Slave = Lite-On DVD ROM

I thought you had something.

OK, you may have a point here.

I started with a working system with both IDE drives as master, but on
separate IDE channels. I had planned to move to a single IDE hard disk
(plus 2 SATA drives) and could then have set one of the ASPI DVD drives
to master (on the secondary IDE channel).

I made this part of the change, which is a bit fiddly because of the
chassis I am using. I wanted to avoid pulling the DVD drive out of the
chassis again when I need to re-install the D IDE drive, to get the
system to boot. So I then set the D drive to slave on the primary IDE
channel, rather than master on the secondary IDE channel. The system
boots in this configuration OK.

Would this cause any problem? That is, should I revert to both IDE
drives being master on their own channel, before I pull the D drive? I
don't think that this should make any difference - after all this is
where I started from.

 

[x-eyed-bear]

: Pegasus (MVP) wrote:
: > : >> Pegasus (MVP) wrote:
: >>
: >>> I suggest you take one step at a time.
: >>> 1. Disconnect your SATA disks.
: >>> 2. Connect your two IDE disks.
: >>> 3. Get the system up and running.
: >>> 4. Run diskmgmt.msc and find out which partition is marked
: >>> active. It should be the single partition on the 60 GByte disk.
: >>> 5. Shut down the system and disconnect the 40 GByte disk.
: >>> Do not uninstall or disable anything. Can you still boot?
: >>> 6. If you can, reboot with your SATA disks connected.
: >>> The results might be revealing.
: >>>
: >>>
: >> After booting with the signal cables to the SATA drives unplugged (btw,
: >> they are not very secure are they?), the disk management plug in on the
: >> management console shows that neother drive is marked as 'Active'. The
C
: >> drive status is marked as 'Healthy(system); the D drive status is
marked
: >> as 'Healthy'
: >>
: >
: > Use diskmgmt.msc to mark your boot partition active, then rerun
: > the tests.
: >
: >
: The operation here is unexpected (to me):
:
: The option to set the partition on the C drive to active is greyed out.
: I do not understand why this should be so. It implies that the partition
: is already active. But only 1 partition can be active at a time and the
: option to set the partition on the D drive is not greyed out. Indeed it
: shows 'active' after taking this option.
:
: But there is no option to set it back to 'inactive'. The systems still
: will not boot with the D drive absent.
:
: Is there any way that the MBR could be on the D drive and not on the C
: drive, as I assume?

You make it inactive by going to another partition and making it active. (C)
Only one partition on a drive can be active. With more than one drive, you
can have more than one active partition.

OK, part of what you say confirms the little I thought I knew. So, since
there is only 1 partition on the D drive, I can't make it 'inactive' by
going to another partition on that drive and activating that partition.
But this leaves the problem of the C Drive: it, too, has only the one
partition, but I cannot set it active - at least I mean that the word
'active' does not appear in the status column in the disk manager applet
in MMC.

Should I stop worrying about this - because it actually doesn't get me
any further to the heart of the problem: my system will not boot if I
remove the D drive.


Is there something more to learn from the content of the MS knowledge
Base about the reason for the HAL.DLL error message? Frankly, its too
techy for me; I don't understand it. Either this error message is
meaningful or it's a bug in the windows load process.

 

[Ron Sommer]

