Multi-boot Windows 2000

[Robert Honeyman]

I have configured two Windows 2000 installations (for backups and
resilience). I am want the second installation to perform two purposes,

1) To enable me to backup the main C drive using standard utilities (as
open files cause problems when trying to backup the system partition)
2) To act as a backup if my main C drive fails so I can rebuild my
system much more quickly

The arrangement is as follows:

Physical interface location Drive
Name Active
------------------ ---- ----------- ------

Primary Master C:
WIN2000 Y
Primary Slave D:
WIN2000_BACKUP Y

I first installed drive C: with Windows 2000 from the setup CD boot
process, and then performed the second installation on to D whilst
initially booted on C. I had previously installed on to C and D
separately using the setup CD boot process independently of each other,
however this meant that NT Loader only knew about one of the
installations at any one time.

I have not been able to get this working the way I would ideally like,
as now it appears when I boot from D, that C is still the system disk,
even though D is the boot disk. This is presumably due to NTLDR.BIN
being loaded from the C partition, as this is embedded in the MBR. This
presumably may affect my backup strategy, and also if the C drive fails
I have no MBR to initialise NTLDR.BIN

Is there a way I can mirror the MBRs of both disks, or get them to boot
completely independently so this is not an issue?

Does anyone have any other suggestions as to how I might go about
configuring something resilient that would achieve this end? Could
I create a boot partition, and then mirror it on both disks and run the
operating systems on separate (non-mirrored) partitions on the disks?

Also I cannot find my BOOT.INI file on the C drive, does anyone know why
this might be?

Any help or explanation of how I can get these installations to
communicate without being interdependent would be much appreciated.

Thanks in advance

Rob Honeyman

[Ricardo M. Urbano - W2K/NT4 MVP]

Robert, this is a fairly common configuration. I use the same sort of
thing all the time.

Some of your terminology was a little confusing to me, but I think your
first attempt was the preferred way. It might be helpful to clarify
some terms:

system partition: the partition that the computer boots from. There is
only one system partition in a given machine. It must be a primary,
active partition and the only way to determine what is the active
partition is to use Disk Administrator (NT4) or Disk Management (W2K).

boot volume: the partition or logical volume that NTx is installed to.
Obviously, you can have multiple boot volumes in a given machine, but
within a given instance of NTx, there is only 1 and you can determine
that by echoing %SystemDrive% from the command prompt.

The boot.ini file lives on the system partition, and while it is often
the C: drive, it doesn't have to be. Finding it w/ Explorer is a pain
in the ass since it is a hidden and system file (read only as well on
machines that have or had NT4 on it). Once you know which is your
system partition, go to a command prompt and type:

notepad [system partition]:\boot.ini

If you need to edit it, 'attrib [system partition]:\boot.ini -s -h -r'
before the notepad command, and then 'attrib [system
partition]:\boot.ini +s +h' after the command (add +r on NT4 systems).

OK, the system partition is trivially backed up using rdisk.exe on NT4
and ntbackup.exe on W2K to create the Emergency Repair Disk (ERD), so
need to worry about that.

You can then boot into one W2K installation and backup the other.

hth

Robert Honeyman wrote:
>
> I have configured two Windows 2000 installations (for backups and
> resilience). I am want the second installation to perform two purposes,
>
> 1) To enable me to backup the main C drive using standard utilities (as
> open files cause problems when trying to backup the system partition)
> 2) To act as a backup if my main C drive fails so I can rebuild my
> system much more quickly
>
> The arrangement is as follows:
>
> Physical interface location Drive
> Name Active
> ------------------ ---- ----------- ------
>
> Primary Master C:
> WIN2000 Y
> Primary Slave D:
> WIN2000_BACKUP Y
>
> I first installed drive C: with Windows 2000 from the setup CD boot
> process, and then performed the second installation on to D whilst
> initially booted on C. I had previously installed on to C and D
> separately using the setup CD boot process independently of each other,
> however this meant that NT Loader only knew about one of the
> installations at any one time.
>
> I have not been able to get this working the way I would ideally like,
> as now it appears when I boot from D, that C is still the system disk,
> even though D is the boot disk. This is presumably due to NTLDR.BIN
> being loaded from the C partition, as this is embedded in the MBR. This
> presumably may affect my backup strategy, and also if the C drive fails
> I have no MBR to initialise NTLDR.BIN
>
> Is there a way I can mirror the MBRs of both disks, or get them to boot
> completely independently so this is not an issue?
>
> Does anyone have any other suggestions as to how I might go about
> configuring something resilient that would achieve this end? Could
> I create a boot partition, and then mirror it on both disks and run the
> operating systems on separate (non-mirrored) partitions on the disks?
>
> Also I cannot find my BOOT.INI file on the C drive, does anyone know why
> this might be?
>
> Any help or explanation of how I can get these installations to
> communicate without being interdependent would be much appreciated.
>
> Thanks in advance
>
> Rob Honeyman

