Drive letter??

[mousepotato2]

...ok....first off I hosed my XP...used another drive and reinstalled, used a recovery tool to get files off the hosed drive onto a 3rd drive....then used HDClone to move XP to the hosed drive since it's a Sata2 drive....used gParted to change the size of the drive...all is good except the Sata is drive D and the IDE I reinstalled to is C (which is the backup XP now)...if I disconnect the C (ide) drive and then use "fixmbr" will that work or is there another way??....or is there any way?? Sata is first boot in bios...

system works great and boots to either drive with F8 but I'd still like the drive letters in the "normal" order.....

[Sterling_Aug]

The drive letter doesn't matter as long as the drives boot.

FixMBR should repair the boot loader if you remove the second drive and leave only one drive in the PC.

[mousepotato2]

Thanks Sterling....
If I'm correct Fixmbr will re-set the "D" drive to a "C" drive as long as the other drives (namely the "C") are not connected...then after I reboot ok I can re attach the IDE drive(s) and they should re-assign above "C"...then since my bios will boot from each drive when I change and boot to the ide IT will see itself as "C" but otherwise the Sata XP drive will see it different...??....
...or is there an easier way by editing the boot.ini???....I know there's a lot more to that (read some of your posts to that subject)....
...yes, it works great as is but....always the quest for knolage!!!
.....you guys (and girls) are great.....haven't seen Fancy in ages!!!

(edit)...PS...it "auto boots" to the Sata drive.....I use F8 only to get to the other drives when I want (the backup XP)...in case my "F8" comment was misleading...

[mousepotato2]

hate to "bump" this but have a question.....before I re-installed XP and cloned it over to the sata drive I made the mistake of using fixboot to try to access the hosed sata drive so the "C" drive has this boot.ini:
[boot loader]
timeout=23
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(2)partition(1)\WINDOW S
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(1)\WINDOWS="WinXP 2" windows
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="WinXP 1" windows

where WINXP1 is the "C" drive (and WINXP2 will boot to the "D" sata drive after I cloned it....), I modified the boot.ini on the "D" drive like this:
[boot loader]
timeout=0
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(1)\WINDOWS="WinXP 2" windows

and set my bios to boot from the sata drive first so no one would boot to the "C" drive (which is backup now)....the question is if I modified the boot ini on "D" to:
[boot loader]
timeout=0
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="WinXP 2" windows
and the boot ini on "C" to:
[boot loader]
redirect=useBiosSettings
redirectbaudrate=
timeout=23
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(2)partition(1)\WINDOW S
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="WinXP 2" windows
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(1)\WINDOWS="WinXP 1" windows

would that change the drive letters???..."D" to "C" and "C" to "D" ???

...reason I ask is my XP disk won't boot (need a new one...all of my other boot disks work fine) so I haven't tried the "fixmbr" thing and it works fine as is just trying to learn.....
....can't make omlettes without breaking a few eggs!!....lol

[Lgbpop]

OK, this is going to be a mess if you go any further. There should only be one BOOT.INI file. Period. It should be on the primary hard drive.

Take out all hard drives except for the one you want to boot from, then open msconfig and under the BOOT.INI tab, click Check all Boot Paths. This should clean up and properly write the file.

I (and others here) was driven to drink last year by someone who completely goat-screwed their computer by insisting on using multiple BOOT.INI files, and couldn't understand how that was messing things up. He thought WE were complete morons because we couldn't tell him how to set it up that way. Consider a manual transmission in your car...you can have many gears, but you only have - or NEED - one shift lever to choose your operating gear. Same idea applies here.

[mousepotato2]

....wait a minute....
first off EACH bootable drive has it's own boot.ini....
...second unless the boot.ini refers to more than one drive (and does not refer to an invald boot path) it won't have a problem booting to the drive it says to...
3rd....my "C" drive has a boot.ini that refers to more than one drive but is NOT the drive my bios boot to, my bios boots to the "D" drive that has ONLY one drive for it's boot.ini so it boots to the "D" drive without a hitch and DOES NOT see the "C" drive as an option....the "C" drive has 2 valid boot options (via IT's boot.ini) that allows me to boot to either bootable drive by hitting F8 on the bios boot and choosing the "C" drive (instead of the default "D" sata drive) and THAT works fine...
...4th.....I save my original boot.ini files and know enough to rename in DOS so I can rename the originals if I need to....
...............and.......I want to be able to multi boot with a couple versions of linux ( I have several removable drives with 3 masters in this system at any given time) so I want to know how to modify the boot.ini and grub boot loader (and even LILO if needed)......................
........so .....back to the original question!!!!

