Re: [OT] Any XP experts around?
From: Roy Battell (news_at_vutrax666.co.uk)
Date: 10/13/04
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Date: Wed, 13 Oct 2004 06:00:22 +0100
In article <r1jnm0p7jg50nje551dosgdbtlocteqruk@4ax.com>, Terry Pinnell
<terrypinDELETE@THESEdial.pipex.com> writes
>Roy Battell <news@vutrax666.co.uk> wrote:
>
>>Terry,
>>
*** Lots Snipped
>In fact, I've been working on similar lines late last night and this
>morning. XP actually makes it fairly easy to edit boot.ini, without
>the chore of changing attributes, as follows: System
>Properties>Advanced>Startup and Recovery>Settings>System startup>Edit.
All very nice, but I'm never sure WHICH version of boot.ini it is
editing - if it is the one on you Secondary/Slave drive it won't
be changing the right one. That why I suggested the pedantic way
to make sure you hit the copy on the FIRST bootable partition.
You have checked the boot order in your BIOS looks at the drives
in the right order (only applies if your second drive the secondary
master rather than primary slave.
>That brings boot.ini up in Notepad, and you can save changes. Here's
>what mine looks like right now (I've separated the lines for clarity):
>
>[boot loader]
>
>timeout=5
>
>default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
>[operating systems]
>
>multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="XP Home Edition"
>/fastdetect /NoExecute=OptIn
>
>multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(1)\WINDOWS="XP Home Edition (#2)"
>/fastdetect /NoExecute=OptIn
>
>C:\CMDCONS\BOOTSECT.DAT="Recovery Console C" /cmdcons
>
>-------
>
>That incorporates a few tentative changes I made. Apart from cosmetics
>like cutting out 'Microsoft Windows', there was earlier this line:
>multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(2)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Home
>Edition (#1)" /fastdetect
>
>As you see, that pointed to my D (data) partition, so I think I just
>zapped it. I may also
>
>Anyway, things have progressed a little further this morning, and I
>now feel tantalisingly close to sorting this and doing something more
>interesting <g>. A post I had (from Eric) in
>comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage said: "The current OS partition
>always shows up as Boot. Active means bootable. The active part that
>booted shows up as System, and other ones as Active."
>
Afraid I normally fix Windows crises using Linux, and if I can't
boot anything off the hard drive I use Knoppix which runs off a
CD which can be relied on to tell the truth. My Bootable Windows
partitions are all FAT32 to keep it simple (Partition Magic does
an excellent conversion when Windows refuses to install anything
but NTSC, but did screw up the sequencing of partitions to keep
the 3rd (Windows) partition numbered 1, and then wouldn't touch
it again because the partition table was not in the right order!
Changing the partitions from Windows changed the partition
numbering to 'natural' order but didn't update boot.ini so it
wouldn't reboot until I edit boot.ini. What a shambles!
>>From that, it may be that I'm already there! I can only hope...
>
>But, as already mentioned I find it very counter-intuitive. And I
>can't quite square Eric's statement with the up-thread definition here
>by Dave. So can you bear with me while I try to sort it please?
>
>I've booted to XP Home Edition, the 'first' of my 2 multi-boot
>options (using the boot.ini above). This is what my system looks like
>right now according to XP Disk Management:
>
>http://www.terrypin.dial.pipex.com/Misc/Sep12-XP.gif
>
>>From that, can you tell definitively what partition I am 'running
>in'?
>
See below.
>BTW, both Drive Image 2002 and Partition Manager 7.0 just show both C
>and E as 'Active', no distinction.
>
Normally boot the first. Check your BIOS setup if you are worried.
>My interpretation before that post above was that I am 'in' E, instead
>of C where I want to be. That was based on seeing that 'Active'
>annotation XP shows against E. But it now seems I was mistaken, and
>I'm 'in' C after all, yes? No?
>
In your DOS box type
set<enter>
and look for 'windir', or type
echo %windir%
Whichever drive letter it has is your 'Windows' drive letter.
>Why do I care? That got raised earlier, and it's a fair question,
>giving that everything is working fine, shortcuts OK, etc. The answer
>is that it's because I want to be back in exactly the same state I've
>been in for the last 2 years. C was exclusively my system and boot
>partition. No E involved at all. E was just sitting patiently on my
>2nd HD until some emergency (or experiment) prompted me to boot to it
>instead. So, as I didn't normally use the files on F either, only my
>1st HD would actually be being accessed. The 2nd HD (XP calls it Disk
>1 to confuse me) would just be spinning passively for most of the
>time. That's a mental picture with which I'm comfortable!
>
Of course you have to get things right, so that when it falls
over (as it will sooner or later) you will not be in a total shambles.
>So, bottom line: can you tell me if I'm already back in the required
>state of grace, or whether I still need to do something
>clever/complex/risky?
>
Look like you are there.
Its unfortunate that some backup tools tend to do crazy things with
disk letters when you copy a partition unless you know the right
options. I don't know what does what anymore because I archive Windows
using Linux and restore it the same way. You can view the partition
table with Knoppix using
Start a shell
su (super user - blank password)
fdisk -l (minus Ell)
I'm sure some of the Windows groups can tell how not to get
messed up again!
--
Roy Battell.
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Mail: news@vutrax666.co.uk
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