Date: Tue, 30 Nov 2004 20:47:59 +0100 From: Philip Nienhuis <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Re: [LIB] Question on W2000 & partitioning
Matt Hanson wrote: ...<snip> > (On boot managers:) > > Philip Nienhuis <[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote > > ...<snip> > > But: why do you hide primary partitions? On my ...<snip> > But if WinNT was doing what you describe W2K as doing, > it may have been useless. Hmm... I don't know NT, but its disk management may be similar to Win2K. If so, there's your explanation. > > Indeed, two Windows versions (W2K > > full & W98) share _all_ programs in C:\Programs > > (renamed from Program Files), incl. IE, virus > > scanners and Office suites, even the swap file. > > I read that process on your website, but thought I'd > go the route I had in the past. Guess that was the > beginning of my present problems. I agree this sort of hacking is not for the weak-of-heart. > > As I mentioned before, W2K needs to have its boot > > drive letter match the enumerated number of its > > boot partition, both in C:\boot.ini but also in > > the registry and in the volume GUIDs on cyl. 0 > > (beyond the MBR). The latter ones can be fixed > > (reinitialized) by running FDISK /MBR from a plain > > DOS prompt. Afterward, once booted in Win2K you > > will need to run Disk Manager to fix all drive > > letters. I strongly suggest to run FDISK/MBR, > > otherwise you run the risk that Win2K simply can't > > login, or perhaps even can't boot. Perhaps on a Libretto this (FDISK /MBR from DOS) is not such a good idea after all.... > Okay... but I'm still afraid I'll loose my logical > drives >8GB if I run that booted from a floppy. > > I'm guessing that you run that from a command prompt > from within W2K, right? If I booted the system from a No! you should do that from a pure booted-into-DOS prompt - according to Microsoft's Knowledge base, that is. But! you can also do it from a Win2K Recovery Console, it may be something like FIXMBR or so. Perhaps a better option because it won't wipe the >8GB partitions. (I'm so used to OS/2's FDISK and Linux cfdisk that I forgot that Win9x FDISK has the 8 GB barrier.) > FD, and ran it from the A:\ prompt, I'd guess that the > Libretto's BIOS limitation would result in the > partition data >8GB being totally wiped out. Yes, sorry, might very well be true. > > > Why is that? > > As far as boot.ini is involved: > > ------------------------------- > > If your image was from the very first primary > > partition on your HD, in boot.ini the relevant > > entry will look like > multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition > > (0)\WINNT or so. But if the very first primary on > > your new layout was for another W2K or Win98, and > > the non-hidden primary you want > > to boot from occupies slot #2or #3 in the MBR, it > > should look like: > > multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT or > > multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINNT. > > I've just deleted the 2 partitions I had for W2K and > W98, created new ones in their place, and restored W2K > & W98 images to them respectively. These are > approximations: > > Drive 0: 3GB FAT32 Primary [W2000] > Drive 1: 2.5GB FAT32 [Hidden] Primary [W98] > Drive 2: 2.5GB FAT32 Logical [Data] > Drive 3: 70MB FAT32 Logical [Libretto hibernation] > Drive 4: 30GB FAT32 Logical [Data] > > I see W2K's Disk Manager has indeed found the W98 > partition as you pointed out, so I guess that explains > why the entry in boot.ini now appears like the 2nd > example you gave above: > > multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT > > > As far as volume identifiers (GUIDs) are involved: > > -------------------------------------------------- > > Win2K puts info about all (yes ALL) partitions on > > your hard disk*S* +all removable media HW ever seen > > on your PC on HD # 1 cyl. 0 track 0, behind the MBR > > itself. > > I've noticed that. It creates a folder named "System > Volume Information" on every drive installed to the > system, as WXP does. After I lost my 30GB >8GB data > partition when PM froze converting the partition to a > logical one, I had to put the drive in the WXP desktop > to copy my MP3s back to a newly created >8GB > partition. I was wondering if the "System Volume > Information" folder it created may have made problems > when I put the drive back in the 110 and booted W2K. Sorry I wouldn't know. > > If something or > > someone pokes around in this database w/o Win2K's > > consent, or if Win2K finds that the database > > doesn't adequately refer to the current partition > > scheme, it will think the volume info is ruined and > > it will reassign new GUIDs to all partitions > > (...rattling HD after booting up, long delays, very > > irresponsive OS, and finally a message "New devices > > are installed, reboot?"). > > Oh boy... that sounds >very< familiar. I've found > that merely installing or uninstalling EZ-Drive will > cause W2K to go through that. (grin) yes I learned it the hard way, too. Save for that EZ-drive thing of course. Please Matt, EZ-drive may be good for Win9x systems. With Win2K, it will only complicate things. <about PM> > Well... as I wrote earlier this year or sometime last > year when we thrashed all this out, if you want to do > any partitioning with Partition Magic at all from > within Windows on a >8GB HDD, you >have< to install > EZ-Drive. Otherwise the PM partition GUI will run > right off the right side of the screen, and I assume > PM won't partition correctly. Yes but Win2K's disk management combines EZ-drive + (most of) PM. So.... ....<snip> > Is there no way of installing W98 onto another > partition >after< installing W2K, and then getting W2K > to dual-boot both? I've put in so many hours setting (Didn't you say it's a hobby?) Must be possible. Should be something like this: - Use bootpart (www.winimage.com) to save the Win2K boot sector from C: - Install Win98 on another partition then where you've put Win2K - Restore boot sector on C: - Add a stanza to boot.ini for Win98 (check in your current boot.ini what it looks like) The vital thing is to save the Win2K boot sector. ...<snip> > Or if I have to reinstall W2K, how about restoring a > W98 image to drive 1, and then do a fresh install of > W2K on drive 0? That would be the easiest. Win2K will fix the boot menu for you while installing. Philip
