error loading os

First rule when dealing with multiple partitions is that drive lettering is
fluid and meaningless. :-)

See other post since it's time to figure out exactly where you think you are
and where you're going.

--
Walter Clayton
Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced.


"David Cockram" wrote in message
.. .
I also just noticed that my drive letter asignments are all screwed up.

The Seagate (SATA 1) should be C,D,E with C being active. It is now F,D,E
with D being active (OS is on F).
The Maxtor (SATA 2) should be F, active. It is now C, active.

Dave

"David Cockram" wrote in message
.. .
The boot.ini file drom the Seagate (problem drive - SATA 1) appears to be
missing. I don't know if that's because I'm now bootiing from the other
drive.

boot.ini from the Maxtor drive I'm now using - SATA 2

[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOW S
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Micro soft Windows XP Home
Edition" /fastdetect /NoExecute=OptOut


PARTINFO 1.09
Copyright (C) 1996-2003, TeraByte Unlimited. All rights reserved.

Run date: 04/24/2005 16:06

================================================== ==================
MBR Partition Information (HD0):
+====+====+=============+====+=============+====== =====+===========+
| 0: | 0 | 1 0 1 | f | 1023 254 63 | 16065 | 81899370 |
+====+====+=============+====+=============+====== =====+===========+
Volume Information
+----+----+-------------+----+-------------+-----------+-----------+
| 0: | 0 | 1 1 1 | 7 | 1023 254 63 | 63 | 81899307 |
| 1: | 0 | 0 0 0 | 0 | 0 0 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2: | 0 | 0 0 0 | 0 | 0 0 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 3: | 0 | 0 0 0 | 0 | 0 0 0 | 0 | 0 |
MBR Partition Information (HD0) Continued:
+====+====+=============+====+=============+====== =====+===========+
| 1: | 80 | 1023 0 1 | 7 | 1023 254 63 | 81915435 | 252075915 |
| 2: | 0 | 1023 0 1 | 7 | 1023 254 63 | 333991350 | 252075915 |
| 3: | 0 | 0 0 0 | 0 | 0 0 0 | 0 | 0 |
+====+====+=============+====+=============+====== =====+===========+
BOOT SECTOR INFORMATION
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
File System ID: 0x7 LBA: 16128 Total Sectors: 81899307
Jump: EB 52 90
OEM Name: NTFS
Bytes Per Sec: 512
Sec Per Clust: 8
Res Sectors: 0
Zero 1: 0x0
Zero 2: 0x0
NA 1: 0x0
Media: 0xF8
Zero 3: 0x0
Sec Per Track: 63
Heads: 255
Hidden Secs: 63
NA 2: 0x0
NA 3: 0x800080
Total Sectors: 0x04E1AF2A
MFT LCN: 0x0C0000
MFT Mirr LCN: 0x04E1AF2
Clust Per FRS: 0xF6
Clust Per IBlock: 0x1
Volume SN: 0x22F802A6F8027875
Checksum: 0x0
Boot Flag: 0xAA55
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
File System ID: 0x7 LBA: 81915435 Total Sectors: 252075915 ID: 0x2
Jump: EB 52 90
OEM Name: NTFS
Bytes Per Sec: 512
Sec Per Clust: 8
Res Sectors: 0
Zero 1: 0x0
Zero 2: 0x0
NA 1: 0x0
Media: 0xF8
Zero 3: 0x0
Sec Per Track: 63
Heads: 255
Hidden Secs: 81915435
NA 2: 0x0
NA 3: 0x800080
Total Sectors: 0x0F065F8A
MFT LCN: 0x0C0000
MFT Mirr LCN: 0x0F065F8
Clust Per FRS: 0xF6
Clust Per IBlock: 0x1
Volume SN: 0xD400C167C150E2
Checksum: 0x0
Boot Flag: 0xAA55
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
File System ID: 0x7 LBA: 333991350 Total Sectors: 252075915 ID: 0x3
Jump: EB 52 90
OEM Name: NTFS
Bytes Per Sec: 512
Sec Per Clust: 8
Res Sectors: 0
Zero 1: 0x0
Zero 2: 0x0
NA 1: 0x0
Media: 0xF8
Zero 3: 0x0
Sec Per Track: 63
Heads: 255
Hidden Secs: 333991350
NA 2: 0x0
NA 3: 0x800080
Total Sectors: 0x0F065F8A
MFT LCN: 0x0C0000
MFT Mirr LCN: 0x0F065F8
Clust Per FRS: 0xF6
Clust Per IBlock: 0x1
Volume SN: 0xA478DD6678DD382E
Checksum: 0x0
Boot Flag: 0xAA55
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
================================================== ==================
MBR Partition Information (HD1):
+====+====+=============+====+=============+====== =====+===========+
| 0: | 80 | 0 1 1 | 7 | 1023 254 63 | 63 | 38539872 |
| 1: | 0 | 0 0 0 | 0 | 0 0 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2: | 0 | 0 0 0 | 0 | 0 0 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 3: | 0 | 0 0 0 | 0 | 0 0 0 | 0 | 0 |
+====+====+=============+====+=============+====== =====+===========+
BOOT SECTOR INFORMATION
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
File System ID: 0x7 LBA: 63 Total Sectors: 38539872 ID: 0x1
Jump: EB 52 90
OEM Name: NTFS
Bytes Per Sec: 512
Sec Per Clust: 8
Res Sectors: 0
Zero 1: 0x0
Zero 2: 0x0
NA 1: 0x0
Media: 0xF8
Zero 3: 0x0
Sec Per Track: 63
Heads: 255
Hidden Secs: 63
NA 2: 0x0
NA 3: 0x800080
Total Sectors: 0x024C1258
MFT LCN: 0x0B42FF
MFT Mirr LCN: 0x03D54EA
Clust Per FRS: 0xF6
Clust Per IBlock: 0x1
Volume SN: 0x4228D79E28D78EF3
Checksum: 0x0
Boot Flag: 0xAA55
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------


"David Cockram" wrote in message
.. .
Thanks Walter,

I'll do it now, but in the meantime, I'm only up and running on my
second hard drive, the Maxtor. The Seagate which has the problem is
inaccessable. I don't know if that affects things. Let me know if it
does.

Dave


"Walter Clayton" wrote in message
...
I assume you're up and running on the problematic platform? If so, go to
http://www.bootitng.com/utilities.html and download Partinfo. Unzip it
and run partinfW (yes, that W not O) from a command prompt as follows:

partinfw partinfo.txt
start notepad partinfo.txt

Then copy and paste the contents back here. Also, do
start-run-c:\boot.ini and copy and paste the contents of boot.ini
back here as well.


I think I know what your issue is now and it's going to revolve around
boot.ini and the mbr code and now that I've taken a really fast look at
Acronis, it may be the tool isn't the right tool for what you're
attempting. Or you may be using it wrong.

--
Walter Clayton
Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced.


"David Cockram" wrote in message
.. .
Walter, HELP! ! !

I deleted that key as suggested, HKLM\system\mounteddevices (except
default
value).
Before restoring the clone onto the other drive I decided to just
check the
values in the key after rebooting and supposedly rebuilding.

After entering my password at the log in screen, it immediately
reverts to
logging off . . .
I have tried everything I can think of, safe mode, boot disk but can't
log
on any more.

I then tried restoring the saved cloned partition to the other drive
and got
NTLDR is missing. So now I don't have any bootable drives.Back to
Acronis
boot CD to restore an earlier clone that worked and restored. The
first
partition, E: on the Maxtor was greyed out so I couldn't access it. I
eventually used MaxBlast to repartition and then Acronis restore
worked, and
I'm now back to using an earlier saved clone that I've restored on the
Maxtor. I haven't touched the Seagate C: so if there's a way of
accessing
and putting back this registry key (which I stupidly didn't feel the
need to
save) maybe I can get back to normal.

I swear once this is over, I won't touch any of this software for a
long,
long time. There are just too many issues and problems here. Restoring
all
my programs in an emergency pales to insignificance compared with the
time
and hassle spent so far.

Thanks in anticipation,

Dave


----- Original Message -----
From: "Walter Clayton"
Newsgroups:
microsoft.public.windowsxp,microsoft.public.window sxp.basics,microsoft.public.windowsxp.general,micr osoft.public.windowsxp.newusers
Sent: Sunday, April 24, 2005 1:28 AM
Subject: error loading os


Yes it will get rebuilt and yes, if that's not deleted then cloning
just the partition image itself can cause some less than desirable
results. In fact if you check
HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\BackupRestor e\KeysNotToRestore
MS back up / restore tools don't restore that key.

--
Walter Clayton
Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced.


"David Cockram" wrote in message
.. .
Presumably XP will just rebuild this from scratch again? Do you
think that is what stopped the clone booting when it almost got to
the login screen and then reverted to a plain blue screen with
cursor?

Dave
"Walter Clayton" wrote in message
...
Prior to the clone, delete all but the default value from
HKLM\system\mounteddevices.

--
Walter Clayton
Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently
advanced.


"David Cockram" wrote in message
.. .
OK, we're making some progress here. I can now make and restore a
clone copy in Acronis 8.0.

I need to follow these steps EXACTLY.

1. Don't format or give a drive letter to the recipient drive
(Maxtor first partition here)
2. Use Acronis from boot CD not XP
3. Swap SATA cables before rebooting so Maxtor drive is now on
same cable as original Seagate

And this is the killer - if I don't do one of these and the
cloning process fails, than it will ALWAYS fail UNTIL I do a disk
copy with Acronis. This overwrites my entire drive and it's not
entirely convenient to ship out 100GB of data to somewhere else.
(Andrew mentions earlier in the thread a method using recovery
console which I'll try if I need to in future.) And bizarrely this
not only clones the drive correctly, but it puts it back to normal
such that I can now successfully clone a partition.

So, what on earth is going on here? Why did the boot sector get
screwed up ( I assume that's what it was) and why did none of the
standard fixes for this type of problem not work - fixboot
/fixmbr?

I gather at least some of this is caused by me using SATA drives.
Perhaps there will be no such problems with Ghost 10.0 and Acronis
9.0?

Dave


"David Cockram" wrote in message
.. .
Hi,
I have 2 SATA drives, and I've been struggling to do a simple
clone of my Seagate C: partiton to a Maxtor F: partition.
I've tried Ghost 9.0, Acronis True Image 8.0 and other trial
software. In most cases I got as far as a login screen and it
reverted to a plain blue screen with cursor. I always remove
Seagate before trying to boot with the cloned Maxtor. The only
thing that did consistently work was Acronis Migrate Easy, but
the problem is that you need to copy the entire disk. That means
overwriting the other Maxtor partitions. But it proves that it
did work. Now why did it, and not the others?

Now whilst playing around with all this I noticed that I was
getting 'error loading os' when trying to boot. When I went back
to Acronis, that was also giving this message, and not even
attempting to boot as it had previosly done. I tried using
sysprep with the same result.

Then I tried removing partitions completely from the Maxtor,
using fdisk and dos to format, using Max Blast to format, using
the
XP repair tool, fixmbr, fixboot. You name it I tried it I think.

So I then thought I'd see if I could install XP on this drive.
No, I get the same message when it gets to the booting from disk
stage.

Firstly, any ideas what could have caused this, and secondly do I
need to do a low level format to get this drive back to normal
shipping condition. If so, could someone tell me how, and what
software to use, as I've done this before.

I've now done a fair bit of reading about cloning. For a lot of
people it seems to be a completely painless process using Ghost
or Acronis. For many others including me, it just doesn't seem to
work, and I've seen the same issues reported over and over with
no workable solutions.

Ah well, I'll get there in the end. Maybe sooner with your help.
Thanks,

Dave Cockram

Walter,

Very simply, I'm just trying to undo the problems caused by deleting that
key.

Perhaps under most circumstances it can be deleted and it will rebuild, but
this is not what has happened here.

So I would like to get back to being able to boot from the first partition
(where the OS is) on the Seagate. The second partition is marked active at
the moment.