--
Ricardo M. Urbano
Microsoft Windows 2000/NT MVP

[Robert Honeyman]

"Ricardo M. Urbano - W2K/NT4 MVP" wrote:

> Robert, this is a fairly common configuration. I use the same sort of
> thing all the time.
>
> Some of your terminology was a little confusing to me, but I think your
> first attempt was the preferred way. It might be helpful to clarify
> some terms:
>
> system partition: the partition that the computer boots from. There is
> only one system partition in a given machine. It must be a primary,
> active partition and the only way to determine what is the active
> partition is to use Disk Administrator (NT4) or Disk Management (W2K).
>
> boot volume: the partition or logical volume that NTx is installed to.
> Obviously, you can have multiple boot volumes in a given machine, but
> within a given instance of NTx, there is only 1 and you can determine
> that by echoing %SystemDrive% from the command prompt.
>
> The boot.ini file lives on the system partition, and while it is often
> the C: drive, it doesn't have to be. Finding it w/ Explorer is a pain
> in the ass since it is a hidden and system file (read only as well on
> machines that have or had NT4 on it). Once you know which is your
> system partition, go to a command prompt and type:
>
> notepad [system partition]:\boot.ini
>
> If you need to edit it, 'attrib [system partition]:\boot.ini -s -h -r'
> before the notepad command, and then 'attrib [system
> partition]:\boot.ini +s +h' after the command (add +r on NT4 systems).
>
> OK, the system partition is trivially backed up using rdisk.exe on NT4
> and ntbackup.exe on W2K to create the Emergency Repair Disk (ERD), so
> need to worry about that.
>
> You can then boot into one W2K installation and backup the other.
>
> hth
>
> Robert Honeyman wrote:
> >
> > I have configured two Windows 2000 installations (for backups and
> > resilience). I am want the second installation to perform two purposes,
> >
> > 1) To enable me to backup the main C drive using standard utilities (as
> > open files cause problems when trying to backup the system partition)
> > 2) To act as a backup if my main C drive fails so I can rebuild my
> > system much more quickly
> >
> > The arrangement is as follows:
> >
> > Physical interface location Drive
> > Name Active
> > ------------------ ---- ----------- ------
> >
> > Primary Master C:
> > WIN2000 Y
> > Primary Slave D:
> > WIN2000_BACKUP Y
> >
> > I first installed drive C: with Windows 2000 from the setup CD boot
> > process, and then performed the second installation on to D whilst
> > initially booted on C. I had previously installed on to C and D
> > separately using the setup CD boot process independently of each other,
> > however this meant that NT Loader only knew about one of the
> > installations at any one time.
> >
> > I have not been able to get this working the way I would ideally like,
> > as now it appears when I boot from D, that C is still the system disk,
> > even though D is the boot disk. This is presumably due to NTLDR.BIN
> > being loaded from the C partition, as this is embedded in the MBR. This
> > presumably may affect my backup strategy, and also if the C drive fails
> > I have no MBR to initialise NTLDR.BIN
> >
> > Is there a way I can mirror the MBRs of both disks, or get them to boot
> > completely independently so this is not an issue?
> >
> > Does anyone have any other suggestions as to how I might go about
> > configuring something resilient that would achieve this end? Could
> > I create a boot partition, and then mirror it on both disks and run the
> > operating systems on separate (non-mirrored) partitions on the disks?
> >
> > Also I cannot find my BOOT.INI file on the C drive, does anyone know why
> > this might be?
> >
> > Any help or explanation of how I can get these installations to
> > communicate without being interdependent would be much appreciated.
> >
> > Thanks in advance
> >
> > Rob Honeyman
>
> --
> Ricardo M. Urbano
> Microsoft Windows 2000/NT MVP

Hi Ricardo,

I have two separate physical disks I want to boot from, so I can have an
active partition on each of the physical disks. This means that I can have
multiple (two) primary active partitions, one per physical disk. I see the
following:

1. When I boot from C: (with Primary Master selected as BIOS boot device
i.e. the physical disk on which C: resides)
--------------
--------------

In Disk Management
--------------
C: System
D: Active

echo %SYSTEMDRIVE% yields C:


2. When I boot from D: (with Primary Master selected as BIOS boot device i.e.
the physical disk on which C: resides)
--------------
--------------
In Disk Management
--------------
C: System
D: Boot

echo %SYSTEMDRIVE% yields D:


3. When I try to boot with Primary Slave as BIOS boot device (i.e. the
physical disk on which D: resides)
------------------------------------------
------------------------------------------
Boot sequence fails (unsurprisingly as C: is the system drive with the
MBR configured)


I managed to work out the BOOT.INI location, but thanks for pointers on this
one as well. It is located on the C: drive.

