Dual Booting Windows 2000 from two drives

[Dirty Harry 0]

What I want to achieve is to easily copy my Win 2000 main boot partition to another HD in the same machine, then boot from this copy and play around with it, being sure that the original stays untouched. Why do I want this? It feels like the fastest and easiest way of making a 1:1 copy of my "real" system to play around with, test drivers and software etc. Every now and then (or if something goes wrong) I just replace it with another fresh copy.

 

With Win98 this was easily done in my system. My Abit BE6 MoBo (rev1) has an Highpoint ATA 66 controller on board, and have two physical HD:s, one on the ATA66 controller and one on the "standard" ATA 33 controller. In the (Award) bios one can set the boot sequence to be EXT, so that the machine boots from the ATA66 controller (calling the drive C). If I set the boot sequence to C (as opposed to EXT) it boots from the "standard" ATA33 controller. With win98 I made a copy (using Drive Image) of my main boot partition (C on the ATA66) and restored it to the HD on the ATA33. After this I could use Bios as a boot manager and boot from either drive. Both appeared as C when up and running.

 

How can I best achieve the same result after upgrading to Win 2000 Pro? My old scheme doesn't work, because W2K "freezes" the names of the drives. It appears I boot from D (=the copy on the ATA33 controller): but all programs are loaded from the original C, still called C. If I start changing the drive names, programs don't work as their path is fixed in the registry. I don't believe a boot manager is a solution either, as I must change the boot sequence in Bios due to the fact that my HD:s are on different controllers. I could have two boot partitions on the ATA66 HD but I would rather boot from a different drive all together.

 

Any ideas on how to easily create a copy of the existing boot partition including W2K + apps, and boot from this being sure that installations, settings, drivers do not touch the original?

[Pupher 0]

Have you tried "disabling" in CMOS the controller with your backup. I had the same motherboard couple months ago and that was the way I had to do it to swap drives for Win2k.

 

Pupher

[rbarbier 0]

The best thing to do is install Win2000 with both harddrives on the ATA33 controller card. Not the HPT366 making sure the drive letters are how you like. Once finished installing Win2000, switch BOTH drives to the HPT366 once again making sure the drive letters are the way you like. If not then switch the drive cables. Goto the bios and boot off the EXT and make sure EXT = UDMA66 not SCSI.

[Dirty Harry 0]

Thanks Pupher and rbarbier for the suggestions. Thr problem is that I have my main boot drive, the one I want to be protected from my tinkering, on the ATA66. It seems ther is no way of disabling the HPT366 (?). Disabling the ATA33 doesn't help. It seems that the only possibility would be to have both the original and the test partition on the ATA66 drive, I guess I could use the boot.ini then to choose between which partition I start up with.

 

--Harry

[slkh 0]

okay, this is what I do. I backup the whole Windows 2000 using Winace into a single ZIP file which include every files (exclude swap file) in the root directory, WINNT directory, Document and Settings, and Program Files. Then next, I unzip it to my other drive (say D: Drive) in its root directory.

 

Next I need a Windows 98 boot disk with fdisk.exe program in it. Go into the BIOS, disable the drive C:. And also set it as boot from Floppy drive.

 

Use the Boot disk, run fdisk and set the status as Active.

 

Next use the original Windows 2000 CD. Boot from Windows 2000 CD, then choose to repair Windows 2000 installation, uncheck everything expect Inspect Boot sector.

 

After that, you should be able to boot from your new drive. Maybe a few tweak around with the boot.ini file in the root directory is necessary.

 

So now you have two copy of running Windows 2000, one in C drive and the other in D drive. Now enable your Drive C from BIOS again.

 

You can multiboot from C drive from BIOS boot sequence as C, CDROM, Floppy, etc, etc.. When you want to boot from Windows 2000 in D Drive, then go to BIOS, set it as D, CDROM, floppy etc, etc.

 

Another way to do it is to edit your C:\boot.ini file to include your D Drive Windows into the OS Menu. Be sure to backup your existing boot.ini incase you screw up.

Then in future, you boot from your C drive, with the option of choosing to boot from C drive or D drive in the OS menu.

 

I know I haven't explain it in detail enough. But if you have question, do feel free to ask.