As for the wider picture, I had sorted out a method of cloning that worked
as long as I rigidly followed the steps I mentioned earlier. Otherwise I
never managed to boot the clone. I assumed that deleting that key would
answer that particular issue

Thanks,

Dave


"Walter Clayton" wrote in message
...
The partition structure is a bit weird. You have a logical with what
appears to be a single volume followed by a couple of standard bootable
primaries. In fact, the second partition is currently flagged as active.
MBR Partition Information (HD0):
+====+====+=============+====+=============+====== =====+===========+
| 0: | 0 | 1 0 1 | f | 1023 254 63 | 16065 | 81899370 |
MBR Partition Information (HD0) Continued:
+====+====+=============+====+=============+====== =====+===========+
| 1: | 80 | 1023 0 1 | 7 | 1023 254 63 | 81915435 | 252075915 |
| 2: | 0 | 1023 0 1 | 7 | 1023 254 63 | 333991350 | 252075915 |
| 3: | 0 | 0 0 0 | 0 | 0 0 0 | 0 | 0 |

The boot strap code would have to be in the second partition. That
includes boot.ini, ntldr, ntdetect.com. The arc statement for that
partition will be tricky, that depends on from where you're loading the
OS. If you're loading the OS from the same partition, using the current
partition and volume tables, the arc statement should read

default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOW S

although the partition number might need be three depending on how things
are counted (and I get really fuzzy on how the boot strap code counts
logical partitions and volumes; I avoid placing logicals in front of
non-logical volumes like the plague).

Exactly what are you attempting to accomplish? One thing that sticks out
is to move the logical higher in the partition table and drop the bootable
primary in front of that.

--
Walter Clayton
Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced.


"David Cockram" wrote in message
.. .
The boot.ini file drom the Seagate (problem drive - SATA 1) appears to be
missing. I don't know if that's because I'm now bootiing from the other
drive.

boot.ini from the Maxtor drive I'm now using - SATA 2

[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOW S
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Micro soft Windows XP Home
Edition" /fastdetect /NoExecute=OptOut


PARTINFO 1.09
Copyright (C) 1996-2003, TeraByte Unlimited. All rights reserved.

Run date: 04/24/2005 16:06

================================================== ==================
MBR Partition Information (HD0):
+====+====+=============+====+=============+====== =====+===========+
| 0: | 0 | 1 0 1 | f | 1023 254 63 | 16065 | 81899370 |
+====+====+=============+====+=============+====== =====+===========+
Volume Information
+----+----+-------------+----+-------------+-----------+-----------+
| 0: | 0 | 1 1 1 | 7 | 1023 254 63 | 63 | 81899307 |
| 1: | 0 | 0 0 0 | 0 | 0 0 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2: | 0 | 0 0 0 | 0 | 0 0 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 3: | 0 | 0 0 0 | 0 | 0 0 0 | 0 | 0 |
MBR Partition Information (HD0) Continued:
+====+====+=============+====+=============+====== =====+===========+
| 1: | 80 | 1023 0 1 | 7 | 1023 254 63 | 81915435 | 252075915 |
| 2: | 0 | 1023 0 1 | 7 | 1023 254 63 | 333991350 | 252075915 |
| 3: | 0 | 0 0 0 | 0 | 0 0 0 | 0 | 0 |
+====+====+=============+====+=============+====== =====+===========+
BOOT SECTOR INFORMATION
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
File System ID: 0x7 LBA: 16128 Total Sectors: 81899307
Jump: EB 52 90
OEM Name: NTFS
Bytes Per Sec: 512
Sec Per Clust: 8
Res Sectors: 0
Zero 1: 0x0
Zero 2: 0x0
NA 1: 0x0
Media: 0xF8
Zero 3: 0x0
Sec Per Track: 63
Heads: 255
Hidden Secs: 63
NA 2: 0x0
NA 3: 0x800080
Total Sectors: 0x04E1AF2A
MFT LCN: 0x0C0000
MFT Mirr LCN: 0x04E1AF2
Clust Per FRS: 0xF6
Clust Per IBlock: 0x1
Volume SN: 0x22F802A6F8027875
Checksum: 0x0
Boot Flag: 0xAA55
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
File System ID: 0x7 LBA: 81915435 Total Sectors: 252075915 ID: 0x2
Jump: EB 52 90
OEM Name: NTFS
Bytes Per Sec: 512
Sec Per Clust: 8
Res Sectors: 0
Zero 1: 0x0
Zero 2: 0x0
NA 1: 0x0
Media: 0xF8
Zero 3: 0x0
Sec Per Track: 63
Heads: 255
Hidden Secs: 81915435
NA 2: 0x0
NA 3: 0x800080
Total Sectors: 0x0F065F8A
MFT LCN: 0x0C0000
MFT Mirr LCN: 0x0F065F8
Clust Per FRS: 0xF6
Clust Per IBlock: 0x1
Volume SN: 0xD400C167C150E2
Checksum: 0x0
Boot Flag: 0xAA55
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
File System ID: 0x7 LBA: 333991350 Total Sectors: 252075915 ID: 0x3
Jump: EB 52 90
OEM Name: NTFS
Bytes Per Sec: 512
Sec Per Clust: 8
Res Sectors: 0
Zero 1: 0x0
Zero 2: 0x0
NA 1: 0x0
Media: 0xF8
Zero 3: 0x0
Sec Per Track: 63
Heads: 255
Hidden Secs: 333991350
NA 2: 0x0
NA 3: 0x800080
Total Sectors: 0x0F065F8A
MFT LCN: 0x0C0000
MFT Mirr LCN: 0x0F065F8
Clust Per FRS: 0xF6
Clust Per IBlock: 0x1
Volume SN: 0xA478DD6678DD382E
Checksum: 0x0
Boot Flag: 0xAA55
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
================================================== ==================
MBR Partition Information (HD1):
+====+====+=============+====+=============+====== =====+===========+
| 0: | 80 | 0 1 1 | 7 | 1023 254 63 | 63 | 38539872 |
| 1: | 0 | 0 0 0 | 0 | 0 0 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2: | 0 | 0 0 0 | 0 | 0 0 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 3: | 0 | 0 0 0 | 0 | 0 0 0 | 0 | 0 |
+====+====+=============+====+=============+====== =====+===========+
BOOT SECTOR INFORMATION
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
File System ID: 0x7 LBA: 63 Total Sectors: 38539872 ID: 0x1
Jump: EB 52 90
OEM Name: NTFS
Bytes Per Sec: 512
Sec Per Clust: 8
Res Sectors: 0
Zero 1: 0x0
Zero 2: 0x0
NA 1: 0x0
Media: 0xF8
Zero 3: 0x0
Sec Per Track: 63
Heads: 255
Hidden Secs: 63
NA 2: 0x0
NA 3: 0x800080
Total Sectors: 0x024C1258
MFT LCN: 0x0B42FF
MFT Mirr LCN: 0x03D54EA
Clust Per FRS: 0xF6
Clust Per IBlock: 0x1
Volume SN: 0x4228D79E28D78EF3
Checksum: 0x0
Boot Flag: 0xAA55
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------


"David Cockram" wrote in message
.. .
Thanks Walter,

I'll do it now, but in the meantime, I'm only up and running on my
second hard drive, the Maxtor. The Seagate which has the problem is
inaccessable. I don't know if that affects things. Let me know if it
does.

Dave


"Walter Clayton" wrote in message
...
I assume you're up and running on the problematic platform? If so, go to
http://www.bootitng.com/utilities.html and download Partinfo. Unzip it
and run partinfW (yes, that W not O) from a command prompt as follows:

partinfw partinfo.txt
start notepad partinfo.txt

Then copy and paste the contents back here. Also, do
start-run-c:\boot.ini and copy and paste the contents of boot.ini
back here as well.


I think I know what your issue is now and it's going to revolve around
boot.ini and the mbr code and now that I've taken a really fast look at
Acronis, it may be the tool isn't the right tool for what you're
attempting. Or you may be using it wrong.

--
Walter Clayton
Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced.


"David Cockram" wrote in message
.. .
Walter, HELP! ! !

I deleted that key as suggested, HKLM\system\mounteddevices (except
default
value).
Before restoring the clone onto the other drive I decided to just
check the
values in the key after rebooting and supposedly rebuilding.

After entering my password at the log in screen, it immediately
reverts to
logging off . . .
I have tried everything I can think of, safe mode, boot disk but can't
log
on any more.

I then tried restoring the saved cloned partition to the other drive
and got
NTLDR is missing. So now I don't have any bootable drives.Back to
Acronis
boot CD to restore an earlier clone that worked and restored. The
first
partition, E: on the Maxtor was greyed out so I couldn't access it. I
eventually used MaxBlast to repartition and then Acronis restore
worked, and
I'm now back to using an earlier saved clone that I've restored on the
Maxtor. I haven't touched the Seagate C: so if there's a way of
accessing
and putting back this registry key (which I stupidly didn't feel the
need to
save) maybe I can get back to normal.

I swear once this is over, I won't touch any of this software for a
long,
long time. There are just too many issues and problems here. Restoring
all
my programs in an emergency pales to insignificance compared with the
time
and hassle spent so far.

Thanks in anticipation,

Dave


----- Original Message -----
From: "Walter Clayton"
Newsgroups:
microsoft.public.windowsxp,microsoft.public.window sxp.basics,microsoft.public.windowsxp.general,micr osoft.public.windowsxp.newusers
Sent: Sunday, April 24, 2005 1:28 AM
Subject: error loading os


Yes it will get rebuilt and yes, if that's not deleted then cloning
just the partition image itself can cause some less than desirable
results. In fact if you check
HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\BackupRestor e\KeysNotToRestore
MS back up / restore tools don't restore that key.

--
Walter Clayton
Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced.


"David Cockram" wrote in message
.. .
Presumably XP will just rebuild this from scratch again? Do you
think that is what stopped the clone booting when it almost got to
the login screen and then reverted to a plain blue screen with
cursor?

Dave
"Walter Clayton" wrote in message
...
Prior to the clone, delete all but the default value from
HKLM\system\mounteddevices.

--
Walter Clayton
Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently
advanced.


"David Cockram" wrote in message
.. .
OK, we're making some progress here. I can now make and restore a
clone copy in Acronis 8.0.

I need to follow these steps EXACTLY.

1. Don't format or give a drive letter to the recipient drive
(Maxtor first partition here)
2. Use Acronis from boot CD not XP
3. Swap SATA cables before rebooting so Maxtor drive is now on
same cable as original Seagate

And this is the killer - if I don't do one of these and the
cloning process fails, than it will ALWAYS fail UNTIL I do a disk
copy with Acronis. This overwrites my entire drive and it's not
entirely convenient to ship out 100GB of data to somewhere else.
(Andrew mentions earlier in the thread a method using recovery
console which I'll try if I need to in future.) And bizarrely this
not only clones the drive correctly, but it puts it back to normal
such that I can now successfully clone a partition.

So, what on earth is going on here? Why did the boot sector get
screwed up ( I assume that's what it was) and why did none of the
standard fixes for this type of problem not work - fixboot
/fixmbr?

I gather at least some of this is caused by me using SATA drives.
Perhaps there will be no such problems with Ghost 10.0 and Acronis
9.0?

Dave


"David Cockram" wrote in message
.. .
Hi,
I have 2 SATA drives, and I've been struggling to do a simple
clone of my Seagate C: partiton to a Maxtor F: partition.
I've tried Ghost 9.0, Acronis True Image 8.0 and other trial
software. In most cases I got as far as a login screen and it
reverted to a plain blue screen with cursor. I always remove
Seagate before trying to boot with the cloned Maxtor. The only
thing that did consistently work was Acronis Migrate Easy, but
the problem is that you need to copy the entire disk. That means
overwriting the other Maxtor partitions. But it proves that it
did work. Now why did it, and not the others?

Now whilst playing around with all this I noticed that I was
getting 'error loading os' when trying to boot. When I went back
to Acronis, that was also giving this message, and not even
attempting to boot as it had previosly done. I tried using
sysprep with the same result.

Then I tried removing partitions completely from the Maxtor,
using fdisk and dos to format, using Max Blast to format, using
the
XP repair tool, fixmbr, fixboot. You name it I tried it I think.

So I then thought I'd see if I could install XP on this drive.
No, I get the same message when it gets to the booting from disk
stage.

Firstly, any ideas what could have caused this, and secondly do I
need to do a low level format to get this drive back to normal
shipping condition. If so, could someone tell me how, and what
software to use, as I've done this before.

I've now done a fair bit of reading about cloning. For a lot of
people it seems to be a completely painless process using Ghost
or Acronis. For many others including me, it just doesn't seem to
work, and I've seen the same issues reported over and over with
no workable solutions.

Ah well, I'll get there in the end. Maybe sooner with your help.
Thanks,

Dave Cockram

Yes, those files are now all on the second (Non OS) partition.

boot.ini

[boot loader]
timeout=1
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(3)\WINDOW S
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(3)\WINDOWS="Micro soft Windows XP Home
Edition" /fastdetect /NoExecute=OptIn

Can I perhaps copy them across and try rebooting? If so, exactly which
files?

