"boot.ini" configuration, please help!

[Gecko 0]

Hi,

 

I have Two HardDisks, one on each IDE channel,

 

My current main OS is NT4 on IDE0 Primary HD, 1st Primary Partition(NTFS).

 

I have on the other HDisk on IDE1 another NT4 in the First Primary partition(NTFS) and Win98 on Second Primary Partition(FAT32) on this "slave" assigned HD.

 

I would like to configure the boot.ini file on my "Master-Primary" NT4 so that it includes the other NT4 and Win98 at bootup.

 

The variables are:

 

multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)

 

whatis - multi(0) and rdisk(0) ????

 

I would appreciate yur help!

 

Cheers.

[DosFreak 2]

Is your Primary 1st partition Fat16?

Is your Secondary 1st partition Fat16?

 

 

If your secondary 1st is fat16 the easiest and least frustrating way would be to simply disable your primary HD eveery time you wanted to boot the 2nd hd.

[Gecko 0]

No,

 

Both First Partitions on both disks with NT4 are in NTFS.

 

Second partition on second disk is FAT32

 

The only partitions that are FAT16 are the logical partitions so that both NT4 and Win98

Can access them.

 

However i currently select which disk i want to boot in the BIOS setup. This is just a little inconvenient 'cos i'll probably boot each primary partition once a day.

Theyre set-up for different tasks.

 

Considering NT4 has the ability to boot different Operating systems from its boot.ini file i would like to take advantage of this. I Guess 'disk(0)' means what HD, 'partition(1)' means which partition, though what does multi(0) and rdisk(0) mean???

 

Thanks for your suggestion DosFreak.

 

Cheers.

[JJ32 0]

Ouch! This is a mother man! I don't know, but how the hell your CPU going to assign NT 4.1 (A) and NT 4.0 ( and Win 98? I don't think that is wise and why in the hell you have it setup that way? Why two NT 4.0 partitions on 2 different disks. Like you have server on one then workstation on other or something? If you are using two servers or two workstations with NT 4 then forget it. Also it is going to want to know via BIOS what Disk you want to boot from. DISK ID 0 or DISK ID 1. You have to specify which bootdisk and this is where your problem exists man. Won't work without manually specifying via BIOS your boot disk or using a fancy pants IDE switch which I have seen for like 80.00 dollars! IDE switch idea sucks anyway! Switch it via BIOS and forget the boot.ini setup cause it won't work if it is not switched in BIOS! How else your CPU going to know what disk to boot from? Like BIOS goes uh......I think I'll boot form primary boot device...oh yeah cool there is an NT partition there to boot from and it boots from that. If nothing is there it goes....uh.....can't boot....uh let's try secondary boot device...cool there is an NT and a Win 98 partition. What do you want to boot from? That's when you get your choice man. Have to specify primary boot disk and secondary boot disk and this has nothing to do with master/slave and/or primary/secondary IDE, ok? It is PRIMARY/SECONDARY BOOT DEVICES! Usually like floppy, HDD 0, HDD 1, CD-ROM, SCSI etc.. There can be many types of boot devices depending on what you got and what your BIOS supports!

[clutch 1]

It's cool dude. Here's something to try out.

 

First, go to this link and read up on the ARC naming conventions (towards the bottom).

 

http://cramsession.brainbuzz.com/cramsession/microsoft/ntworkstation/guide.asp

 

Next, I *think* the new path that you will enter will look something like this;

 

multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(1)\Windows="My POS WinDOS Install"

 

The changes are to "rdisk" which is now "1" since it is on IDE channel "1" and "My POS WinDOS Install" will show up as a menu option. In addition, make sure that the "boot loader" entry has more than "2" for an entry to give you a chance to select the new path. If you are really concerned with messing up your boot.ini, you can make a NT boot floppy and try this new path in the boot.ini on it. Then, boot your PC off of it and see if it works. Here's how to do that;

 

http://www.windows2000faq.com/Articles/Index.cfm?ArticleID=14716

 

Hope this helps.

 

------------------

Regards,

 

clutch