: Ron Sommer wrote:
: > : > : Pegasus (MVP) wrote:
: > : > : > : >> Pegasus (MVP) wrote:
: > : >>
: > : >>> I suggest you take one step at a time.
: > : >>> 1. Disconnect your SATA disks.
: > : >>> 2. Connect your two IDE disks.
: > : >>> 3. Get the system up and running.
: > : >>> 4. Run diskmgmt.msc and find out which partition is marked
: > : >>> active. It should be the single partition on the 60 GByte
disk.
: > : >>> 5. Shut down the system and disconnect the 40 GByte disk.
: > : >>> Do not uninstall or disable anything. Can you still boot?
: > : >>> 6. If you can, reboot with your SATA disks connected.
: > : >>> The results might be revealing.
: > : >>>
: > : >>>
: > : >> After booting with the signal cables to the SATA drives unplugged
(btw,
: > : >> they are not very secure are they?), the disk management plug in on
the
: > : >> management console shows that neother drive is marked as 'Active'.
The
: > C
: > : >> drive status is marked as 'Healthy(system); the D drive status is
: > marked
: > : >> as 'Healthy'
: > : >>
: > : >
: > : > Use diskmgmt.msc to mark your boot partition active, then rerun
: > : > the tests.
: > : >
: > : >
: > : The operation here is unexpected (to me):
: > :
: > : The option to set the partition on the C drive to active is greyed
out.
: > : I do not understand why this should be so. It implies that the
partition
: > : is already active. But only 1 partition can be active at a time and
the
: > : option to set the partition on the D drive is not greyed out. Indeed
it
: > : shows 'active' after taking this option.
: > :
: > : But there is no option to set it back to 'inactive'. The systems still
: > : will not boot with the D drive absent.
: > :
: > : Is there any way that the MBR could be on the D drive and not on the C
: > : drive, as I assume?
: >
: > You make it inactive by going to another partition and making it active.
(C)
: > Only one partition on a drive can be active. With more than one drive,
you
: > can have more than one active partition.
:
: OK, part of what you say confirms the little I thought I knew. So, since
: there is only 1 partition on the D drive, I can't make it 'inactive' by
: going to another partition on that drive and activating that partition.
: But this leaves the problem of the C Drive: it, too, has only the one
: partition, but I cannot set it active - at least I mean that the word
: 'active' does not appear in the status column in the disk manager applet
: in MMC.
:
: Should I stop worrying about this - because it actually doesn't get me
: any further to the heart of the problem: my system will not boot if I
: remove the D drive.
:
:
: Is there something more to learn from the content of the MS knowledge
: Base about the reason for the HAL.DLL error message? Frankly, its too
: techy for me; I don't understand it. Either this error message is
: meaningful or it's a bug in the windows load process.

Do you have a XP install CD?
Can you boot to the install CD?

 

[x-eyed-bear]

Apologies if this seems like a daft question; I don't actually think it is.

1. My current mobo is an ASUS A8V (Socket 939). It supports the usual 2
IDE channels as well as 2 SATA channels.

2. I had a working Windows XP Professional system, using 2 IDE channels
only:
1ary: Master = 60 Gb hard disk; Slave = Lite-On DVD RW
2ary: Master = 40 Gb hard disk; Slave = Lite-On DVD ROM

3. I wanted to move to this configuration:
1ary IDE: Master = 60 Gb hard disk
2ary IDE: Master = Lite-On DVD RW
SATA Channel 1 = 250 GB
SATA Channel 2 = 250 GB
The 2 SATA drives will be configured into a RAID-1 (Mirroring) Array

4. AS an intermediate step I got the system working to expectation with
both IDE drives and both SATA drives installed. That is I had a C:, D:
and E: (SCSIO) drives showing in MY Computer.

5. In this configuration I was able to copy all the data from the D:
drive to the E: drive (and by heck its quick to read off the E: drive
too - I chose RAID for security, not performance; the performance is a
great surprise to me).

6.To remove the D: drive I uninstalled it in Device Manager then
physically removed it. Now the system will not boot to Windows. After
about 5 minutes or so of disk activity Windows announces to me that
HAL.DLL is missing or corrupt and that I should re-install this file.

There are plenty of MS knowledge base entries about this, but they don't
make sense to me. The implication is that Windows cannot load because
the entries in BOOT.INI do not match my hardware configuration. But when
I examine BOOT.INI there is no reference to anything other than my boot
drive - the C: drive. How can removing the D: drive alter the loading of
Windows in any way? The page file is on the C: drive.

If I reinstall the D: drive the system boot without problem.

Not so easy to remove a hard drive, is it?

Any of you experts out there got any advice?