 

Oh one more thing, I would advise to work on FAT32 partition instead of NTFS partition because if anything screw up, you won't be able to access your NTFS partition from bootdisk. Although what I have mentioned should not need you to boot into your drive using a bootdisk, but this is just a safety precaution. The likely possible of the need to boot into your drive using floppy is when you edit the boot.ini file wrongly.

[nova 0]

Hi!

 

First, you might want to read my post at: http://www.ntcompatible.com/ubb/Forum2/HTML/000204-3.html

 

Then: why do you insist on CLONING your existing Win2k installation???? You don't really want to WORK with the copy, do you? If you just want to have a second Win2k to have a running backup system in the case of a failure of your main Win2k and to try out drivers and stuff, then you don't need an exact copy! It's sufficient to simply install Win2k a second time, but into the other partition.

 

Of course you may still "backup" your main Win2k instance using a partition imaging or backup tool, but DON'T COPY such a backup into ANOTHER partition, it's not meant to work this way.

 

And, to slkh: I'm not sure if it's such a good advise to use FAT instead of NTFS just to be able to use a boot disk in emergencies!

 

If you use FAT for your Win2k system, you are missing A LOT of the enhanced features of the much more robust NTFS (including a better error recovery, see other post). Besides, for large FAT32 partitions (over 8GB), pure DOS (that's what a regular boot disk uses) CANNOT access files that are located beyond the first 8GB of the physical hard disk (yes, I know that Win9x can, but that doesn't fit on a boot disk)! So in most cases, a boot disk is not a very good recovery option anyway (add to it that DOS can't handle long file names!).

 

IMHO the far far far superior backup/recovery solution is to have a second working Win2k installation on your HD. Yes, it eats another 1GB, but I think it IS affordable considering the advantages!

 

Send flames to nova@mehnle.net...

 

nova.

 

[This message has been edited by nova (edited 31 May 2000).]

[CUViper 0]

nova: is the 8gb limit there for a win9x bootdisk as well? I don't remember ever having problems, but i've never really tested it either To be honest, I've never heard of anyone having a problem with that...

 

I do know that I have some dos games that run just fine in a win9x command prompt (without windows running), but I have no idea if they are within the first 8gb of my hd....

[slkh 0]

Nova,

 

I agree with what you say about NTFS partition. NTFS is superior FAT32 in SOME case, no doubt. The lack of bootdisk support is quite a major drawback infact. Well, at the very least, I still want my core files (NTLDR, BOOT.INI, NTDETECT.COM, etc) files to be in FAT16/32, the rest of them can be in NTFS.

 

I know two working Windows 2000 is a good solution. Just in case, the boot.ini screw up, you might end up not able to boot either of them

 

I have two working Windows 2000 too, if either one of them is dead, I can restore them back from my CD under 7 min, 10 min at most. If boot.ini is dead, I can restore them in under 1 min, instead of reinstalling everything if they are in NTFS.

 

You mentioned about bootdisk FAT32 not able to access any files above 8Gb, I do not quite agree infact. I would have agree with you if you say FAT32 partition above 8 Gb is unbootable. But hey, that applies to NTFS partition and ext2 partition as well

 

Long File name support from bootdisk? Not so interested, I am only interested in ability to access to my core files (boot.ini) incase it screw up

[nova 0]

CUViper, slkh:

 

To access files beyond the 8GB limit, the OS needs to support the so-called INT13 extensions (which most new mainboard/SCSI controller BIOSes have included). DOS does not use these INT13 extensions and therefore must access the physical disk using the conventional sector addressing methods (LBA=Logical Block Address, CHS=Cylinders/Heads/Sectors) which only allow access to the first 8GB of the disk.

 

Please read IBM Hard Disk Drive Knowledge Base - Getting Beyond the ATA 8.4GB Limit for further info.

 

As soon as Win9x is started from DOS, you can access all your files, because Win9x supports the INT13 extensions.

 

slkh: are you aware that you can make a boot disk with the NT/Win2k boot sector (just format the disk under NT/Win2k), and put your boot.ini on it? You then can use that boot disk to boot all your OSes if your boot sector or boot.ini ever become garbled!

 

Besides there's the Recovery Console of Win2k, a sort of text-mode only mini-Win2k, which you can use to repair, recover, copy, etc. all of your files, even on NTFS disks, and you can enable/disable drivers if your Win2k won't start any more after you have fiddled with the drivers. This is a very powerful tool that comes with every Win2k CD. Install it with

 

X:\I386\WINNT32.EXE /CMDCONS

 

(X: is your CD-ROM drive.)