Dave




"Walter Clayton" wrote in message
...
The partition structure is a bit weird. You have a logical with what
appears to be a single volume followed by a couple of standard bootable
primaries. In fact, the second partition is currently flagged as active.
MBR Partition Information (HD0):
+====+====+=============+====+=============+====== =====+===========+
| 0: | 0 | 1 0 1 | f | 1023 254 63 | 16065 | 81899370 |
MBR Partition Information (HD0) Continued:
+====+====+=============+====+=============+====== =====+===========+
| 1: | 80 | 1023 0 1 | 7 | 1023 254 63 | 81915435 | 252075915 |
| 2: | 0 | 1023 0 1 | 7 | 1023 254 63 | 333991350 | 252075915 |
| 3: | 0 | 0 0 0 | 0 | 0 0 0 | 0 | 0 |

The boot strap code would have to be in the second partition. That
includes boot.ini, ntldr, ntdetect.com. The arc statement for that
partition will be tricky, that depends on from where you're loading the
OS. If you're loading the OS from the same partition, using the current
partition and volume tables, the arc statement should read

default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOW S

although the partition number might need be three depending on how things
are counted (and I get really fuzzy on how the boot strap code counts
logical partitions and volumes; I avoid placing logicals in front of
non-logical volumes like the plague).

Exactly what are you attempting to accomplish? One thing that sticks out
is to move the logical higher in the partition table and drop the bootable
primary in front of that.

--
Walter Clayton
Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced.


"David Cockram" wrote in message
.. .
The boot.ini file drom the Seagate (problem drive - SATA 1) appears to be
missing. I don't know if that's because I'm now bootiing from the other
drive.

boot.ini from the Maxtor drive I'm now using - SATA 2

[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOW S
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Micro soft Windows XP Home
Edition" /fastdetect /NoExecute=OptOut


PARTINFO 1.09
Copyright (C) 1996-2003, TeraByte Unlimited. All rights reserved.

Run date: 04/24/2005 16:06

================================================== ==================
MBR Partition Information (HD0):
+====+====+=============+====+=============+====== =====+===========+
| 0: | 0 | 1 0 1 | f | 1023 254 63 | 16065 | 81899370 |
+====+====+=============+====+=============+====== =====+===========+
Volume Information
+----+----+-------------+----+-------------+-----------+-----------+
| 0: | 0 | 1 1 1 | 7 | 1023 254 63 | 63 | 81899307 |
| 1: | 0 | 0 0 0 | 0 | 0 0 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2: | 0 | 0 0 0 | 0 | 0 0 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 3: | 0 | 0 0 0 | 0 | 0 0 0 | 0 | 0 |
MBR Partition Information (HD0) Continued:
+====+====+=============+====+=============+====== =====+===========+
| 1: | 80 | 1023 0 1 | 7 | 1023 254 63 | 81915435 | 252075915 |
| 2: | 0 | 1023 0 1 | 7 | 1023 254 63 | 333991350 | 252075915 |
| 3: | 0 | 0 0 0 | 0 | 0 0 0 | 0 | 0 |
+====+====+=============+====+=============+====== =====+===========+
BOOT SECTOR INFORMATION
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
File System ID: 0x7 LBA: 16128 Total Sectors: 81899307
Jump: EB 52 90
OEM Name: NTFS
Bytes Per Sec: 512
Sec Per Clust: 8
Res Sectors: 0
Zero 1: 0x0
Zero 2: 0x0
NA 1: 0x0
Media: 0xF8
Zero 3: 0x0
Sec Per Track: 63
Heads: 255
Hidden Secs: 63
NA 2: 0x0
NA 3: 0x800080
Total Sectors: 0x04E1AF2A
MFT LCN: 0x0C0000
MFT Mirr LCN: 0x04E1AF2
Clust Per FRS: 0xF6
Clust Per IBlock: 0x1
Volume SN: 0x22F802A6F8027875
Checksum: 0x0
Boot Flag: 0xAA55
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
File System ID: 0x7 LBA: 81915435 Total Sectors: 252075915 ID: 0x2
Jump: EB 52 90
OEM Name: NTFS
Bytes Per Sec: 512
Sec Per Clust: 8
Res Sectors: 0
Zero 1: 0x0
Zero 2: 0x0
NA 1: 0x0
Media: 0xF8
Zero 3: 0x0
Sec Per Track: 63
Heads: 255
Hidden Secs: 81915435
NA 2: 0x0
NA 3: 0x800080
Total Sectors: 0x0F065F8A
MFT LCN: 0x0C0000
MFT Mirr LCN: 0x0F065F8
Clust Per FRS: 0xF6
Clust Per IBlock: 0x1
Volume SN: 0xD400C167C150E2
Checksum: 0x0
Boot Flag: 0xAA55
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
File System ID: 0x7 LBA: 333991350 Total Sectors: 252075915 ID: 0x3
Jump: EB 52 90
OEM Name: NTFS
Bytes Per Sec: 512
Sec Per Clust: 8
Res Sectors: 0
Zero 1: 0x0
Zero 2: 0x0
NA 1: 0x0
Media: 0xF8
Zero 3: 0x0
Sec Per Track: 63
Heads: 255
Hidden Secs: 333991350
NA 2: 0x0
NA 3: 0x800080
Total Sectors: 0x0F065F8A
MFT LCN: 0x0C0000
MFT Mirr LCN: 0x0F065F8
Clust Per FRS: 0xF6
Clust Per IBlock: 0x1
Volume SN: 0xA478DD6678DD382E
Checksum: 0x0
Boot Flag: 0xAA55
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
================================================== ==================
MBR Partition Information (HD1):
+====+====+=============+====+=============+====== =====+===========+
| 0: | 80 | 0 1 1 | 7 | 1023 254 63 | 63 | 38539872 |
| 1: | 0 | 0 0 0 | 0 | 0 0 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2: | 0 | 0 0 0 | 0 | 0 0 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 3: | 0 | 0 0 0 | 0 | 0 0 0 | 0 | 0 |
+====+====+=============+====+=============+====== =====+===========+
BOOT SECTOR INFORMATION
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
File System ID: 0x7 LBA: 63 Total Sectors: 38539872 ID: 0x1
Jump: EB 52 90
OEM Name: NTFS
Bytes Per Sec: 512
Sec Per Clust: 8
Res Sectors: 0
Zero 1: 0x0
Zero 2: 0x0
NA 1: 0x0
Media: 0xF8
Zero 3: 0x0
Sec Per Track: 63
Heads: 255
Hidden Secs: 63
NA 2: 0x0
NA 3: 0x800080
Total Sectors: 0x024C1258
MFT LCN: 0x0B42FF
MFT Mirr LCN: 0x03D54EA
Clust Per FRS: 0xF6
Clust Per IBlock: 0x1
Volume SN: 0x4228D79E28D78EF3
Checksum: 0x0
Boot Flag: 0xAA55
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------


"David Cockram" wrote in message
.. .
Thanks Walter,

I'll do it now, but in the meantime, I'm only up and running on my
second hard drive, the Maxtor. The Seagate which has the problem is
inaccessable. I don't know if that affects things. Let me know if it
does.

Dave


"Walter Clayton" wrote in message
...
I assume you're up and running on the problematic platform? If so, go to
http://www.bootitng.com/utilities.html and download Partinfo. Unzip it
and run partinfW (yes, that W not O) from a command prompt as follows:

partinfw partinfo.txt
start notepad partinfo.txt

Then copy and paste the contents back here. Also, do
start-run-c:\boot.ini and copy and paste the contents of boot.ini
back here as well.


I think I know what your issue is now and it's going to revolve around
boot.ini and the mbr code and now that I've taken a really fast look at
Acronis, it may be the tool isn't the right tool for what you're
attempting. Or you may be using it wrong.

--
Walter Clayton
Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced.


"David Cockram" wrote in message
.. .
Walter, HELP! ! !

I deleted that key as suggested, HKLM\system\mounteddevices (except
default
value).
Before restoring the clone onto the other drive I decided to just
check the
values in the key after rebooting and supposedly rebuilding.

After entering my password at the log in screen, it immediately
reverts to
logging off . . .
I have tried everything I can think of, safe mode, boot disk but can't
log
on any more.

I then tried restoring the saved cloned partition to the other drive
and got
NTLDR is missing. So now I don't have any bootable drives.Back to
Acronis
boot CD to restore an earlier clone that worked and restored. The
first
partition, E: on the Maxtor was greyed out so I couldn't access it. I
eventually used MaxBlast to repartition and then Acronis restore
worked, and
I'm now back to using an earlier saved clone that I've restored on the
Maxtor. I haven't touched the Seagate C: so if there's a way of
accessing
and putting back this registry key (which I stupidly didn't feel the
need to
save) maybe I can get back to normal.

I swear once this is over, I won't touch any of this software for a
long,
long time. There are just too many issues and problems here. Restoring
all
my programs in an emergency pales to insignificance compared with the
time
and hassle spent so far.

Thanks in anticipation,

Dave


----- Original Message -----
From: "Walter Clayton"
Newsgroups:
microsoft.public.windowsxp,microsoft.public.window sxp.basics,microsoft.public.windowsxp.general,micr osoft.public.windowsxp.newusers
Sent: Sunday, April 24, 2005 1:28 AM
Subject: error loading os


Yes it will get rebuilt and yes, if that's not deleted then cloning
just the partition image itself can cause some less than desirable
results. In fact if you check
HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\BackupRestor e\KeysNotToRestore
MS back up / restore tools don't restore that key.

--
Walter Clayton
Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced.


"David Cockram" wrote in message
.. .
Presumably XP will just rebuild this from scratch again? Do you
think that is what stopped the clone booting when it almost got to
the login screen and then reverted to a plain blue screen with
cursor?

Dave
"Walter Clayton" wrote in message
...
Prior to the clone, delete all but the default value from
HKLM\system\mounteddevices.

--
Walter Clayton
Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently
advanced.


"David Cockram" wrote in message
.. .
OK, we're making some progress here. I can now make and restore a
clone copy in Acronis 8.0.

I need to follow these steps EXACTLY.

1. Don't format or give a drive letter to the recipient drive
(Maxtor first partition here)
2. Use Acronis from boot CD not XP
3. Swap SATA cables before rebooting so Maxtor drive is now on
same cable as original Seagate

And this is the killer - if I don't do one of these and the
cloning process fails, than it will ALWAYS fail UNTIL I do a disk
copy with Acronis. This overwrites my entire drive and it's not
entirely convenient to ship out 100GB of data to somewhere else.
(Andrew mentions earlier in the thread a method using recovery
console which I'll try if I need to in future.) And bizarrely this
not only clones the drive correctly, but it puts it back to normal
such that I can now successfully clone a partition.

So, what on earth is going on here? Why did the boot sector get
screwed up ( I assume that's what it was) and why did none of the
standard fixes for this type of problem not work - fixboot
/fixmbr?

I gather at least some of this is caused by me using SATA drives.
Perhaps there will be no such problems with Ghost 10.0 and Acronis
9.0?

Dave


"David Cockram" wrote in message
.. .
Hi,
I have 2 SATA drives, and I've been struggling to do a simple
clone of my Seagate C: partiton to a Maxtor F: partition.
I've tried Ghost 9.0, Acronis True Image 8.0 and other trial
software. In most cases I got as far as a login screen and it
reverted to a plain blue screen with cursor. I always remove
Seagate before trying to boot with the cloned Maxtor. The only
thing that did consistently work was Acronis Migrate Easy, but
the problem is that you need to copy the entire disk. That means
overwriting the other Maxtor partitions. But it proves that it
did work. Now why did it, and not the others?

Now whilst playing around with all this I noticed that I was
getting 'error loading os' when trying to boot. When I went back
to Acronis, that was also giving this message, and not even
attempting to boot as it had previosly done. I tried using
sysprep with the same result.

Then I tried removing partitions completely from the Maxtor,
using fdisk and dos to format, using Max Blast to format, using
the
XP repair tool, fixmbr, fixboot. You name it I tried it I think.

So I then thought I'd see if I could install XP on this drive.
No, I get the same message when it gets to the booting from disk
stage.

Firstly, any ideas what could have caused this, and secondly do I
need to do a low level format to get this drive back to normal
shipping condition. If so, could someone tell me how, and what
software to use, as I've done this before.

I've now done a fair bit of reading about cloning. For a lot of
people it seems to be a completely painless process using Ghost
or Acronis. For many others including me, it just doesn't seem to
work, and I've seen the same issues reported over and over with
no workable solutions.

