how to determine boot drive?

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relativenewbie - 24 Jun 2007 03:54 GMT

I have two hard drives in my computer, one designated C: and the other E:.
Recently, due to a virus problem, I had to reinstall windows on my computer.
Now I have windows on both hard drives. How do I determine which drive has
the "working" copy of windows and which one I can format to get rid of the
unnecessary files? My friend suggested unplugging one hard drive and seeing
if the computer starts up, but I dislike messing with my hardware. Thank you
for your answer.

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Andrew E. - 24 Jun 2007 07:38 GMT

You installed the OS with both hds being connected,one only for installation.
For boot drive priority,enter the BIOS,select advanced chipset,boot priority.

> I have two hard drives in my computer, one designated C: and the other E:.
> Recently, due to a virus problem, I had to reinstall windows on my computer.
[quoted text clipped - 3 lines]
> if the computer starts up, but I dislike messing with my hardware. Thank you
> for your answer.

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Timothy Daniels - 24 Jun 2007 17:44 GMT

> I have two hard drives in my computer, one designated C: and
> the other E:. Recently, due to a virus problem, I had to reinstall
> windows on my computer. Now I have windows on both hard
> drives. How do I determine which drive has the "working" copy
> of windows and which one I can format to get rid of the
> unnecessary files?

Unless you've diddled with the BIOS, the same hard drive gets
control at startup now as before. But that hard drive's boot menu
file, "boot.ini", which is in the hard drive's "active" partition, is capable
of telling the boot loader, "ntldr", to load Windows from any partition
on any hard drive in the system. But assuming that each of your hard
drives has only one partition, check just below the root level of that
partition for boot.ini, i.e. at C:\boot.ini and E:\boot.ini, and post their
contents here. If only one of the hard drives (i.e. partitions) has a
boot.ini file, just post that one, but state that only one was present.
Also state whether the old Windows XP was on C: or E:

If you can't see boot.ini, you may have to "unhide" your system's
"hidden files":
ControlPanel/FolderOptions/View tab/HiddenFilesAndFolders/
check "Show hidden files and folders".

*TimDaniels*

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relativenewbie - 24 Jun 2007 22:22 GMT

The bios is set to boot from cdrom, then the c:\ drive, then the floppy
drive. Also, I found "boot.ini.backup" on the C:\ drive in C:\windows\pss
folder. I wasn't able to open it; it's a 1kb backup file? There was no
boot.ini file on the E:\ drive. Does that mean I can format E without having
to reinstall windows? One thing that has puzzled me is that now, when I save
a file from the internet, it goes to path E:\... where it used to go to
C:\... Any thoughts on that? Thank you.

> > I have two hard drives in my computer, one designated C: and
> > the other E:. Recently, due to a virus problem, I had to reinstall
[quoted text clipped - 20 lines]
>
> *TimDaniels*

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relativenewbie - 24 Jun 2007 22:27 GMT

Oh whoops, here's the text from C:\boot.ini:
[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(2)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(2)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP
Professional" /fastdetect /NoExecute=OptIn
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP
Professional" /fastdetect

There was no file found for E:\boot.ini

> > I have two hard drives in my computer, one designated C: and
> > the other E:. Recently, due to a virus problem, I had to reinstall
[quoted text clipped - 20 lines]
>
> *TimDaniels*

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Timothy Daniels - 24 Jun 2007 23:57 GMT

Very strange. The boot.ini file refers to "rdisk(2)" as the
physical hard drive containing the partition that has the default
OS. It also has "rdisk(0)" as the physical hard drive containing
the partition that has the 2nd OS. This implies that there is a
3rd physical hard drive in your system that would correspond
to "rdisk(1)".
1) Do you by chance have a mix of PATA and SATA hard
drives such that a PATA hard drive that would otherwise
be "rdisk(1)" is absent so the numbering resumes with a
SATA hard drive as "rdisk(2)"?
2) How does the BIOS list your hard drives (i.e. in what order)?
3) What happens when you choose each of the menu selections
at boot time?

> Oh whoops, here's the text from C:\boot.ini:
> [boot loader]
[quoted text clipped - 32 lines]
>>
>> *TimDaniels*

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relativenewbie - 25 Jun 2007 00:21 GMT

I'm sorry, I don't know what PATA and SATA means.
My boot order in bios is cdrom, C, A.
The first selection of windows when I boot up takes me to the new install.
The second selection, which I hadn't tried until now, boots up with the
installation I was trying to fix, my old settings, startup programs, desktop,
etc. I was trying to "install over" that one because it had a virus and some
missing file problems.
When I installed windows the second time, I noticed it made a drive F:\
partition, which was corrupted and unreadable. I looked up steps on the
Microsoft website to use the device manager to remove it. Hope this helps.