(Also posted on Windows.Hardware)

This addendum may be of interest to some:

In attempting to solve this problem from a software perspective, I read
more of the MS KB articles on the HAL.DLL error message. None seem to
apply to my situation, but in reading further articles about BOOT.INI
options I noticed that none of the samples of BOOT.INI that I saw had an
entry for /noexecute - which my BOOT.INI has. I removed this entry from
BOOT.INI and - unbelievably - the system now boots without the D drive
(not yet confirmed that it will also boot with the SATA drives).

Now this is really strange, because the system had been running with
/noexecute set to OptIn, proving that my AMD processor supports DEP at
the hardware level. More over, other articles I read state that the
absence of the /noexecute option in BOOT.INI in an XP/SP2 installation
causes Windows to assume the option is set to /noexecute=OptIn. That is,
my deletion of this option from BOOT.INI should not have had any effect
at all.

Can anybody explain this?

 

[x-eyed-bear]

:
: OK, part of what you say confirms the little I thought I knew. So, since
: there is only 1 partition on the D drive, I can't make it 'inactive' by
: going to another partition on that drive and activating that partition.
: But this leaves the problem of the C Drive: it, too, has only the one
: partition, but I cannot set it active - at least I mean that the word
: 'active' does not appear in the status column in the disk manager applet
: in MMC.
:
: Should I stop worrying about this - because it actually doesn't get me
: any further to the heart of the problem: my system will not boot if I
: remove the D drive.
:
:
: Is there something more to learn from the content of the MS knowledge
: Base about the reason for the HAL.DLL error message? Frankly, its too
: techy for me; I don't understand it. Either this error message is
: meaningful or it's a bug in the windows load process.

Do you have a XP install CD?
Can you boot to the install CD?

Yes, I have the original, valid product CD - I'm very nervous about
using it because the previous hardware upgrade I put on the system
caused the activation process to be invoked again and it took a lot of
pleading with some person somewhere in MS to get them to agree to
activate my copy of XP. I was cautioned that that was the last time. I
have no power to prevent MS from forcing me to buy another licence - again.

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

The operation here is unexpected (to me):

The option to set the partition on the C drive to active is greyed out.
I do not understand why this should be so. It implies that the partition
is already active. But only 1 partition can be active at a time and the
option to set the partition on the D drive is not greyed out. Indeed it
shows 'active' after taking this option.

But there is no option to set it back to 'inactive'. The systems still
will not boot with the D drive absent.

Is there any way that the MBR could be on the D drive and not on the C
drive, as I assume?

I feel that you have to come to grips with the "active" flag.
Here is how you can manage this issue:
1. Boot the machine with a Win98 boot disk (www.bootdisk.com).
2. Run ptedit.exe
(ftp://ftp.symantec.com/public/english_us_canada/tools/pq/utilities/).
3. Check the value in the "Boot" box. 00 means "not active",
80 means "active". If it is 00, make it 80.

Step 3 is completely reversible, provided that you make a careful note
of the ***which*** value you changed and ***what*** it was before
you changed it.

While you're at it, set the Boot value for the second disk to 00.

 

[x-eyed-bear]

I feel that you have to come to grips with the "active" flag.
Here is how you can manage this issue:
1. Boot the machine with a Win98 boot disk (www.bootdisk.com).
2. Run ptedit.exe
(ftp://ftp.symantec.com/public/english_us_canada/tools/pq/utilities/).
3. Check the value in the "Boot" box. 00 means "not active",
80 means "active". If it is 00, make it 80.

Step 3 is completely reversible, provided that you make a careful note
of the ***which*** value you changed and ***what*** it was before
you changed it.

While you're at it, set the Boot value for the second disk to 00.

Thanks for your patience in this long saga. I also appreciate the
thoroughness of your post: there is a pointer to everything I need and
complete, fail safe and recoverable instructions (very important for the
naive). That's expert advice speaking.

AS you may have seen from my previous append, the system is now up and
running (well, crawling, until I discovered that the primary master
drive was running in PIO mode).

So, I'm not going to fiddle any more - I've got to put the system to
useful and productive work.

Thanks for your support.