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Hi All.
Hope someone can help with this problem I am having installing a new hard drive.
Windows XP Professional fails to boot every time I connect a new hard drive to my system. I am in the process of setting up my new PC with multiple boot operating systems but cannot get beyond the first hurdle of installing a new hard drive.
My system is currently set up as follows:
IDE 1 – Master: DVD R/W (F:)
IDE 1 – Slave: DVD R/W (G:)
IDE 2 – Master: 80gig WD Hard Drive. (C:)
This drive just contains a backup of my old PC. This drive also contains my Boot.ini in the root and is seen by windows as (C:)IDE 2 – Slave: No drive as yet. This is where I am adding the new drive.
SATA 1: 250gig Maxtor SATA Hard Drive.
This drive has two partitions. (D: & E:)
80gig contains Windows XP Professional, and is identified in windows as (D:) I have separated my document so they get stored to the second partition 170gig seen as (E:)SATA 2: No drive.
SATA 3: No drive.
SATA 4: No drive.Every time I add the new drive (Maxtor 250gig) to IDE 2 slave, I get a boot error before windows starts loading. The error is usually one of the following dependent on the changes I make in bios:
Invalid Boot partion.
Missing NTLDR.I have started the windows XP repair (Option R when booting from the XP CD). And it shows the following is happening after the drive is installed:
IDE 1 – Master: DVD R/W (H:)
IDE 1 – Slave: DVD R/W (I:)IDE 2 – Master: 80gig WD Hard Drive. (C:)
This drive just contains a backup of my old PC. This drive also contains my Boot.ini in the root and is seen as (C:)IDE 2 – Slave: New Drive, has two partitions both empty. Partition 1 now shows as (D:). Partition 2 shows as (F:).
SATA 1: 250gig Maxtor SATA Hard Drive.
This drive has two partitions which have moved about after I add the new drive. D: has moved to E:, And E: has moved to G:I know this is the reason XP won’t boot, I’m just not sure how to fix the problem. I have considered manually changing the Boot.ini file to point at the correct windows partition but I think this will not work as all the applications installed may still have paths pointing to it’s old location (D:).
I have also considered running FIXBOOT OR FIXMBR but seeing that I don’t have a clue as to which one may fix the problem I have not done this as yet.
After disconnecting the new hard drive windows boots up as normal. And All the drive allocations are restored.
Any advice gratefully accepted.
Thank you.
EamonM
Don't ask me, I'm an idiot!
The boot.ini does not point at "D" but looks to boot up a particular partition on a particular disk. Please post a copy of your boot.ini file contents so we can see exactly how your system is reading the disk location of your boot drive. I think it may be possible to do a manual edit of boot.ini so that it will point to the "new" location of your system drive. You would do the edit, shut down, add the new IDE drive and start up with the edited boot.ini pointing the right direction.
I used to have a signature but it disappeared and I just couldn't be bothered writing another so please feel free to ingore this.
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problem is simple
the rule of drive enumeration is the first primary partition is enumerated on each drive before any other partitions or devices are enumerated.
This is why d: becomes e:
solution is simple. you either don't create a primary partition but an extended partition with logical drives or put the disk in RAW [no partitions] then use XP to partition/format/assign drive letter to the drive/partitons.
Golly gee wilerkers everyone. Learn to Internet Search
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Hi
Thanks for your replies everyone.
My Boot.ini looks like this
[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /fastdetect /NoExecute=OptInI have already worked out what I need to change using the XP repair and I need to change rdisk(1) to rdisk(2) and then add the drive and then reboot. the only problem is if it does not work then I have no way of changing it back as I can't find a good dos boot disk that has a text editor and mounts all the drives (and I would not be able to get back into windows.)
<Just had a thought. I’ll just have two copies of the boot.ini and rename it back if it does not work using the XP CD prepare option. I’ll try that later when I get home.>
I have looked at 'Ultimate Boot CD' but that’s no good as it never mounts any of the hard-drives.
wanderer: When I purchased this hard drive it was 'raw and unformatted', and that was the way I first tried to install the drive with the same effect (although it did not report that drive D: was present, it just left this allocation out (still moved rdisk(1) to rdisk(2)). So I used 'MaxBlast' and 'PowerMax' to check the drive, partition and format it thinking this would help. It didn't of cause.
If anyone is wondering, I am a computer analyst / developer (.Net mostly these days) and I do have a very good understanding of computers. But I’m a little out of practise with PC maintenance as I no longer do this side of things at work (and try my best not to mess about with my machine at home).
I need a dual boot system because I work from home from time to time and my development environment means I run a lot of processes that can be a target for an attack (SQL server, Internet Information Services). On my old machine, my Mrs was logged in and some *&@#! Killed the machine with a SQL injection attack (yes I know bad coding on a ASP.net page I was helping a friend with).
Anyway, thanks again. I’ll try to mod the Boot.ini later tonight.
EamonM
Don't ask me, I'm an idiot!
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You have already worked out the answer. It is just having the courage to proceed, and an effective fallback plan if something goes wrong. Create a backup of your original boot.ini file and store it on external media. Floppy or CD. If something goes wrong you should be able to use a dos bootdisk to start up and restore the backup.
