Dual 2k drives imaged w/ Ghost 2nd drive won't boot

[videobruce 0]

I really don't know just how to explain this.

 

I have 2 bootable drives with 2k on each. The second is a image of the first done using Ghost.

 

I've done this before, but this time the drives are hooked up to a Highpoint controller which, I assume is causing the problem.

 

I disconnected the first drive since there is no way to disable it in the bios, then I booted using the 2nd drive, there was no page file and it was not created as I thought it was suppose to be after the image was made. I got the error message but it wouldn't load any further.

 

I reconnected the 2nd drive, booted using the first drive and created a page file for the other drive and then shutdown, disconnect the 1st drive and booted. I get a 'looping effect' with the dialog boxes for network connections etc. durning the msgina stage (for lack of a better term).

 

Another observation is the 2nd drive is ID'ed as 'D' not 'C' In other words the first drive is always 'C' and the 2nd drive is always 'D' no matter which is the boot drive, a problem I have seen before using 2k.

 

When the 2 drives are both on line the 2nd drive is using the pagefile from the first drive and probably associated itself with other files from the first drive. When I remove the 1st drive, I also assume the 2nd drive is confused by the missing 1st drive.

 

I have read all the stuff from M$ and Noton Ghost, but that only seems to confuse the issue more.

 

I haven't hooked the drives up to the IDE buss yet since the controller is ATA66 and the IDE is 33.

 

It is a Highpoint HPT366 on board controller.

[Dirty Harry 0]

Quote:

I disconnected the first drive since there is no way to disable it in the bios,

As explained in another thread I believe you can disable a drive by setting the properties manually in bios. Switch of the autodetect, and manually use the highest CYL setting (65535 or something similar)which means none. I don't recall the HPT settings screen (and can't check it right now) but it is very possible that this only works on the standard IDE contraoller. Let us know if this works /doesn't work if you try.

Quote:

Originally posted by videobruce
Another observation is the 2nd drive is ID'ed as 'D' not 'C'
...When the 2 drives are both on line the 2nd drive is using the pagefile from the first drive.

This is logical, because the enviroment variable on the cloned drive is pointing to C:, but it beats me why the drive letter doesn't change to C if you only have one drive connected. I've done what you are describing on a very frequent basis but using Drive Image, and the boot drive always switches itself to C:

Are you using NTFS or FAT. For my part I'stayed with FAT32

H.

[videobruce 0]

With a single drive the drive letter is C.

I'm running FAT32 since I'm leary of the access problems of NTFS.

The Highpoint bios doesn't let you disable the drive, as far as changing the mode, I believe it does. I assume that won't damage the drive, forceing it to be read different than it was intended?

 

Someone mentioned ARC paths and the M$ article releted to it. I really don't fully understand all of that. (M$ article #102873)

[Dirty Harry 0]

If you boot with the single cloned drive, power down, connect the orig drive and then boot from the cloned drive again, what happens? Does it stay C, or does it switch itself to D ?

 

In my opinion you were wise to stay with FAT, thats my choice too. As you can see in another thread a day or two ago, this is not a popular opinion around here, so sschh...

 

H.

[videobruce 0]

The cloned drive becomes 'D'. The orginal drive is always 'C', no matter which drive is booting from.. I have run into this before without a controller involved, but it was a corrupted install from the start. I had to start all over again.

This WAS good install from the start since it was the 4th time I loaded 2k. (learned by my other mistakes) The only thing, this was the first time with a controller involved.

 

Now, I hooked the drives up to the IDE 1 bus where a CD-Rom was, but now neither drive boots! Even with the other one disconnected, and in safe mode. They hang halfway through the ntoskrnl splash screen!

 

I checked the order in the bios (Award 4.51 w/ a Wintell 440BX chipset) which is a,c,scsi.

I also checked the scsi order (separate menu) and it is ata,scsi.

 

I was never really crazy about those controllers before, something more to go wrong!

[Dirty Harry 0]

Can't understand it, it doesn't happen here when I clone with Drive Image. I've done this for years on several MoBo's both with the drives on the standard IDE controllers, and on the HPT controller.

 

What you are saying is that the cloned drive first boots OK as C as long as it's alone, but the moment you plug in the original drive the cloned one realizes that it's second priority even if you don't change a thing. I'm tempted to say that is impossible.

 

What do you mean "I hooked the drives up to IDE1". The drives MUST be on different cables !!!

 

Could it be that in your bios settings the first boot device is the original (a, c, scsi) and you have only changed the setting for the second boot device ? If number one doesn't exist it will boot from the second one, but the moment nr one comes back it will boot there again.

 

You have both drives on the HPT controller and you are changing the boot drive in the HPT setup screen (not in the system bios), aren't you ?

 

You have no boot menu (i.e the original is not a dual boot config)?

 

What happens if you put the original on HPT and the clone on IDE 1. Again, boot up the clone alone first (as C) then plug in the original without changing anything in Bios/HPT setup.