Ah well, I'll get there in the end. Maybe sooner with your help.
Thanks,

Dave Cockram

"David Cockram" wrote in message
.. .
Walter,

Very simply, I'm just trying to undo the problems caused by deleting that
key.

Perhaps under most circumstances it can be deleted and it will rebuild,
but this is not what has happened here.

There are exceptions. I have such my self since I don't enumerate partitions
in default order, however this is, I'll have to admit, the first time I've
seen some one park a logical volume in front the boot partition. There are
some other reasons why this is going to be problematic on going other than
you're inability to do a simple partition clone of the system...


So I would like to get back to being able to boot from the first partition
(where the OS is) on the Seagate. The second partition is marked active at
the moment.

OK. It's time to be *extremely* specific.
The first partition on your Segate is a logical volume. No BIOS can initiate
boot strap on that partition. The second partition in the partition table is
the active primary. That is the partition the BIOS will bootstrap. That is
the partition that must contain boot.init, ntldr and ntdetect.com. In turn
boot.ini must point to the partition from which the OS will loaded.
Depending on exactly how you got into the partition table layout you have,
specifically the timing therein, things may get a bit interesting since the
mounteddevices key has been clipped. The key is what was the OS partition
enumerated as when you set it up. Once boot.ini is straightened out, you may
have to use "last known good configuration' to get the mounteddevices values
back. As an aside, if you alter the physical layout of the Seagate now, you
could save your self a lot of grief and would not have to worry about the
old mounteddevices key.

One 'long' term issue I *think* you're going to have, is if you drop another
volume into the logical partition, it's going to hose the arc statement.


As for the wider picture, I had sorted out a method of cloning that worked
as long as I rigidly followed the steps I mentioned earlier. Otherwise I
never managed to boot the clone. I assumed that deleting that key would
answer that particular issue

I can get you back to where you want to go at present, but due to the
partition layout you have on the Seagate you're going to continue to have
some extreme difficulty in partition cloning of the OS instance. I can
understand exactly why you're having to jump through the hoops you are
though.

Pulling in the other post:
Yes, those files are now all on the second (Non OS) partition.

boot.ini

[boot loader]
timeout=1
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(3)\WINDOW S
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(3)\WINDOWS="Micro soft Windows XP Home
Edition" /fastdetect /NoExecute=OptIn

Can I perhaps copy them across and try rebooting? If so, exactly which
files?

Yes, but I'd go a bit further since you're in hunt and peck mode at the
moment.
Modify the boot.ini as follows and note the change on the time out value.
You need the time to be able to select a different arc path.

[boot loader]
timeout=5
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(3)\WINDOW S
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Micro soft Windows XP Home
Edition 1" /fastdetect /NoExecute=OptIn
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS="Micro soft Windows XP Home
Edition 2" /fastdetect /NoExecute=OptIn
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(3)\WINDOWS="Micro soft Windows XP Home
Edition 3" /fastdetect /NoExecute=OptIn
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(4)\WINDOWS="Micro soft Windows XP Home
Edition 4" /fastdetect /NoExecute=OptIn

In this way you can attempt to load each of the partitions. Also, bring the
image up in safe mode initially. Do not bring the machine up in normal mode
directly. Once up in safemode, use diskmgmt.msc to correct any drive letter
assignment problems you may have.

The other two files you need are ntldr and ntdetect.com.

Once you get where you want, you can delete the extraneous [operating
systems] statements from boot.ini.

Walter,
I had a play around with all this, but gave up in the end, and reinstalled
XP.

Could you have a look at this and tell me if it now seems 'normal'.

At this stage I would like to take regular backup images, (ideally using
Acronis, as I have that), and restore them to the Maxtor (HD1) for checking.
Can you forsee any problems now?

Finally, I believe it would be relatively easy to restore images to any of
the other partitions on say the Maxtor (there are three). Do I need to
modify boot.ini in order to access them. My BIOS has a boot loader if I
press F8 so would they then appear on it's menu?

Thanks,

Dave

[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOW S
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Micro soft Windows XP Home
Edition" /fastdetect /NoExecute=OptIn


PARTINFO 1.09
Copyright (C) 1996-2003, TeraByte Unlimited. All rights reserved.

Run date: 04/26/2005 0:36

================================================== ==================
MBR Partition Information (HD0):
+====+====+=============+====+=============+====== =====+===========+
| 0: | 80 | 0 1 1 | 7 | 1023 254 63 | 63 | 61432497 |
| 1: | 0 | 1023 0 1 | 7 | 1023 254 63 | 61432560 | 262309320 |
| 2: | 0 | 1023 0 1 | 7 | 1023 254 63 | 323741880 | 262325385 |
| 3: | 0 | 0 0 0 | 0 | 0 0 0 | 0 | 0 |
+====+====+=============+====+=============+====== =====+===========+
BOOT SECTOR INFORMATION
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
File System ID: 0x7 LBA: 63 Total Sectors: 61432497 ID: 0x1
Jump: EB 52 90
OEM Name: NTFS
Bytes Per Sec: 512
Sec Per Clust: 8
Res Sectors: 0
Zero 1: 0x0
Zero 2: 0x0
NA 1: 0x0
Media: 0xF8
Zero 3: 0x0
Sec Per Track: 63
Heads: 255
Hidden Secs: 63
NA 2: 0x0
NA 3: 0x800080
Total Sectors: 0x03A962B0
MFT LCN: 0x0C0000
MFT Mirr LCN: 0x03A962B
Clust Per FRS: 0xF6
Clust Per IBlock: 0x1
Volume SN: 0x844C0F974C0F8362
Checksum: 0x0
Boot Flag: 0xAA55
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
File System ID: 0x7 LBA: 61432560 Total Sectors: 262309320 ID: 0x2
Jump: EB 52 90
OEM Name: NTFS
Bytes Per Sec: 512
Sec Per Clust: 8
Res Sectors: 0
Zero 1: 0x0
Zero 2: 0x0
NA 1: 0x0
Media: 0xF8
Zero 3: 0x0
Sec Per Track: 63
Heads: 255
Hidden Secs: 61432560
NA 2: 0x0
NA 3: 0x800080
Total Sectors: 0x0FA285C7
MFT LCN: 0x0C0000
MFT Mirr LCN: 0x0FA285C
Clust Per FRS: 0xF6
Clust Per IBlock: 0x1
Volume SN: 0xF2281E1A281DDF03
Checksum: 0x0
Boot Flag: 0xAA55
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
File System ID: 0x7 LBA: 323741880 Total Sectors: 262325385 ID: 0x3
Jump: EB 52 90
OEM Name: NTFS
Bytes Per Sec: 512
Sec Per Clust: 8
Res Sectors: 0
Zero 1: 0x0
Zero 2: 0x0
NA 1: 0x0
Media: 0xF8
Zero 3: 0x0
Sec Per Track: 63
Heads: 255
Hidden Secs: 323741880
NA 2: 0x0
NA 3: 0x800080
Total Sectors: 0x0FA2C488
MFT LCN: 0x0C0000
MFT Mirr LCN: 0x0FA2C48
Clust Per FRS: 0xF6
Clust Per IBlock: 0x1
Volume SN: 0x7AB4DECCB4DE89D1
Checksum: 0x0
Boot Flag: 0xAA55
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
================================================== ==================
MBR Partition Information (HD1):
+====+====+=============+====+=============+====== =====+===========+
| 0: | 80 | 0 1 1 | 7 | 1023 254 63 | 63 | 38539872 |
| 1: | 0 | 1023 0 1 | 7 | 1023 254 63 | 38539935 | 274036770 |
| 2: | 0 | 0 0 0 | 0 | 0 0 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 3: | 0 | 0 0 0 | 0 | 0 0 0 | 0 | 0 |
+====+====+=============+====+=============+====== =====+===========+
BOOT SECTOR INFORMATION
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
File System ID: 0x7 LBA: 63 Total Sectors: 38539872 ID: 0x1
Jump: EB 52 90
OEM Name: NTFS
Bytes Per Sec: 512
Sec Per Clust: 8
Res Sectors: 0
Zero 1: 0x0
Zero 2: 0x0
NA 1: 0x0
Media: 0xF8
Zero 3: 0x0
Sec Per Track: 63
Heads: 255
Hidden Secs: 63
NA 2: 0x0
NA 3: 0x800080
Total Sectors: 0x024C1258
MFT LCN: 0x0B42FF
MFT Mirr LCN: 0x03D54EA
Clust Per FRS: 0xF6
Clust Per IBlock: 0x1
Volume SN: 0x4228D79E28D78EF3
Checksum: 0x0
Boot Flag: 0xAA55
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
File System ID: 0x7 LBA: 38539935 Total Sectors: 274036770 ID: 0x2
Jump: EB 52 90
OEM Name: NTFS
Bytes Per Sec: 512
Sec Per Clust: 8
Res Sectors: 0
Zero 1: 0x0
Zero 2: 0x0
NA 1: 0x0
Media: 0xF8
Zero 3: 0x0
Sec Per Track: 63
Heads: 255
Hidden Secs: 38539935
NA 2: 0x0
NA 3: 0x800080
Total Sectors: 0x010557821
MFT LCN: 0x0C0000
MFT Mirr LCN: 0x01055782
Clust Per FRS: 0xF6
Clust Per IBlock: 0x1
Volume SN: 0x7E38F7BF38F7750D
Checksum: 0x0
Boot Flag: 0xAA55
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This structure looks better as long as you don't introduce a logical volume
in the mix at some point in time, based on what you're intending. If you do,
you're going to have some issues with partition enumeration.

I'm looking at the Acronis web site and what I don't see right off hand is a
boot manager as part of your package. It appears that with a different
package, you can get a boot manager, but I don't have any hands on with it.
I can't tell if it's capable of doing what needs be done in order to
actually fire up an OS image from a different BIOS enumerated device. It
sort of implies that it can, but I since they make a rather outrageous claim
regarding performance, I can't trust what I'm reading. Regardless, one of
the issues is going to revolve around the mounteddevices key and the
secondary issue is with how devices and partitions are enumerated during
system startup. I don't see a practical way, with the tools you have, to
validate a partition image outside of restoring it in-situ. Even if you clip
the mounteddevices key in advance of snapping an image, and configure the
BIOS to bootstrap HD1 instead of HD0 you're going to get hosed when
partitions are reenumerated. And if you don't clip the key, you're going to
get hosed when the system attempts to mount the first partition on HD0 as
the system image.

You're either going to have to trust the product or not. If not, then use
what I use which is a little bit cheaper and that's BootItNG.

BTW: I do have to disagree with a site that claims, right on their main
page:

"Partitioning The Hard Disk Increases Performance ..".

when it does exactly the opposite. It's sort of an instant turn off for me
especially when I dig into the details of the article and see the other
mistakes. Then again, when talking about marketing hype...

--
Walter Clayton
Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced.


"David Cockram" wrote in message
.. .
Walter,
I had a play around with all this, but gave up in the end, and reinstalled
XP.

Could you have a look at this and tell me if it now seems 'normal'.

At this stage I would like to take regular backup images, (ideally using
Acronis, as I have that), and restore them to the Maxtor (HD1) for
checking. Can you forsee any problems now?

Finally, I believe it would be relatively easy to restore images to any of
the other partitions on say the Maxtor (there are three). Do I need to
modify boot.ini in order to access them. My BIOS has a boot loader if I
press F8 so would they then appear on it's menu?

Thanks,

Dave

[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOW S
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Micro soft Windows XP Home
Edition" /fastdetect /NoExecute=OptIn


PARTINFO 1.09
Copyright (C) 1996-2003, TeraByte Unlimited. All rights reserved.