I used to have a signature but it disappeared and I just couldn't be bothered writing another so please feel free to ingore this.
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OK so you edit the boot.ini and change the rdisk entry.
How does this resolve the drive letter enumeration?
Or the fact XP has 1000's of registry entries to that assigned drive letter? Registry entries like for the pagefile for example?I will state once again if you take ide2 and wipe it, repartition as an EXTENDED PARTITION you WILL NOT HAVE THE DRIVE LETTERS CHANGE.
Your SATA drive will remain D: which is the objective you wish to reach.
Hey if you don't want to take MY word for it would you BELIEVE MICROSOFT?
Here you go
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;[LN];Q282530On another topic the sql exploit was accomplished because you did not update sql. I highly advise you get a router if on broadband and/or be religious on your updates if on dialup so you don't get hit with known exploits of MS.
Best of luck!
Golly gee wilerkers everyone. Learn to Internet Search
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as "wanderer" says you will have more problems then you want if you just edit boot.ini. The problem did not dawn on me till reading his second post. IF you add or remove any drive between the boot drive and OS drive that has primary partitions, you will have many problems that will likely require a repair install.
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I think wanderer is missing the point that regardless of whether the second IDE drive is partitioned or not, the bios detects it and assigns it an "rdisk" position in the chain. Editing the boot ini to reflect the revised position of the XP partition/drive will work as when windows boots it will still be booting in it's D partition. Once it boots you can then use windows disk management to partition the new drive any way you want , and to call the new partitions by whatever drive letter you want. Creating extended partitions on the new drive rather than a primary partition will not affect the fact that bios will assign the disk itself an "rdisk" number of 1 altering the current SATA disk from rdisk1 to rdisk2.
Edit the boot.ini from rdisk1 to rdisk2. shut down. connect the new drive (whether partitioned or not) boot up. It should work.I used to have a signature but it disappeared and I just couldn't be bothered writing another so please feel free to ingore this.
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Hi everyone again.
Thank you all for your advice and comments. You are all right sort of.
Richard: I tried the boot.ini change, but quickly changed it back after the machine showed signs of serious instability. Also discovered something worrying, in the fact that the machine would no longer boot into safe mode for some reason. This was not caused by the change as it still fails to boot into safe mode now, but it has made up my mind in what I should do.
Wanderer & TopFarmer: Thanks for your advice, especially the link to that Microsoft article. I had been looking for an article like this on the net for ages, but stupidly didn’t checkout MS. Anyway because I did not do some of the steps (ie: I already have a primary partition on the SATA drive as well as on my backup drive (C:)) I can no longer follow this root.
I have come to the conclusion that I have got to ‘byte the bullet’ and do a full reinstall and partition and format all of the drives except the C: (then I can follow the article). I’ll just reinstall XP onto the C: (really should have done that first anyway) set all partitions to EXTENDED except the C: and move both DVD drives to T: and U: (as the MS article suggest).
Anyway, thanks again everyone for your advice. It really does pain me to think I buggered it up in the first place. I just have to do it right this time round. And at least I will have the D: available during the install of XP onto the C:.
Consider this issue closed unless anyone would like to comment further.
EamonM
Don't ask me, I'm an idiot!
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Hey Richard59 I did consider the rdisk factor but would expect ide2 slave to be enumerated after the sata drive so the rdisk value for the sata would remain the same.
The drive letter enumeration on the other hand would invalidate the registry entries leading to system corruption/instablity.
Best of luck to everyone!
Golly gee wilerkers everyone. Learn to Internet Search
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I have been trying to determine what ennumeration convention applies to systems that have SATA drives in addition to IDE drives. From what I have gleaned so far the rdisk values on an X86 based system with two IDE channels will assign values from 0 to 3. On modern systems with sata drives and multi drive controllers the number can go as high as 7. 0 being the first detected disk and usually connected as primary master. If a primary slave is present it will be assigned rdisk1 If not then the next place to look is on secondary master then secondary slave. SATA drives although on the same "controller" as the ide devices are assigned an rdisk value after all IDE devices are first identified. therefore in the case in point the original configuration had one IDE disk plus one sata disk. the rdisk values 0 and 1 respectively.
Adding the new harddrive to any IDE connector, either primary slave, secondary master or secondary slave bumps the sata drive down the order. it becomes rdisk2 and the boot.ini is then pointing to the wrong place. The question of changing drive letter due to the presence/absence of primary/extended partitions on the various disks is a different issue, but no less important in understanding what went wrong in eamonm's situation. Had he done the boot.ini edit first, shut down, added the new drive raw, then booted, his XP would not have developed the problems it did. By the time he got around to doing the edit, the existence of a primary partition on the new drive had already caused a conflict with the original drive letter ennumeration of the sata disk.If you can point me to any other reference that indicates the rdisk values are assigned by a different convention then I would appreciate it as I was unable to locate anything more difinitive.
I used to have a signature but it disappeared and I just couldn't be bothered writing another so please feel free to ingore this.
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