 

What happens if you clone the drive, and switch the cables around ? Does the orig become D?

 

H.

[videobruce 0]

What do you mean the drives must be on different cables? Since when?I have them on the same cable the way I always had them when I had ME loaded. I've tried them on different cables but that didn't matter.

 

Yes they are on the HPT controiller and I am changing the boot order there.

 

I have no boot menu. Only 1 O/S per active partition/per drive.

 

 

I just talked to Maxtor (the manufacture of the drives) on another issue and he told me regarding moving them to IDE channels, they have to stay on the same bus the O/S was loaded on because of a ID that was sent to the controller on the drive to ID the drive to the system. (or something like that).

 

Drive 1: 2 partitions, first active. This was the one the O/S was loaded to.

 

Drive 2: 2 partitions, first active. This was where the image went to.

 

Both on a Highpoint controller (366).

 

When '1' is set for the boot drive all is ok. It is 'C & E' and drive 2 is 'D & F'.

 

When '2' is set to boot from, it is 'D & F' and drive 1 is still 'C & E'. BUT, before I created a page file there was no page file here. It was only in 'C' (drive 1). I am booting to 'D'.

 

In other words the letters follow the partitions! ( I have seen this before).

 

That same drive by itself won't boot. It gets caught in a looping pattern (for lack of a better term) at the 'preparing network connections' dialog box durning the msgina stage (again, for lack of a better term). Safe mode doesn't work either.

 

These ARC paths I am not familar with. They look ok in the boot.ini file. Here is the text off the file:

 

[boot loader]

timeout=0

default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT

[operating systems]

multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT="Indian Head" /fastdetect /kernel=ntoskrn3.exe

multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT="Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional" /fastdetect

multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT="AMD vs Wintell" /fastdetect /kernel=ntoskrn1.exe

multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT="Dr Stranglove" /fastdetect /kernel=ntoskrn2.exe

multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT="Space Invaders" /fastdetect /kernel=ntoskrn4.exe

multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT="NYCS" /fastdetect /kernel=ntoskrn5.exe

 

As you can see I have been to 'Little White Dog' forums................Changing the boot image in ntoskrnl works fine.

I look at the boot.ini file in my OTHER computer and that looks just about the same. The file is identical in the other drive.

[Dirty Harry 0]

Since beginning of time!

 

Having two hard drives on a master/slave config is pretty much always the LEAST desirable option if you have a controller free. Performance suffers in general, and the slowest device sets the speed for the whole chain.

 

I strongly believe that your problems are caused by the fact that you try to run a master/slave config. In fact, I doubt that you'll ever get it to work with that config. Are you changing the jumper also every time you boot from a different disk? You'd have to do that, and then you mght just as well swap the drives around instead.

 

What the Maxtor guy says sounds good "they have to stay on the same bus the O/S was loaded on" but its not literaly true. Its more than enough if they stay on the same controller, and W2K is just automatically usng the right driver when you swap them around. The classic trick to install W2k the easy way is to do it on the IDE controller, then load the HPT drivers and then move the HD to the HPT controller.

 

You copied the posted ARC paths from somewhere (the file called boot.ini). well, that is a boot menu! The only thing is that as the timeout value is 0 you propably never get to see it.

 

H.

[videobruce 0]

I used only one cable because I didn't feel one drive per cable was necessary. I have always put both hard drives on the same bus. This is my first M/B with a There is enough clutter inside with the other 3 drives (2 CD'd and a Zip). Bothe drives are (or were ) the same except for size, so the speed issue wasn't a factor.

 

The jumper settings are set for cable select since the controllers' bios does the switching. That way has worked without a separate controller and has worked here running ME before I switched to 2k. I know 2k has issues with drive letters and a whole bunch more.

 

What I am going to do is re-image the drive without the other drive connected, as I believe I did befoire on my other system, then transfer that saved image over to the 2nd drive and reboot and see what happens.

 

If that doesn't work, I will try Drive Image which I haven't since I'm comfortable with Ghost and have been able to get it to work in the past.

I don't mind trying new programs, but not at this level of importance without really being sure I need to.

 

I might of mispoke on what Maxtor said. I meant on the same controller not bus.

But it was some ID that was sent to the hard drive itself that is the issue, not the firmware that was loaded.

 

I will change the timeout to see the paths, but that was the default.

 

 

I beleive less is better except in having backups!

[videobruce 0]

Update.........

I tried the above and the same thing.

The screen that hangs is the user settings and save user settings.

This is when only the cloned drive is hooked up. I imaged the first drive without the 2nd drive connected. Then copied the image file to the 2nd drive.

But it gets hung up in a endless loop between loading user settings and saving user settings.. It just cycles 'round and 'round.

 

I'll try Drive Image.

[Dirty Harry 0]

Now, when I assume you've gotten that far that the only problem you have left is the letter problem...