From this I assume that the difference is simply that the installation on D:
uses the MBR on C:, and thus the NTLDR.BIN on C:, hence why Disk Management
shows C: as the system partition, and NTLDR is not found when trying to boot
from the Primary Slave directly.

Here is the critical existing problem:

If C: fails I want to be able to boot from D:, but I won't because d:
requires the MBR of C:.

I see that I have two options:

1) Try to manually configure the MBR on D: to point to NTLDR on D: so Primary
Master is a valid boot device
2) Reinstall both installations from CD again separately and manually encode
the BOOT.INI file

Option 1 is my prefered route if you know of a way of doing this.

Thanks in advance

Rob

[Ricardo M. Urbano - W2K/NT4 MVP]

Robert, an IDE slave device is not bootable, so, w/o a secondary
IDE/ATAPI controller, you cannot achieve the desired results.

I am not very familiar w/ 3rd party boot managers, but that may be an
option, even w/o 2 IDE master devices.

However, that having been said, if your C: drive did fail, the following
*should* work:

1) Make sure you have a current ERD for both NTx installations. From
NT4, create the ERD using 'rdisk.exe'. From W2K, use 'ntbackup.exe'.
Obviously, you must do this *before* any drive failure.
2) Remove the failed drive which was known to the system as C: and move
your slave drive to the master position. If the drive is *NOT* jumpered
for (C)able (S)elect, make sure to correct the jumper(s).
3) Boot w/ the W2K CD and choose to repair an existing installation.
4) When prompted for the ERD, provide the appropriate one and choose
*ONLY* to inspect the boot sector and startup environment.

This should make sure that the boot record of the active partition is
NTx bootable and copy the appropriate system files to the root of the
active partition on that new master drive. The system "should" boot
now. If it doesn't a slight modification might have to be made to the
boot.ini to decrement the disk number by 1.

Another option would be to copy boot.ini, ntldr and ntdetect.com over to
your D: drive now and make the appropriate change to boot.ini (again,
the disk #). This would be in anticipation of a drive failure.
However, I still prefer the 1st option only because keeping a current
ERD is just a VERY good habit to get into for many other reasons.

The only "gotchya" is if your "D:" was *NOT* formatted by NTx. IOW, if
it's FAT32 formatted by 9x, fdisk or some 3rd party util, it will *NOT*
be NTx bootable. IOW, if you try to take the steps above to make it the
system partition, it will look for io.sys and msdos.sys instead of
ntldr. There is no "sys" equivalent that I know of for NTx formatted
volumes; the volume must have been formatted from within an NTx
installation to have an NTx boot sector.

