Can't boot without both hard drives connected

[Guest]

Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsxp.hardware (More info?)

I'm running win xp pro with a sata hard drive. I wanted to add an extra
sata hard rive for storage, but I only want the drive connected
sometimes when I need it. I formatted it in windows using
administrative tools. Everything boots up fine when I have both drives
connected, but when I disconnect the new storage drive I can't boot in
to windows, I'm just getting a dos prompt. I tried playing around with
the boot sequence in the bios but that doesn't help. How can I fix
this?


--
vikingdude

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsxp.hardware (More info?)

"Pat Coghlan" wrote:
> vikingdude wrote:
>
>>I'm running win xp pro with a sata hard drive. I wanted
>> to add an extra sata hard rive for storage, but I only
>> want the drive connected sometimes when I need it.
>> I formatted it in windows using administrative tools.
>> Everything boots up fine when I have both drives
>>connected, but when I disconnect the new storage drive
>> I can't boot in to windows, I'm just getting a dos prompt.
>> I tried playing around with the boot sequence in the bios
>> but that doesn't help. How can I fix this?
>>
>>
>>
> The BIOS essentially does the following:
>
> * locate first bootable drive
> * read MBR (master boot record) and determine which
> is the active partition
> * read BOOT.INI from active partition and determine
> which partition to boot from (see RDISK() parameter)


The boot.ini contains entries pointing to the locations
of the OSes to load. These locations are expressed
(in part) by "rdisk()" and "partition()".

"rdisk()" indicates the HD in terms of its relative position
in the BIOS's HD boot order. The 1st HD listed in that
order has Relative Position 0, so its location is "rdisk(0)".
By default, that is usually the Master HD on IDE ch. 0.
By default, the Slave HD on IDE ch. 0 is "rdisk(1)", but
the HD boot order can be changed by keyboard input
to the BIOS at any bootup time.

"partition()" indicates the no. of the partition where the
OS is. The 1st partition is partition #1, so its partition
parameter is "partition(1)".



> * load/execute NETLDR (?)...this is what puts you in Windows, DOS,
> Linux etc.


ntldr puts up the boot menu according to the entries
in boot.ini, and it loads the OS that is selected
(perhaps by default or timeout) from that menu.


> You're getting a DOS prompt, so it would appear that somehow you're
> booting from a DOS partition. You need to ascertain whether your
> computer is booting from the partition that you think contains your
> WinXP system.


Let's see the contents of the C:\boot.ini file.

*TimDaniels*