Run date: 04/26/2005 0:36

================================================== ==================
MBR Partition Information (HD0):
+====+====+=============+====+=============+====== =====+===========+
| 0: | 80 | 0 1 1 | 7 | 1023 254 63 | 63 | 61432497 |
| 1: | 0 | 1023 0 1 | 7 | 1023 254 63 | 61432560 | 262309320 |
| 2: | 0 | 1023 0 1 | 7 | 1023 254 63 | 323741880 | 262325385 |
| 3: | 0 | 0 0 0 | 0 | 0 0 0 | 0 | 0 |
+====+====+=============+====+=============+====== =====+===========+
BOOT SECTOR INFORMATION
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
File System ID: 0x7 LBA: 63 Total Sectors: 61432497 ID: 0x1
Jump: EB 52 90
OEM Name: NTFS
Bytes Per Sec: 512
Sec Per Clust: 8
Res Sectors: 0
Zero 1: 0x0
Zero 2: 0x0
NA 1: 0x0
Media: 0xF8
Zero 3: 0x0
Sec Per Track: 63
Heads: 255
Hidden Secs: 63
NA 2: 0x0
NA 3: 0x800080
Total Sectors: 0x03A962B0
MFT LCN: 0x0C0000
MFT Mirr LCN: 0x03A962B
Clust Per FRS: 0xF6
Clust Per IBlock: 0x1
Volume SN: 0x844C0F974C0F8362
Checksum: 0x0
Boot Flag: 0xAA55
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
File System ID: 0x7 LBA: 61432560 Total Sectors: 262309320 ID: 0x2
Jump: EB 52 90
OEM Name: NTFS
Bytes Per Sec: 512
Sec Per Clust: 8
Res Sectors: 0
Zero 1: 0x0
Zero 2: 0x0
NA 1: 0x0
Media: 0xF8
Zero 3: 0x0
Sec Per Track: 63
Heads: 255
Hidden Secs: 61432560
NA 2: 0x0
NA 3: 0x800080
Total Sectors: 0x0FA285C7
MFT LCN: 0x0C0000
MFT Mirr LCN: 0x0FA285C
Clust Per FRS: 0xF6
Clust Per IBlock: 0x1
Volume SN: 0xF2281E1A281DDF03
Checksum: 0x0
Boot Flag: 0xAA55
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
File System ID: 0x7 LBA: 323741880 Total Sectors: 262325385 ID: 0x3
Jump: EB 52 90
OEM Name: NTFS
Bytes Per Sec: 512
Sec Per Clust: 8
Res Sectors: 0
Zero 1: 0x0
Zero 2: 0x0
NA 1: 0x0
Media: 0xF8
Zero 3: 0x0
Sec Per Track: 63
Heads: 255
Hidden Secs: 323741880
NA 2: 0x0
NA 3: 0x800080
Total Sectors: 0x0FA2C488
MFT LCN: 0x0C0000
MFT Mirr LCN: 0x0FA2C48
Clust Per FRS: 0xF6
Clust Per IBlock: 0x1
Volume SN: 0x7AB4DECCB4DE89D1
Checksum: 0x0
Boot Flag: 0xAA55
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
================================================== ==================
MBR Partition Information (HD1):
+====+====+=============+====+=============+====== =====+===========+
| 0: | 80 | 0 1 1 | 7 | 1023 254 63 | 63 | 38539872 |
| 1: | 0 | 1023 0 1 | 7 | 1023 254 63 | 38539935 | 274036770 |
| 2: | 0 | 0 0 0 | 0 | 0 0 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 3: | 0 | 0 0 0 | 0 | 0 0 0 | 0 | 0 |
+====+====+=============+====+=============+====== =====+===========+
BOOT SECTOR INFORMATION
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
File System ID: 0x7 LBA: 63 Total Sectors: 38539872 ID: 0x1
Jump: EB 52 90
OEM Name: NTFS
Bytes Per Sec: 512
Sec Per Clust: 8
Res Sectors: 0
Zero 1: 0x0
Zero 2: 0x0
NA 1: 0x0
Media: 0xF8
Zero 3: 0x0
Sec Per Track: 63
Heads: 255
Hidden Secs: 63
NA 2: 0x0
NA 3: 0x800080
Total Sectors: 0x024C1258
MFT LCN: 0x0B42FF
MFT Mirr LCN: 0x03D54EA
Clust Per FRS: 0xF6
Clust Per IBlock: 0x1
Volume SN: 0x4228D79E28D78EF3
Checksum: 0x0
Boot Flag: 0xAA55
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
File System ID: 0x7 LBA: 38539935 Total Sectors: 274036770 ID: 0x2
Jump: EB 52 90
OEM Name: NTFS
Bytes Per Sec: 512
Sec Per Clust: 8
Res Sectors: 0
Zero 1: 0x0
Zero 2: 0x0
NA 1: 0x0
Media: 0xF8
Zero 3: 0x0
Sec Per Track: 63
Heads: 255
Hidden Secs: 38539935
NA 2: 0x0
NA 3: 0x800080
Total Sectors: 0x010557821
MFT LCN: 0x0C0000
MFT Mirr LCN: 0x01055782
Clust Per FRS: 0xF6
Clust Per IBlock: 0x1
Volume SN: 0x7E38F7BF38F7750D
Checksum: 0x0
Boot Flag: 0xAA55
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

OK, thanks for all that advice Walter. I used a trial version of BootItNG
some years ago, so I'll check it out again.

One final thing. Presumably it's ok to restore a cloned HD0 partition
to HD1. Then to remove HD0 and replace it with HD1 and reboot. That isn't
going to
affect anything when I revert back to normal is it?

Dave

"Walter Clayton" wrote in message
...
This structure looks better as long as you don't introduce a logical
volume in the mix at some point in time, based on what you're intending.
If you do, you're going to have some issues with partition enumeration.

I'm looking at the Acronis web site and what I don't see right off hand is
a boot manager as part of your package. It appears that with a different
package, you can get a boot manager, but I don't have any hands on with
it. I can't tell if it's capable of doing what needs be done in order to
actually fire up an OS image from a different BIOS enumerated device. It
sort of implies that it can, but I since they make a rather outrageous
claim regarding performance, I can't trust what I'm reading. Regardless,
one of the issues is going to revolve around the mounteddevices key and
the secondary issue is with how devices and partitions are enumerated
during system startup. I don't see a practical way, with the tools you
have, to validate a partition image outside of restoring it in-situ. Even
if you clip the mounteddevices key in advance of snapping an image, and
configure the BIOS to bootstrap HD1 instead of HD0 you're going to get
hosed when partitions are reenumerated. And if you don't clip the key,
you're going to get hosed when the system attempts to mount the first
partition on HD0 as the system image.

You're either going to have to trust the product or not. If not, then use
what I use which is a little bit cheaper and that's BootItNG.

BTW: I do have to disagree with a site that claims, right on their main
page:

"Partitioning The Hard Disk Increases Performance ..".

when it does exactly the opposite. It's sort of an instant turn off for
me especially when I dig into the details of the article and see the other
mistakes. Then again, when talking about marketing hype...

--
Walter Clayton
Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced.


"David Cockram" wrote in message
.. .
Walter,
I had a play around with all this, but gave up in the end, and
reinstalled XP.

Could you have a look at this and tell me if it now seems 'normal'.

At this stage I would like to take regular backup images, (ideally using
Acronis, as I have that), and restore them to the Maxtor (HD1) for
checking. Can you forsee any problems now?

Finally, I believe it would be relatively easy to restore images to any
of the other partitions on say the Maxtor (there are three). Do I need to
modify boot.ini in order to access them. My BIOS has a boot loader if I
press F8 so would they then appear on it's menu?

Thanks,

Dave

[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOW S
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Micro soft Windows XP Home
Edition" /fastdetect /NoExecute=OptIn


PARTINFO 1.09
Copyright (C) 1996-2003, TeraByte Unlimited. All rights reserved.

Run date: 04/26/2005 0:36

================================================== ==================
MBR Partition Information (HD0):
+====+====+=============+====+=============+====== =====+===========+
| 0: | 80 | 0 1 1 | 7 | 1023 254 63 | 63 | 61432497 |
| 1: | 0 | 1023 0 1 | 7 | 1023 254 63 | 61432560 | 262309320 |
| 2: | 0 | 1023 0 1 | 7 | 1023 254 63 | 323741880 | 262325385 |
| 3: | 0 | 0 0 0 | 0 | 0 0 0 | 0 | 0 |
+====+====+=============+====+=============+====== =====+===========+
BOOT SECTOR INFORMATION
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
File System ID: 0x7 LBA: 63 Total Sectors: 61432497 ID: 0x1
Jump: EB 52 90
OEM Name: NTFS
Bytes Per Sec: 512
Sec Per Clust: 8
Res Sectors: 0
Zero 1: 0x0
Zero 2: 0x0
NA 1: 0x0
Media: 0xF8
Zero 3: 0x0
Sec Per Track: 63
Heads: 255
Hidden Secs: 63
NA 2: 0x0
NA 3: 0x800080
Total Sectors: 0x03A962B0
MFT LCN: 0x0C0000
MFT Mirr LCN: 0x03A962B
Clust Per FRS: 0xF6
Clust Per IBlock: 0x1
Volume SN: 0x844C0F974C0F8362
Checksum: 0x0
Boot Flag: 0xAA55
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
File System ID: 0x7 LBA: 61432560 Total Sectors: 262309320 ID: 0x2
Jump: EB 52 90
OEM Name: NTFS
Bytes Per Sec: 512
Sec Per Clust: 8
Res Sectors: 0
Zero 1: 0x0
Zero 2: 0x0
NA 1: 0x0
Media: 0xF8
Zero 3: 0x0
Sec Per Track: 63
Heads: 255
Hidden Secs: 61432560
NA 2: 0x0
NA 3: 0x800080
Total Sectors: 0x0FA285C7
MFT LCN: 0x0C0000
MFT Mirr LCN: 0x0FA285C
Clust Per FRS: 0xF6
Clust Per IBlock: 0x1
Volume SN: 0xF2281E1A281DDF03
Checksum: 0x0
Boot Flag: 0xAA55
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
File System ID: 0x7 LBA: 323741880 Total Sectors: 262325385 ID: 0x3
Jump: EB 52 90
OEM Name: NTFS
Bytes Per Sec: 512
Sec Per Clust: 8
Res Sectors: 0
Zero 1: 0x0
Zero 2: 0x0
NA 1: 0x0
Media: 0xF8
Zero 3: 0x0
Sec Per Track: 63
Heads: 255
Hidden Secs: 323741880
NA 2: 0x0
NA 3: 0x800080
Total Sectors: 0x0FA2C488
MFT LCN: 0x0C0000
MFT Mirr LCN: 0x0FA2C48
Clust Per FRS: 0xF6
Clust Per IBlock: 0x1
Volume SN: 0x7AB4DECCB4DE89D1
Checksum: 0x0
Boot Flag: 0xAA55
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
================================================== ==================
MBR Partition Information (HD1):
+====+====+=============+====+=============+====== =====+===========+
| 0: | 80 | 0 1 1 | 7 | 1023 254 63 | 63 | 38539872 |
| 1: | 0 | 1023 0 1 | 7 | 1023 254 63 | 38539935 | 274036770 |
| 2: | 0 | 0 0 0 | 0 | 0 0 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 3: | 0 | 0 0 0 | 0 | 0 0 0 | 0 | 0 |
+====+====+=============+====+=============+====== =====+===========+
BOOT SECTOR INFORMATION
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
File System ID: 0x7 LBA: 63 Total Sectors: 38539872 ID: 0x1
Jump: EB 52 90
OEM Name: NTFS
Bytes Per Sec: 512
Sec Per Clust: 8
Res Sectors: 0
Zero 1: 0x0
Zero 2: 0x0
NA 1: 0x0
Media: 0xF8
Zero 3: 0x0
Sec Per Track: 63
Heads: 255
Hidden Secs: 63
NA 2: 0x0
NA 3: 0x800080
Total Sectors: 0x024C1258
MFT LCN: 0x0B42FF
MFT Mirr LCN: 0x03D54EA
Clust Per FRS: 0xF6
Clust Per IBlock: 0x1
Volume SN: 0x4228D79E28D78EF3
Checksum: 0x0
Boot Flag: 0xAA55
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
File System ID: 0x7 LBA: 38539935 Total Sectors: 274036770 ID: 0x2
Jump: EB 52 90
OEM Name: NTFS
Bytes Per Sec: 512
Sec Per Clust: 8
Res Sectors: 0
Zero 1: 0x0
Zero 2: 0x0
NA 1: 0x0
Media: 0xF8
Zero 3: 0x0
Sec Per Track: 63
Heads: 255
Hidden Secs: 38539935
NA 2: 0x0
NA 3: 0x800080
Total Sectors: 0x010557821
MFT LCN: 0x0C0000
MFT Mirr LCN: 0x01055782
Clust Per FRS: 0xF6
Clust Per IBlock: 0x1
Volume SN: 0x7E38F7BF38F7750D
Checksum: 0x0
Boot Flag: 0xAA55
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

If you remove HD0 then anything that goes splat will happen only on the
exposed partitions on HD1. The problem you're may have is if that particular
OS image is looking for a volume that was just physically removed (unless
you clip the mounteddevices key in advance and the partitions enumerate
correctly thereafter). If you can live with that, then you're OK.

I'd be hesitant about doing too much physical recabling though. That's how
connectors wear out and get bent or broken. ;-)

--
Walter Clayton
Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced.