Robert Honeyman wrote:
>
> "Ricardo M. Urbano - W2K/NT4 MVP" wrote:
>
> > Robert, this is a fairly common configuration. I use the same sort of
> > thing all the time.
> >
> > Some of your terminology was a little confusing to me, but I think your
> > first attempt was the preferred way. It might be helpful to clarify
> > some terms:
> >
> > system partition: the partition that the computer boots from. There is
> > only one system partition in a given machine. It must be a primary,
> > active partition and the only way to determine what is the active
> > partition is to use Disk Administrator (NT4) or Disk Management (W2K).
> >
> > boot volume: the partition or logical volume that NTx is installed to.
> > Obviously, you can have multiple boot volumes in a given machine, but
> > within a given instance of NTx, there is only 1 and you can determine
> > that by echoing %SystemDrive% from the command prompt.
> >
> > The boot.ini file lives on the system partition, and while it is often
> > the C: drive, it doesn't have to be. Finding it w/ Explorer is a pain
> > in the ass since it is a hidden and system file (read only as well on
> > machines that have or had NT4 on it). Once you know which is your
> > system partition, go to a command prompt and type:
> >
> > notepad [system partition]:\boot.ini
> >
> > If you need to edit it, 'attrib [system partition]:\boot.ini -s -h -r'
> > before the notepad command, and then 'attrib [system
> > partition]:\boot.ini +s +h' after the command (add +r on NT4 systems).
> >
> > OK, the system partition is trivially backed up using rdisk.exe on NT4
> > and ntbackup.exe on W2K to create the Emergency Repair Disk (ERD), so
> > need to worry about that.
> >
> > You can then boot into one W2K installation and backup the other.
> >
> > hth
> >
> > Robert Honeyman wrote:
> > >
> > > I have configured two Windows 2000 installations (for backups and
> > > resilience). I am want the second installation to perform two purposes,
> > >
> > > 1) To enable me to backup the main C drive using standard utilities (as
> > > open files cause problems when trying to backup the system partition)
> > > 2) To act as a backup if my main C drive fails so I can rebuild my
> > > system much more quickly
> > >
> > > The arrangement is as follows:
> > >
> > > Physical interface location Drive
> > > Name Active
> > > ------------------ ---- ----------- ------
> > >
> > > Primary Master C:
> > > WIN2000 Y
> > > Primary Slave D:
> > > WIN2000_BACKUP Y
> > >
> > > I first installed drive C: with Windows 2000 from the setup CD boot
> > > process, and then performed the second installation on to D whilst
> > > initially booted on C. I had previously installed on to C and D
> > > separately using the setup CD boot process independently of each other,
> > > however this meant that NT Loader only knew about one of the
> > > installations at any one time.
> > >
> > > I have not been able to get this working the way I would ideally like,
> > > as now it appears when I boot from D, that C is still the system disk,
> > > even though D is the boot disk. This is presumably due to NTLDR.BIN
> > > being loaded from the C partition, as this is embedded in the MBR. This
> > > presumably may affect my backup strategy, and also if the C drive fails
> > > I have no MBR to initialise NTLDR.BIN
> > >
> > > Is there a way I can mirror the MBRs of both disks, or get them to boot
> > > completely independently so this is not an issue?
> > >
> > > Does anyone have any other suggestions as to how I might go about
> > > configuring something resilient that would achieve this end? Could
> > > I create a boot partition, and then mirror it on both disks and run the
> > > operating systems on separate (non-mirrored) partitions on the disks?
> > >
> > > Also I cannot find my BOOT.INI file on the C drive, does anyone know why
> > > this might be?
> > >
> > > Any help or explanation of how I can get these installations to
> > > communicate without being interdependent would be much appreciated.
> > >
> > > Thanks in advance
> > >
> > > Rob Honeyman
> >
> > --
> > Ricardo M. Urbano
> > Microsoft Windows 2000/NT MVP
>
> Hi Ricardo,
>
> I have two separate physical disks I want to boot from, so I can have an
> active partition on each of the physical disks. This means that I can have
> multiple (two) primary active partitions, one per physical disk. I see the
> following:
>
> 1. When I boot from C: (with Primary Master selected as BIOS boot device
> i.e. the physical disk on which C: resides)
> --------------
> --------------
>
> In Disk Management
> --------------
> C: System
> D: Active
>
> echo %SYSTEMDRIVE% yields C:
>
> 2. When I boot from D: (with Primary Master selected as BIOS boot device i.e.
> the physical disk on which C: resides)
> --------------
> --------------
> In Disk Management
> --------------
> C: System
> D: Boot
>
> echo %SYSTEMDRIVE% yields D:
>
> 3. When I try to boot with Primary Slave as BIOS boot device (i.e. the
> physical disk on which D: resides)
> ------------------------------------------
> ------------------------------------------
> Boot sequence fails (unsurprisingly as C: is the system drive with the
> MBR configured)
>
> I managed to work out the BOOT.INI location, but thanks for pointers on this
> one as well. It is located on the C: drive.
>
> From this I assume that the difference is simply that the installation on D:
> uses the MBR on C:, and thus the NTLDR.BIN on C:, hence why Disk Management
> shows C: as the system partition, and NTLDR is not found when trying to boot
> from the Primary Slave directly.
>
> Here is the critical existing problem:
>
> If C: fails I want to be able to boot from D:, but I won't because d:
> requires the MBR of C:.
>
> I see that I have two options:
>
> 1) Try to manually configure the MBR on D: to point to NTLDR on D: so Primary
> Master is a valid boot device
> 2) Reinstall both installations from CD again separately and manually encode
> the BOOT.INI file
>
> Option 1 is my prefered route if you know of a way of doing this.
>
> Thanks in advance
>
> Rob

--
Ricardo M. Urbano
Microsoft Windows 2000/NT MVP