> Very strange. The boot.ini file refers to "rdisk(2)" as the
> physical hard drive containing the partition that has the default
[quoted text clipped - 46 lines]
> >>
> >> *TimDaniels*

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Timothy Daniels - 25 Jun 2007 08:23 GMT

> I'm sorry, I don't know what PATA and SATA means.

"PATA" stands for Parallel ATA, i.e. the old "IDE" HDs.
The later ones use a flat ribbon cable with 80 wires.
"SATA" stands for Serial ATA, i.e. the newer HDs.
They us a narrower fatter cable that is somewhat stiff.

> My boot order in bios is cdrom, C, A.

That's the Device Boot Order. It means that the BIOS
first looks for a CD in the CD drive from which to boot,
then it will look for a hard drive, then it will look for a
floppy drive.

The Hard Drive Boot Order is a prioritized list of the
physical hard drives that the BIOS finds in the system.
They may be named by their model numbers.
The 1st HD, i.e. at position 0 in the list, is the one that
the loader will go to first to look for a valid Master
Boot Record (MBR). If a valid MBR is found, the
MBR will direct the loader to that Primary partition (as
opposed to an Extended partition) which is marked "active",
and the Boot Sector in that partition is expected to contain
the boot files: ntldr, boot.ini, and ntdetect.com . To find
the BIOS's Hard Drive Boot Order (which it may call the
"hard drive priority" or something similar) you may have
to explore the BIOS's menu.

> The first selection of windows when I boot up takes me to
> the new install.

OK, that's the one that corresponds to "rdisk(2)" in
your boot.ini file.

> The second selection, which I hadn't tried until now, boots up
> with the installation I was trying to fix, my old settings, startup
> programs, desktop, etc.

OK, that one corresponds to "rdisk(0)" in your boot.ini .

> I was trying to "install over" that one because it had a virus and
> some missing file problems. When I installed windows the
> second time, I noticed it made a drive F:\ partition, which was
> corrupted and unreadable. I looked up steps on the Microsoft
> website to use the device manager to remove it.

If both your hard drives are SATA, you may have connected
the 1st drive to port 0, and the 2nd drive to port 2. Not
knowing what computer you have and not knowing the details
of your BIOS, I cannot with certainty know why there is no
"rdisk(1)" in your system. In any event, the creation and
deletion of a partition wouldn't have affected the hard drive
boot order in the BIOS.

So, ignoring the unknown and working with what *is* known -
that "rdisk(2)" is the 2nd drive and "rdisk(0)" is the 1st drive,
let's get rid of the OS in the 1st HD, the one with the virus(es).

First, make a generic boot.ini file that will work with all values
of "rdisk()" and put it on both of the hard drives so if we guess
wrong, we can still boot one or the other OS from the boot files
on either HD. To do that, duplicate the entries under
"[operating systems]" so that there are 4 entries instead of the
current 2 entries. Make each entry have a different value of
"x" in "rdisk(x)" for values of x ranging from 0 to 3, and also
put that value somewhere in the character string, i.e. between
the two quotation marks, so you can see it in the boot menu
when it appears on the screen. Then copy that boot.ini, along
with ntldr and ntdetect.com over to the 2nd hard drive at
positions just below E: . Then restart the PC, and choose the
boot menu entry with "ridisk(2)" in it. The new OS in the 2nd
HD should start up with "E:" as the root of its file system.

If the new OS starts up OK, you can then swap the HDs' cable
positions (resetting the Master/Slave jumpers if they are PATA
HDs) and restart again. From the boot menu (which comes from
the boot.ini in the 2nd HD, verify the previous results by selecting
the entry that has "rdisk(0)" - indicating the 2nd HD that is now
in position 0. Your newly installed OS should again start up OK
with "E:" as the root of the file system.

If it does, you can pare the entries under "[operating systems]"
in the boot.ini of the 2nd HD (now in position 0) down to just
the entry with "rdisk(0)", and you might as well reset the timeout
value to 0 (but not necessary since ntldr will ignore it if there is
only one OS entry). You can now transfer your data files
from the old HD to the new HD. After that, you can reformat
the old hard drive and use it for storage. Your new OS will
always call its partition "E:", but it doesn't really matter.

If the new OS does NOT start up after the HD swap, re-swap
the HDs, and restart the PC, and see which of the 4 menu
entries loads each OS, and report back here.

*TimDaniels*

>> Very strange. The boot.ini file refers to "rdisk(2)" as the
>> physical hard drive containing the partition that has the default
[quoted text clipped - 48 lines]
>> >>
>> >> *TimDaniels*

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relativenewbie - 26 Jun 2007 00:49 GMT

ok, I think I understand all those instructions. I probably won't have a
chance to do this until the weekend, but I will let you know how it turns
out. Thanks so much.

> > I'm sorry, I don't know what PATA and SATA means.
>
[quoted text clipped - 144 lines]
> >> >>
> >> >> *TimDaniels*

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