 

That you can fix by having windoze assign the drive letters again, your boot drive will become C. To do this, use regedit and delete the values (all of 'em) you find under HKLM/system/MountedDevices. Upon reboot you'll find that your (real) boot drive is C, if the others went wrong you can change them with the console "Disk Management".

 

Just found out !

 

H.

[videobruce 0]

I have read Drive Image faq's on the drive letter and page file issues with 2k.

I admit Drive Image is far better than Ghost especially the ability to boot back into DOS without the floppy!

 

Will let you know how I make out.

[Dirty Harry 0]

Careful with that boot to dos w/o floppy. Drive Image rewrites your MBR to do this and while great when it works it could spell doom too. I prefer to have a dual boot menu with DOS, makes life easier in general and makes backup with DI a snap.

 

H

[sapiens74 0]

TO set something straight...

 

 

When You use 2 different speed hard drives or devices on any ATA 66 or 100 or 133 IDE controller ....

 

IT IS NOT LIMITED TO THE SLOWEST SPEED DEVICE......

 

THey can both function as thier peak speeds.

 

Stop spreading disinformation and read the damn specs.

[sapiens74 0]

http://www.slcentral.com/reviews/hardware/controllers/promise/ultra100/

 

 

Here's what I mean:

Separate device timing per port allows running drives or devices at their highest rated speeds

[sapiens74 0]

To answer the topic, Ghost has issues sometimes with Windows 2000 and XP:

 

http://service2.symantec.com/SUPPORT/ghost.nsf/docid/1999070716282425

[Dirty Harry 0]

Quote:

TO set something straight...
When You use 2 different speed hard drives or devices on any ATA 66 or 100 or 133 IDE controller ....
IT IS NOT LIMITED TO THE SLOWEST SPEED DEVICE......
THey can both function as thier peak speeds.

OK, I stand corrected, apparently this is only an issue on the classic ATA-2 controllers.

Still, pretty much any tweaking guide will tell you that it does degrade overall performance if you use the Master/slave config and you are better off having the devices on separate controllers. Or I you saying that it doesn't matter ? And frankly I don't understand how one controller with a capacity 100 MB/sec can receive data from two devices each spitting out 100MB/sec at the same time. Not that that happens often, sustained transfer rate is not the same as burst speed but it looks like a bottleneck to me.

In this case we are talking about using the BIOS as a boot manager and shutting off one drive completely through BIOS, I doubt that is doable with a master/slave config.

H.

[sapiens74 0]

I wouldnt put like a CDRW and a hard drive on the same channel unless I was out of room. Tho I believe USB 2 takes care of this by taking the slower devices off the IDE channel and letting on hard drives occupy it

[videobruce 0]

I think we are getting off the topic.............but since it was brought up, I have read many places that you can't mix hard drive types on the same bus (33 with a 100 as example).

 

I have just used Drive Image and the drive letter issue seems to be resolved on the cloned drive! The drive that is booting is 'C' (as it should be). I will see if it will boot by itself and let you know.

 

Regarding Drive Image rewriting the MBR, is this a one time deal when it goes into its DOS mode and then returns it to the previous state after the next reboot?? You are starting to get me nervious.

[Dirty Harry 0]

Glad you got it working!

 

Yes, its supposed to be a one time deal (back and forth every time you use it), but I've seen posts from ppl where it turned out to be a one way deal (didn't revert). I have no idea how frequently problems occure, but Powerquest has a support page with instructions on how to fix it. It involves running fdisk/mbr etc, so I've choosen to run a dual boot to DOS, which I find useful for some other reasons also.

 

I'm running two HD:s, one CD-R and one CD-RW and have four ATA channels - each on its own channel.

 

H.

[videobruce 0]

I went thru and check both drives together and then separately and all is well..........wonders never cease!

 

Both boot, either with both connected, or with the other one disconnected. No drive letter or page file problems.

 

I am interested in this MBR issue. If I understand you correctly, D.I. rewrites the MBR to load this virtual floppy (as they call it) into the root of 'C'(I assume) and writes a command line to point to this folder or file to load this program on the reboot?

[sapiens74 0]

Cool you got it to work, but the you can mix different speeds. Read the link

[sapiens74 0]

btw the reason y ou guys thought that because it was a limitation of older IDE controllers

[Dirty Harry 0]

Quote:

I am interested in this MBR issue. If I understand you correctly, D.I. rewrites the MBR to load this virtual floppy (as they call it) into the root of 'C'(I assume) and writes a command line to point to this folder or file to load this program on the reboot?

Yep, thats pretty much how I've understood it. You can start your studies at http://www.powerquest.com/support/primus/id1811.html
there they describe the fix. I think I saw somewhere at PQ a description of how it works too.

H

[videobruce 0]

I did see that article.

 

That seemed to be the problem with the Ghost image.

 

Couldn't find how it works though.