"David Cockram" wrote in message
.. .
OK, thanks for all that advice Walter. I used a trial version of BootItNG
some years ago, so I'll check it out again.

One final thing. Presumably it's ok to restore a cloned HD0 partition
to HD1. Then to remove HD0 and replace it with HD1 and reboot. That isn't
going to
affect anything when I revert back to normal is it?

Dave

"Walter Clayton" wrote in message
...
This structure looks better as long as you don't introduce a logical
volume in the mix at some point in time, based on what you're intending.
If you do, you're going to have some issues with partition enumeration.

I'm looking at the Acronis web site and what I don't see right off hand
is a boot manager as part of your package. It appears that with a
different package, you can get a boot manager, but I don't have any hands
on with it. I can't tell if it's capable of doing what needs be done in
order to actually fire up an OS image from a different BIOS enumerated
device. It sort of implies that it can, but I since they make a rather
outrageous claim regarding performance, I can't trust what I'm reading.
Regardless, one of the issues is going to revolve around the
mounteddevices key and the secondary issue is with how devices and
partitions are enumerated during system startup. I don't see a practical
way, with the tools you have, to validate a partition image outside of
restoring it in-situ. Even if you clip the mounteddevices key in advance
of snapping an image, and configure the BIOS to bootstrap HD1 instead of
HD0 you're going to get hosed when partitions are reenumerated. And if
you don't clip the key, you're going to get hosed when the system
attempts to mount the first partition on HD0 as the system image.

You're either going to have to trust the product or not. If not, then use
what I use which is a little bit cheaper and that's BootItNG.

BTW: I do have to disagree with a site that claims, right on their main
page:

"Partitioning The Hard Disk Increases Performance ..".

when it does exactly the opposite. It's sort of an instant turn off for
me especially when I dig into the details of the article and see the
other mistakes. Then again, when talking about marketing hype...

--
Walter Clayton
Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced.


"David Cockram" wrote in message
.. .
Walter,
I had a play around with all this, but gave up in the end, and
reinstalled XP.

Could you have a look at this and tell me if it now seems 'normal'.

At this stage I would like to take regular backup images, (ideally using
Acronis, as I have that), and restore them to the Maxtor (HD1) for
checking. Can you forsee any problems now?

Finally, I believe it would be relatively easy to restore images to any
of the other partitions on say the Maxtor (there are three). Do I need
to modify boot.ini in order to access them. My BIOS has a boot loader if
I press F8 so would they then appear on it's menu?

Thanks,

Dave

[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOW S
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Micro soft Windows XP Home
Edition" /fastdetect /NoExecute=OptIn


PARTINFO 1.09
Copyright (C) 1996-2003, TeraByte Unlimited. All rights reserved.

Run date: 04/26/2005 0:36

================================================== ==================
MBR Partition Information (HD0):
+====+====+=============+====+=============+====== =====+===========+
| 0: | 80 | 0 1 1 | 7 | 1023 254 63 | 63 | 61432497 |
| 1: | 0 | 1023 0 1 | 7 | 1023 254 63 | 61432560 | 262309320 |
| 2: | 0 | 1023 0 1 | 7 | 1023 254 63 | 323741880 | 262325385 |
| 3: | 0 | 0 0 0 | 0 | 0 0 0 | 0 | 0 |
+====+====+=============+====+=============+====== =====+===========+
BOOT SECTOR INFORMATION
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
File System ID: 0x7 LBA: 63 Total Sectors: 61432497 ID: 0x1
Jump: EB 52 90
OEM Name: NTFS
Bytes Per Sec: 512
Sec Per Clust: 8
Res Sectors: 0
Zero 1: 0x0
Zero 2: 0x0
NA 1: 0x0
Media: 0xF8
Zero 3: 0x0
Sec Per Track: 63
Heads: 255
Hidden Secs: 63
NA 2: 0x0
NA 3: 0x800080
Total Sectors: 0x03A962B0
MFT LCN: 0x0C0000
MFT Mirr LCN: 0x03A962B
Clust Per FRS: 0xF6
Clust Per IBlock: 0x1
Volume SN: 0x844C0F974C0F8362
Checksum: 0x0
Boot Flag: 0xAA55
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
File System ID: 0x7 LBA: 61432560 Total Sectors: 262309320 ID: 0x2
Jump: EB 52 90
OEM Name: NTFS
Bytes Per Sec: 512
Sec Per Clust: 8
Res Sectors: 0
Zero 1: 0x0
Zero 2: 0x0
NA 1: 0x0
Media: 0xF8
Zero 3: 0x0
Sec Per Track: 63
Heads: 255
Hidden Secs: 61432560
NA 2: 0x0
NA 3: 0x800080
Total Sectors: 0x0FA285C7
MFT LCN: 0x0C0000
MFT Mirr LCN: 0x0FA285C
Clust Per FRS: 0xF6
Clust Per IBlock: 0x1
Volume SN: 0xF2281E1A281DDF03
Checksum: 0x0
Boot Flag: 0xAA55
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
File System ID: 0x7 LBA: 323741880 Total Sectors: 262325385 ID: 0x3
Jump: EB 52 90
OEM Name: NTFS
Bytes Per Sec: 512
Sec Per Clust: 8
Res Sectors: 0
Zero 1: 0x0
Zero 2: 0x0
NA 1: 0x0
Media: 0xF8
Zero 3: 0x0
Sec Per Track: 63
Heads: 255
Hidden Secs: 323741880
NA 2: 0x0
NA 3: 0x800080
Total Sectors: 0x0FA2C488
MFT LCN: 0x0C0000
MFT Mirr LCN: 0x0FA2C48
Clust Per FRS: 0xF6
Clust Per IBlock: 0x1
Volume SN: 0x7AB4DECCB4DE89D1
Checksum: 0x0
Boot Flag: 0xAA55
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
================================================== ==================
MBR Partition Information (HD1):
+====+====+=============+====+=============+====== =====+===========+
| 0: | 80 | 0 1 1 | 7 | 1023 254 63 | 63 | 38539872 |
| 1: | 0 | 1023 0 1 | 7 | 1023 254 63 | 38539935 | 274036770 |
| 2: | 0 | 0 0 0 | 0 | 0 0 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 3: | 0 | 0 0 0 | 0 | 0 0 0 | 0 | 0 |
+====+====+=============+====+=============+====== =====+===========+
BOOT SECTOR INFORMATION
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
File System ID: 0x7 LBA: 63 Total Sectors: 38539872 ID: 0x1
Jump: EB 52 90
OEM Name: NTFS
Bytes Per Sec: 512
Sec Per Clust: 8
Res Sectors: 0
Zero 1: 0x0
Zero 2: 0x0
NA 1: 0x0
Media: 0xF8
Zero 3: 0x0
Sec Per Track: 63
Heads: 255
Hidden Secs: 63
NA 2: 0x0
NA 3: 0x800080
Total Sectors: 0x024C1258
MFT LCN: 0x0B42FF
MFT Mirr LCN: 0x03D54EA
Clust Per FRS: 0xF6
Clust Per IBlock: 0x1
Volume SN: 0x4228D79E28D78EF3
Checksum: 0x0
Boot Flag: 0xAA55
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
File System ID: 0x7 LBA: 38539935 Total Sectors: 274036770 ID: 0x2
Jump: EB 52 90
OEM Name: NTFS
Bytes Per Sec: 512
Sec Per Clust: 8
Res Sectors: 0
Zero 1: 0x0
Zero 2: 0x0
NA 1: 0x0
Media: 0xF8
Zero 3: 0x0
Sec Per Track: 63
Heads: 255
Hidden Secs: 38539935
NA 2: 0x0
NA 3: 0x800080
Total Sectors: 0x010557821
MFT LCN: 0x0C0000
MFT Mirr LCN: 0x01055782
Clust Per FRS: 0xF6
Clust Per IBlock: 0x1
Volume SN: 0x7E38F7BF38F7750D
Checksum: 0x0
Boot Flag: 0xAA55
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Understood. Now that would have been it. BUT. . .

I've just been reinstalling XP Home Ed on HD0. I completely wiped the disk
of partitions because of the earlier problems, and started again. During
installation, I had a restored clone on HD1 which seemed harmless, and I
wasn't accessing or booting from it.

Then I started having problems. The machine stalled during booting, and
wouldn't reboot. I tried the other drive, HD1. It booted but then started
locking up and it eventually hung. I tried removing HD0 and HD1 wouldn't
boot at all. It became apparent that the drives had become dependent on each
other.One wouldn't boot without the other. Also my new partitions on HD0
were all over the place, with C: now being a logical drive.

I'm coming to the conlusion that either a) I've got some strange unresolved
hardware issues, although I had no problems prior to having 2 bootable
drives, or b) XP really doesn't like having 2 bootable drives, although I
always thought it was ok with this.

So, yet another reinstall, having first deleted the bootable partition on
HD1. When I eventually get back on track, I will make a clone, check it
works on it's own, and then remove it completely until such time as it may
be needed.

Would you expect this to happen with two bootable drives?

Dave


"Walter Clayton" wrote in message
...
If you remove HD0 then anything that goes splat will happen only on the
exposed partitions on HD1. The problem you're may have is if that
particular OS image is looking for a volume that was just physically
removed (unless you clip the mounteddevices key in advance and the
partitions enumerate correctly thereafter). If you can live with that,
then you're OK.

I'd be hesitant about doing too much physical recabling though. That's how
connectors wear out and get bent or broken. ;-)

--
Walter Clayton
Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced.


"David Cockram" wrote in message
.. .
OK, thanks for all that advice Walter. I used a trial version of BootItNG
some years ago, so I'll check it out again.

One final thing. Presumably it's ok to restore a cloned HD0 partition
to HD1. Then to remove HD0 and replace it with HD1 and reboot. That isn't
going to
affect anything when I revert back to normal is it?

Dave

"Walter Clayton" wrote in message
...
This structure looks better as long as you don't introduce a logical
volume in the mix at some point in time, based on what you're intending.
If you do, you're going to have some issues with partition enumeration.

I'm looking at the Acronis web site and what I don't see right off hand
is a boot manager as part of your package. It appears that with a
different package, you can get a boot manager, but I don't have any
hands on with it. I can't tell if it's capable of doing what needs be
done in order to actually fire up an OS image from a different BIOS
enumerated device. It sort of implies that it can, but I since they make
a rather outrageous claim regarding performance, I can't trust what I'm
reading. Regardless, one of the issues is going to revolve around the
mounteddevices key and the secondary issue is with how devices and
partitions are enumerated during system startup. I don't see a practical
way, with the tools you have, to validate a partition image outside of
restoring it in-situ. Even if you clip the mounteddevices key in advance
of snapping an image, and configure the BIOS to bootstrap HD1 instead of
HD0 you're going to get hosed when partitions are reenumerated. And if
you don't clip the key, you're going to get hosed when the system
attempts to mount the first partition on HD0 as the system image.

You're either going to have to trust the product or not. If not, then
use what I use which is a little bit cheaper and that's BootItNG.

BTW: I do have to disagree with a site that claims, right on their main
page:

"Partitioning The Hard Disk Increases Performance ..".

when it does exactly the opposite. It's sort of an instant turn off for
me especially when I dig into the details of the article and see the
other mistakes. Then again, when talking about marketing hype...

--
Walter Clayton
Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced.


"David Cockram" wrote in message
.. .
Walter,
I had a play around with all this, but gave up in the end, and
reinstalled XP.

Could you have a look at this and tell me if it now seems 'normal'.

At this stage I would like to take regular backup images, (ideally
using Acronis, as I have that), and restore them to the Maxtor (HD1)
for checking. Can you forsee any problems now?

Finally, I believe it would be relatively easy to restore images to any
of the other partitions on say the Maxtor (there are three). Do I need
to modify boot.ini in order to access them. My BIOS has a boot loader
if I press F8 so would they then appear on it's menu?

Thanks,

Dave

[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOW S
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Micro soft Windows XP Home
Edition" /fastdetect /NoExecute=OptIn


PARTINFO 1.09
Copyright (C) 1996-2003, TeraByte Unlimited. All rights reserved.