 

It takes about 7MB on your boot partition (which may be FAT16, FAT32 or NTFS) and automatically makes an entry in your boot.ini! (The Recovery Console has saved my life more than once!)

 

You can also always start the recovery console from a bootable Win2k CD if you haven't installed it on your HD or the version on your HD is corrupted!

 

Another hint for the RC: by default you can only access files within the root directory of each drive and within the \WINNT directory. But you can enable full access to all files by opening

 

"Control Panel --> Administrative Tools --> Local Security Policy --> Local Policies --> Security Options --> Recovery Console: Allow floppy copy and access to all drives and all folders"

 

and setting the value to "Enabled". There seems to be a bug that requires you to do the procedure TWICE the first time you make any changes within the "Local Security Policy". Double-check that the setting is listed as enabled when you close and re-open the "Local Security Policy"!!

 

As mentioned above, I don't believe that Win9x can boot if some of the files in the \WINDOWS directory are above the 8GB limit.

 

But Win2k can. All that is needed is the "new" Win2k boot sector. I've done it myself on my 10GB Maxtor IDE drive, where the last partition was 1GB and at the absolute end of the disk (so it started at about 9GB). NT4 can't do it because the standard NT4 boot sector is too stupid.

 

Regarding ext2fs/Linux/LILO (the Linux boot sector), I am not sure.

 

nova.

 

[This message has been edited by nova (edited 01 June 2000).]

[nova 0]

Ok, everyone! I have decided that I will create a

 

"Drive Letter / Boot Sector / Dual Boot Win2k/Win98 / Dual Boot Win2k/Win2k / NTFS vs. FAT / Recovery Solutions" FAQ.

 

Please note that I'm really busy at the moment setting up a new Q3 mod (and a quite complex web site for it, including a yet-to-be-self-made message board, etc.), so I can't do the FAQ within the next 2 to 3 weeks.

 

But I will make a post here when I've finished the FAQ.

 

There seem to be so many misunderstandings about the above topics, and multiple people already have contacted me via email, so I see the definite need for a collective answering of all the questions.

 

nova.

[slkh 0]

I regard the inability to boot any partition above 8 Gb limit as the BIOS limitation rather than the Operating system limitation. This holds true for every operating system. Their boot partition must be at the beginning of the disk (I mean the start of the partition [Where the boot sector will be stored] must be before 8 Gb). This is the BIOS limitation. [Like what you said sector/tracks/cylinder, etc]

 

After bootup, the addressing mechanism is transfered to the Operating System. Operating system take control over all the location of the files. They are stored in the FAT (File Allocation Table). Files are located according to their clusters -- not by sectors. While I am in Pure DOS prompt [boot from bootdisk], the address of each file is located using clusters [under DOS control]. I shouldn't have any problem accessing any files in my partition (This include files above 8 Gb).

 

Now, all above that I have mentioned is theory. Talking from experience now, I don't remember I have any problem deleting/editing/moving files above 8 Gb location from Pure DOS. I think CUViper agree with me as well, not having any problem with 8 Gb limitation under DOS.

 

I personally haven't install my Windows at any location above 8 Gb [The starting location above 8 Gb, I mean], because I know there is no chance my partition will boot up just by merely setting Active boot partition from FDISK. That is again BIOS issue here, coz Operating system not loaded up yet, computer still doesn't know what is a cluster.

[nova 0]

slkh, you are right, I have been in error!

 

After doing some research (including creating a 1GB FAT32 partition myself at about the position of 15GB on my hard disk and successfully accessing it under DOS 7), I see that DOS seems not to have any problems accessing files beyond the 8GB barrier. I've come to the conclusion that indeed it is a BIOS limitation in older mainboard or SCSI adapter BIOSes.

 

Although the OS must support the INT13 extensions and use the LBA (Logical Block Address) addressing method (which DOS seems to do; I was in error here, too)!

 

Newer OSes (Win95 SR2+, Win98, Win2k) should not have problems accessing partitions larger than 8GB, nor booting from them. NT4 does have a 8GB limitation that lies in the stupidity of the NT4 boot sector. See Q224526.

 

nova.