(thanks though!!)

[mousepotato2]

...edit....this is my backup "C" boot.ini:
[boot loader]
redirect=useBiosSettings
redirectbaudrate=
timeout=23
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(2)partition(1)\WINDOW S
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="WinXP 2" windows
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(1)\WINDOWS="WinXP 1" windows

this is my actual "C" boot.ini:
[boot loader]
timeout=23
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(2)partition(1)\WINDOW S
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="WinXP 2" windows
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(1)\WINDOWS="WinXP 1" windows

...they both work........

[mousepotato2]

Take out all hard drives except for the one you want to boot from, then open msconfig and under the BOOT.INI tab, click Check all Boot Paths. This should clean up and properly write the file.

...BTW...as the boot.ini is on the "D" drive it won't boot without the "C" drive in...if I'm right it's because:
[boot loader]
timeout=20
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(1)\WINDOWS="WinXP2" windows
says: rdisk(1)instead of: rdisk(0) .... am I correct???

[Lgbpop]

I have three hard drives in my present rig, with the four OSs in my sig. There is one BOOT.INI file. It would be in the oldest of different Windows versions, and the first install of same-version installs. All other subsequent installs modify the original boot file.

You've now posted three times trying to figure out an explanation and solution for your problem because you won't believe the one correct answer. I'm not going to even bother arguing it. You're welcome to continue trying to make it work. Good luck.

[mousepotato2]

....thank you Lgbpop....not trying to sound like I don't listen to advice (and THANK YOU...for real, you're reminding me that it's harder than it looks....looked at NTLDR and wouldn't dream of eidting it!!!) but the fact remains that my "C" drive has a boot.ini on it and when I boot to it it shows exactly what it says for boot options...and my "D" drive has a different boot.ini (as posted) and it does not give the options that the "C" drive boot.ini gives...(boots directly to the "D" drive...)...
....and when I replace the 3rd drive (2nd IDE master drive) that has my backup files (that arn't "system" files) with another removable ide drive (that I put SUSE 10.3 on and "mounted" my NTFS drives in so I could access my music files) it gives me the options of both windows drives and SUSE + failsafe when I use my bios to boot from that drive....I know that that's the grub bootloader, but is that not close to the same thing as the windows boot.ini???
...so let me backup and step up to shake your hand, the windows boot.ini isn't something for the average user to mess with....agreed & no dispute.....
....but I'm not average.....
...I can still add another master drive on my 2nd sata channel and 4 more slave drives on ide 1 & 2 +sata 1 &2 ( not to mention the options to boot from my removable usb hard drives).....
...so.....let me ask what you would suggest, I want to be able to boot from either windows drive as the system stands...( normal boot to the sata master..."D"...but would rather it was "C" )....able to boot from the backup windows drive with the bios option (as it is now and works perfectly)....able to boot from the 2nd ide master with the bios options (also as it is now when I remove the 2nd ide master that is used for "files" {not windows system files} and replace it with a linux os drive)and when I get around to putting more drives as slaves I want to be able to modify the boot(s) as needed so I can boot to any drive with any combo of drive orders...is a 3rd party boot loader the only way???....I like having one default drive that my wife and kids use and one windows clone that I can always boot to or clone over (as it is now) but also want to be able to use my other removable drives so I can play with other linux systems...
.....I just do not want to put a different bootloader on either windows drive...
...so I guess the bottom line is "where can I learn how to configure the windows boot files to boot from the drive I want it to when I change the physical drive orders??"......................................... .............
.......................so since the system I have can't work (as proved by the fact I am on my "C" drive now but posted earlier from my "D" drive) what can I do so I can boot from any of my 3 master drives and be able to boot from any other drive I choose to?...is 3rd party software the only way?.....wait, if someone can write a program for multi booting doesn't that mean that someone can re-write a boot program to multi-boot????...
...............must have missed something somewhere.........