Run date: 04/26/2005 0:36

================================================== ==================
MBR Partition Information (HD0):
+====+====+=============+====+=============+====== =====+===========+
| 0: | 80 | 0 1 1 | 7 | 1023 254 63 | 63 | 61432497 |
| 1: | 0 | 1023 0 1 | 7 | 1023 254 63 | 61432560 | 262309320 |
| 2: | 0 | 1023 0 1 | 7 | 1023 254 63 | 323741880 | 262325385 |
| 3: | 0 | 0 0 0 | 0 | 0 0 0 | 0 | 0 |
+====+====+=============+====+=============+====== =====+===========+
BOOT SECTOR INFORMATION
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
File System ID: 0x7 LBA: 63 Total Sectors: 61432497 ID: 0x1
Jump: EB 52 90
OEM Name: NTFS
Bytes Per Sec: 512
Sec Per Clust: 8
Res Sectors: 0
Zero 1: 0x0
Zero 2: 0x0
NA 1: 0x0
Media: 0xF8
Zero 3: 0x0
Sec Per Track: 63
Heads: 255
Hidden Secs: 63
NA 2: 0x0
NA 3: 0x800080
Total Sectors: 0x03A962B0
MFT LCN: 0x0C0000
MFT Mirr LCN: 0x03A962B
Clust Per FRS: 0xF6
Clust Per IBlock: 0x1
Volume SN: 0x844C0F974C0F8362
Checksum: 0x0
Boot Flag: 0xAA55
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
File System ID: 0x7 LBA: 61432560 Total Sectors: 262309320 ID: 0x2
Jump: EB 52 90
OEM Name: NTFS
Bytes Per Sec: 512
Sec Per Clust: 8
Res Sectors: 0
Zero 1: 0x0
Zero 2: 0x0
NA 1: 0x0
Media: 0xF8
Zero 3: 0x0
Sec Per Track: 63
Heads: 255
Hidden Secs: 61432560
NA 2: 0x0
NA 3: 0x800080
Total Sectors: 0x0FA285C7
MFT LCN: 0x0C0000
MFT Mirr LCN: 0x0FA285C
Clust Per FRS: 0xF6
Clust Per IBlock: 0x1
Volume SN: 0xF2281E1A281DDF03
Checksum: 0x0
Boot Flag: 0xAA55
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
File System ID: 0x7 LBA: 323741880 Total Sectors: 262325385 ID:
0x3
Jump: EB 52 90
OEM Name: NTFS
Bytes Per Sec: 512
Sec Per Clust: 8
Res Sectors: 0
Zero 1: 0x0
Zero 2: 0x0
NA 1: 0x0
Media: 0xF8
Zero 3: 0x0
Sec Per Track: 63
Heads: 255
Hidden Secs: 323741880
NA 2: 0x0
NA 3: 0x800080
Total Sectors: 0x0FA2C488
MFT LCN: 0x0C0000
MFT Mirr LCN: 0x0FA2C48
Clust Per FRS: 0xF6
Clust Per IBlock: 0x1
Volume SN: 0x7AB4DECCB4DE89D1
Checksum: 0x0
Boot Flag: 0xAA55
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
================================================== ==================
MBR Partition Information (HD1):
+====+====+=============+====+=============+====== =====+===========+
| 0: | 80 | 0 1 1 | 7 | 1023 254 63 | 63 | 38539872 |
| 1: | 0 | 1023 0 1 | 7 | 1023 254 63 | 38539935 | 274036770 |
| 2: | 0 | 0 0 0 | 0 | 0 0 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 3: | 0 | 0 0 0 | 0 | 0 0 0 | 0 | 0 |
+====+====+=============+====+=============+====== =====+===========+
BOOT SECTOR INFORMATION
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
File System ID: 0x7 LBA: 63 Total Sectors: 38539872 ID: 0x1
Jump: EB 52 90
OEM Name: NTFS
Bytes Per Sec: 512
Sec Per Clust: 8
Res Sectors: 0
Zero 1: 0x0
Zero 2: 0x0
NA 1: 0x0
Media: 0xF8
Zero 3: 0x0
Sec Per Track: 63
Heads: 255
Hidden Secs: 63
NA 2: 0x0
NA 3: 0x800080
Total Sectors: 0x024C1258
MFT LCN: 0x0B42FF
MFT Mirr LCN: 0x03D54EA
Clust Per FRS: 0xF6
Clust Per IBlock: 0x1
Volume SN: 0x4228D79E28D78EF3
Checksum: 0x0
Boot Flag: 0xAA55
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
File System ID: 0x7 LBA: 38539935 Total Sectors: 274036770 ID: 0x2
Jump: EB 52 90
OEM Name: NTFS
Bytes Per Sec: 512
Sec Per Clust: 8
Res Sectors: 0
Zero 1: 0x0
Zero 2: 0x0
NA 1: 0x0
Media: 0xF8
Zero 3: 0x0
Sec Per Track: 63
Heads: 255
Hidden Secs: 38539935
NA 2: 0x0
NA 3: 0x800080
Total Sectors: 0x010557821
MFT LCN: 0x0C0000
MFT Mirr LCN: 0x01055782
Clust Per FRS: 0xF6
Clust Per IBlock: 0x1
Volume SN: 0x7E38F7BF38F7750D
Checksum: 0x0
Boot Flag: 0xAA55
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Tricky question to answer.

There are potential issues if you're installing with multiple primaries
visible, especially if there are multiple primaries on the target drive. I
touch on one of the issues here
http://www.dcr.net/~w-clayton/Boot%2...partitions.htm and I
have a sneaky suspicion, in hind sight, this the route you took.

The biggest issue with multiple primaries is enumeration order, whether or
not you're deleting and recreating the partitions and sequence of events.
Literally. It's best, unfortunately, if you're going to do multiple
partitions, to do partition creation using 3rd party tools (and that also
specifically excludes DOS fdisk/format; they are dangerous on modern
drives).

I'm still debating how to write the issues up since it's rather dynamic. A
classic example is installing with a zip cartridge mounted. In this instance
the target partition will be enumerated as the drive after the zip drive(s)
and all the optical drives are enumerated rather than C: since the zip drive
took that drive letter when the setup engine was initializing.

--
Walter Clayton
Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced.


"David Cockram" wrote in message
.. .
Understood. Now that would have been it. BUT. . .

I've just been reinstalling XP Home Ed on HD0. I completely wiped the disk
of partitions because of the earlier problems, and started again. During
installation, I had a restored clone on HD1 which seemed harmless, and I
wasn't accessing or booting from it.

Then I started having problems. The machine stalled during booting, and
wouldn't reboot. I tried the other drive, HD1. It booted but then started
locking up and it eventually hung. I tried removing HD0 and HD1 wouldn't
boot at all. It became apparent that the drives had become dependent on
each other.One wouldn't boot without the other. Also my new partitions on
HD0 were all over the place, with C: now being a logical drive.

I'm coming to the conlusion that either a) I've got some strange
unresolved hardware issues, although I had no problems prior to having 2
bootable drives, or b) XP really doesn't like having 2 bootable drives,
although I always thought it was ok with this.

So, yet another reinstall, having first deleted the bootable partition on
HD1. When I eventually get back on track, I will make a clone, check it
works on it's own, and then remove it completely until such time as it may
be needed.

Would you expect this to happen with two bootable drives?

Dave


"Walter Clayton" wrote in message
...
If you remove HD0 then anything that goes splat will happen only on the
exposed partitions on HD1. The problem you're may have is if that
particular OS image is looking for a volume that was just physically
removed (unless you clip the mounteddevices key in advance and the
partitions enumerate correctly thereafter). If you can live with that,
then you're OK.

I'd be hesitant about doing too much physical recabling though. That's
how connectors wear out and get bent or broken. ;-)

--
Walter Clayton
Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced.


"David Cockram" wrote in message
.. .
OK, thanks for all that advice Walter. I used a trial version of
BootItNG
some years ago, so I'll check it out again.

One final thing. Presumably it's ok to restore a cloned HD0 partition
to HD1. Then to remove HD0 and replace it with HD1 and reboot. That
isn't going to
affect anything when I revert back to normal is it?

Dave

"Walter Clayton" wrote in message
...
This structure looks better as long as you don't introduce a logical
volume in the mix at some point in time, based on what you're
intending. If you do, you're going to have some issues with partition
enumeration.

I'm looking at the Acronis web site and what I don't see right off hand
is a boot manager as part of your package. It appears that with a
different package, you can get a boot manager, but I don't have any
hands on with it. I can't tell if it's capable of doing what needs be
done in order to actually fire up an OS image from a different BIOS
enumerated device. It sort of implies that it can, but I since they
make a rather outrageous claim regarding performance, I can't trust
what I'm reading. Regardless, one of the issues is going to revolve
around the mounteddevices key and the secondary issue is with how
devices and partitions are enumerated during system startup. I don't
see a practical way, with the tools you have, to validate a partition
image outside of restoring it in-situ. Even if you clip the
mounteddevices key in advance of snapping an image, and configure the
BIOS to bootstrap HD1 instead of HD0 you're going to get hosed when
partitions are reenumerated. And if you don't clip the key, you're
going to get hosed when the system attempts to mount the first
partition on HD0 as the system image.

You're either going to have to trust the product or not. If not, then
use what I use which is a little bit cheaper and that's BootItNG.

BTW: I do have to disagree with a site that claims, right on their main
page:

"Partitioning The Hard Disk Increases Performance ..".

when it does exactly the opposite. It's sort of an instant turn off
for me especially when I dig into the details of the article and see
the other mistakes. Then again, when talking about marketing hype...

--
Walter Clayton
Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced.


"David Cockram" wrote in message
.. .
Walter,
I had a play around with all this, but gave up in the end, and
reinstalled XP.

Could you have a look at this and tell me if it now seems 'normal'.

At this stage I would like to take regular backup images, (ideally
using Acronis, as I have that), and restore them to the Maxtor (HD1)
for checking. Can you forsee any problems now?

Finally, I believe it would be relatively easy to restore images to
any of the other partitions on say the Maxtor (there are three). Do I
need to modify boot.ini in order to access them. My BIOS has a boot
loader if I press F8 so would they then appear on it's menu?

Thanks,

Dave

[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOW S
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Micro soft Windows XP Home
Edition" /fastdetect /NoExecute=OptIn


PARTINFO 1.09
Copyright (C) 1996-2003, TeraByte Unlimited. All rights reserved.

Run date: 04/26/2005 0:36

================================================== ==================
MBR Partition Information (HD0):
+====+====+=============+====+=============+====== =====+===========+
| 0: | 80 | 0 1 1 | 7 | 1023 254 63 | 63 | 61432497 |
| 1: | 0 | 1023 0 1 | 7 | 1023 254 63 | 61432560 | 262309320 |
| 2: | 0 | 1023 0 1 | 7 | 1023 254 63 | 323741880 | 262325385 |
| 3: | 0 | 0 0 0 | 0 | 0 0 0 | 0 | 0 |
+====+====+=============+====+=============+====== =====+===========+
BOOT SECTOR INFORMATION
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
File System ID: 0x7 LBA: 63 Total Sectors: 61432497 ID: 0x1
Jump: EB 52 90
OEM Name: NTFS
Bytes Per Sec: 512
Sec Per Clust: 8
Res Sectors: 0
Zero 1: 0x0
Zero 2: 0x0
NA 1: 0x0
Media: 0xF8
Zero 3: 0x0
Sec Per Track: 63
Heads: 255
Hidden Secs: 63
NA 2: 0x0
NA 3: 0x800080
Total Sectors: 0x03A962B0
MFT LCN: 0x0C0000
MFT Mirr LCN: 0x03A962B
Clust Per FRS: 0xF6
Clust Per IBlock: 0x1
Volume SN: 0x844C0F974C0F8362
Checksum: 0x0
Boot Flag: 0xAA55
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
File System ID: 0x7 LBA: 61432560 Total Sectors: 262309320 ID:
0x2
Jump: EB 52 90
OEM Name: NTFS
Bytes Per Sec: 512
Sec Per Clust: 8
Res Sectors: 0
Zero 1: 0x0
Zero 2: 0x0
NA 1: 0x0
Media: 0xF8
Zero 3: 0x0
Sec Per Track: 63
Heads: 255
Hidden Secs: 61432560
NA 2: 0x0
NA 3: 0x800080
Total Sectors: 0x0FA285C7
MFT LCN: 0x0C0000
MFT Mirr LCN: 0x0FA285C
Clust Per FRS: 0xF6
Clust Per IBlock: 0x1
Volume SN: 0xF2281E1A281DDF03
Checksum: 0x0
Boot Flag: 0xAA55
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
File System ID: 0x7 LBA: 323741880 Total Sectors: 262325385 ID:
0x3
Jump: EB 52 90
OEM Name: NTFS
Bytes Per Sec: 512
Sec Per Clust: 8
Res Sectors: 0
Zero 1: 0x0
Zero 2: 0x0
NA 1: 0x0
Media: 0xF8
Zero 3: 0x0
Sec Per Track: 63
Heads: 255
Hidden Secs: 323741880
NA 2: 0x0
NA 3: 0x800080
Total Sectors: 0x0FA2C488
MFT LCN: 0x0C0000
MFT Mirr LCN: 0x0FA2C48
Clust Per FRS: 0xF6
Clust Per IBlock: 0x1
Volume SN: 0x7AB4DECCB4DE89D1
Checksum: 0x0
Boot Flag: 0xAA55
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
================================================== ==================
MBR Partition Information (HD1):
+====+====+=============+====+=============+====== =====+===========+
| 0: | 80 | 0 1 1 | 7 | 1023 254 63 | 63 | 38539872 |
| 1: | 0 | 1023 0 1 | 7 | 1023 254 63 | 38539935 | 274036770 |
| 2: | 0 | 0 0 0 | 0 | 0 0 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 3: | 0 | 0 0 0 | 0 | 0 0 0 | 0 | 0 |
+====+====+=============+====+=============+====== =====+===========+
BOOT SECTOR INFORMATION
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
File System ID: 0x7 LBA: 63 Total Sectors: 38539872 ID: 0x1
Jump: EB 52 90
OEM Name: NTFS
Bytes Per Sec: 512
Sec Per Clust: 8
Res Sectors: 0
Zero 1: 0x0
Zero 2: 0x0
NA 1: 0x0
Media: 0xF8
Zero 3: 0x0
Sec Per Track: 63
Heads: 255
Hidden Secs: 63
NA 2: 0x0
NA 3: 0x800080
Total Sectors: 0x024C1258
MFT LCN: 0x0B42FF
MFT Mirr LCN: 0x03D54EA
Clust Per FRS: 0xF6
Clust Per IBlock: 0x1
Volume SN: 0x4228D79E28D78EF3
Checksum: 0x0
Boot Flag: 0xAA55
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
File System ID: 0x7 LBA: 38539935 Total Sectors: 274036770 ID:
0x2
Jump: EB 52 90
OEM Name: NTFS
Bytes Per Sec: 512
Sec Per Clust: 8
Res Sectors: 0
Zero 1: 0x0
Zero 2: 0x0
NA 1: 0x0
Media: 0xF8
Zero 3: 0x0
Sec Per Track: 63
Heads: 255
Hidden Secs: 38539935
NA 2: 0x0
NA 3: 0x800080
Total Sectors: 0x010557821
MFT LCN: 0x0C0000
MFT Mirr LCN: 0x01055782
Clust Per FRS: 0xF6
Clust Per IBlock: 0x1
Volume SN: 0x7E38F7BF38F7750D
Checksum: 0x0
Boot Flag: 0xAA55
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Walter,

I had a look at that link. Very, very interesting! That is exactly what has
happened with my system. I think I'd almost be inclined to treat my cloned
drive like a virus after this.

I had another look at an older version of BootItNG I had. Perhaps it's a
confidence thing but I wasn't sure about the fact that it creates it's own
boot partition, and then I had great difficulty removing it afterwards.
After I removed it I could no longer boot, but I may well have done
something wrong. Is it reasonably easy to use for people like me who may be
computer literate but haven't much of a clue about the intricacies of XP'x
boot process.

Would it enable me to clone, leaving both drives in situ, freely booting
from either, without the worry of all these partion and enumeration
problems?

Dave

"Walter Clayton" wrote in message
...
Tricky question to answer.

There are potential issues if you're installing with multiple primaries
visible, especially if there are multiple primaries on the target drive. I
touch on one of the issues here
http://www.dcr.net/~w-clayton/Boot%2...partitions.htm and I
have a sneaky suspicion, in hind sight, this the route you took.

The biggest issue with multiple primaries is enumeration order, whether or
not you're deleting and recreating the partitions and sequence of events.
Literally. It's best, unfortunately, if you're going to do multiple
partitions, to do partition creation using 3rd party tools (and that also
specifically excludes DOS fdisk/format; they are dangerous on modern
drives).

I'm still debating how to write the issues up since it's rather dynamic. A
classic example is installing with a zip cartridge mounted. In this
instance the target partition will be enumerated as the drive after the
zip drive(s) and all the optical drives are enumerated rather than C:
since the zip drive took that drive letter when the setup engine was
initializing.

--
Walter Clayton
Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced.


"David Cockram" wrote in message
.. .
Understood. Now that would have been it. BUT. . .

I've just been reinstalling XP Home Ed on HD0. I completely wiped the
disk of partitions because of the earlier problems, and started again.
During installation, I had a restored clone on HD1 which seemed harmless,
and I wasn't accessing or booting from it.

Then I started having problems. The machine stalled during booting, and
wouldn't reboot. I tried the other drive, HD1. It booted but then started
locking up and it eventually hung. I tried removing HD0 and HD1 wouldn't
boot at all. It became apparent that the drives had become dependent on
each other.One wouldn't boot without the other. Also my new partitions on
HD0 were all over the place, with C: now being a logical drive.

I'm coming to the conlusion that either a) I've got some strange
unresolved hardware issues, although I had no problems prior to having 2
bootable drives, or b) XP really doesn't like having 2 bootable drives,
although I always thought it was ok with this.

So, yet another reinstall, having first deleted the bootable partition on
HD1. When I eventually get back on track, I will make a clone, check it
works on it's own, and then remove it completely until such time as it
may be needed.

Would you expect this to happen with two bootable drives?

Dave


"Walter Clayton" wrote in message
...
If you remove HD0 then anything that goes splat will happen only on the
exposed partitions on HD1. The problem you're may have is if that
particular OS image is looking for a volume that was just physically
removed (unless you clip the mounteddevices key in advance and the
partitions enumerate correctly thereafter). If you can live with that,
then you're OK.

I'd be hesitant about doing too much physical recabling though. That's
how connectors wear out and get bent or broken. ;-)

--
Walter Clayton
Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced.


"David Cockram" wrote in message
.. .
OK, thanks for all that advice Walter. I used a trial version of
BootItNG
some years ago, so I'll check it out again.

One final thing. Presumably it's ok to restore a cloned HD0 partition
to HD1. Then to remove HD0 and replace it with HD1 and reboot. That
isn't going to
affect anything when I revert back to normal is it?

Dave

"Walter Clayton" wrote in message
...
This structure looks better as long as you don't introduce a logical
volume in the mix at some point in time, based on what you're
intending. If you do, you're going to have some issues with partition
enumeration.

I'm looking at the Acronis web site and what I don't see right off
hand is a boot manager as part of your package. It appears that with a
different package, you can get a boot manager, but I don't have any
hands on with it. I can't tell if it's capable of doing what needs be
done in order to actually fire up an OS image from a different BIOS
enumerated device. It sort of implies that it can, but I since they
make a rather outrageous claim regarding performance, I can't trust
what I'm reading. Regardless, one of the issues is going to revolve
around the mounteddevices key and the secondary issue is with how
devices and partitions are enumerated during system startup. I don't
see a practical way, with the tools you have, to validate a partition
image outside of restoring it in-situ. Even if you clip the
mounteddevices key in advance of snapping an image, and configure the
BIOS to bootstrap HD1 instead of HD0 you're going to get hosed when
partitions are reenumerated. And if you don't clip the key, you're
going to get hosed when the system attempts to mount the first
partition on HD0 as the system image.

You're either going to have to trust the product or not. If not, then
use what I use which is a little bit cheaper and that's BootItNG.

BTW: I do have to disagree with a site that claims, right on their
main page:

"Partitioning The Hard Disk Increases Performance ..".

when it does exactly the opposite. It's sort of an instant turn off
for me especially when I dig into the details of the article and see
the other mistakes. Then again, when talking about marketing hype...

--
Walter Clayton
Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced.


"David Cockram" wrote in message
.. .
Walter,
I had a play around with all this, but gave up in the end, and
reinstalled XP.

Could you have a look at this and tell me if it now seems 'normal'.

At this stage I would like to take regular backup images, (ideally
using Acronis, as I have that), and restore them to the Maxtor (HD1)
for checking. Can you forsee any problems now?

Finally, I believe it would be relatively easy to restore images to
any of the other partitions on say the Maxtor (there are three). Do I
need to modify boot.ini in order to access them. My BIOS has a boot
loader if I press F8 so would they then appear on it's menu?

Thanks,

Dave

[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOW S
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Micro soft Windows XP
Home Edition" /fastdetect /NoExecute=OptIn


PARTINFO 1.09
Copyright (C) 1996-2003, TeraByte Unlimited. All rights reserved.

Run date: 04/26/2005 0:36

================================================== ==================
MBR Partition Information (HD0):
+====+====+=============+====+=============+====== =====+===========+
| 0: | 80 | 0 1 1 | 7 | 1023 254 63 | 63 | 61432497 |
| 1: | 0 | 1023 0 1 | 7 | 1023 254 63 | 61432560 | 262309320 |
| 2: | 0 | 1023 0 1 | 7 | 1023 254 63 | 323741880 | 262325385 |
| 3: | 0 | 0 0 0 | 0 | 0 0 0 | 0 | 0 |
+====+====+=============+====+=============+====== =====+===========+
BOOT SECTOR INFORMATION
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
File System ID: 0x7 LBA: 63 Total Sectors: 61432497 ID: 0x1
Jump: EB 52 90
OEM Name: NTFS
Bytes Per Sec: 512
Sec Per Clust: 8
Res Sectors: 0
Zero 1: 0x0
Zero 2: 0x0
NA 1: 0x0
Media: 0xF8
Zero 3: 0x0
Sec Per Track: 63
Heads: 255
Hidden Secs: 63
NA 2: 0x0
NA 3: 0x800080
Total Sectors: 0x03A962B0
MFT LCN: 0x0C0000
MFT Mirr LCN: 0x03A962B
Clust Per FRS: 0xF6
Clust Per IBlock: 0x1
Volume SN: 0x844C0F974C0F8362
Checksum: 0x0
Boot Flag: 0xAA55
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
File System ID: 0x7 LBA: 61432560 Total Sectors: 262309320 ID:
0x2
Jump: EB 52 90
OEM Name: NTFS
Bytes Per Sec: 512
Sec Per Clust: 8
Res Sectors: 0
Zero 1: 0x0
Zero 2: 0x0
NA 1: 0x0
Media: 0xF8
Zero 3: 0x0
Sec Per Track: 63
Heads: 255
Hidden Secs: 61432560
NA 2: 0x0
NA 3: 0x800080
Total Sectors: 0x0FA285C7
MFT LCN: 0x0C0000
MFT Mirr LCN: 0x0FA285C
Clust Per FRS: 0xF6
Clust Per IBlock: 0x1
Volume SN: 0xF2281E1A281DDF03
Checksum: 0x0
Boot Flag: 0xAA55
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
File System ID: 0x7 LBA: 323741880 Total Sectors: 262325385 ID:
0x3
Jump: EB 52 90
OEM Name: NTFS
Bytes Per Sec: 512
Sec Per Clust: 8
Res Sectors: 0
Zero 1: 0x0
Zero 2: 0x0
NA 1: 0x0
Media: 0xF8
Zero 3: 0x0
Sec Per Track: 63
Heads: 255
Hidden Secs: 323741880
NA 2: 0x0
NA 3: 0x800080
Total Sectors: 0x0FA2C488
MFT LCN: 0x0C0000
MFT Mirr LCN: 0x0FA2C48
Clust Per FRS: 0xF6
Clust Per IBlock: 0x1
Volume SN: 0x7AB4DECCB4DE89D1
Checksum: 0x0
Boot Flag: 0xAA55
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
================================================== ==================
MBR Partition Information (HD1):
+====+====+=============+====+=============+====== =====+===========+
| 0: | 80 | 0 1 1 | 7 | 1023 254 63 | 63 | 38539872 |
| 1: | 0 | 1023 0 1 | 7 | 1023 254 63 | 38539935 | 274036770 |
| 2: | 0 | 0 0 0 | 0 | 0 0 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 3: | 0 | 0 0 0 | 0 | 0 0 0 | 0 | 0 |
+====+====+=============+====+=============+====== =====+===========+
BOOT SECTOR INFORMATION
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
File System ID: 0x7 LBA: 63 Total Sectors: 38539872 ID: 0x1
Jump: EB 52 90
OEM Name: NTFS
Bytes Per Sec: 512
Sec Per Clust: 8
Res Sectors: 0
Zero 1: 0x0
Zero 2: 0x0
NA 1: 0x0
Media: 0xF8
Zero 3: 0x0
Sec Per Track: 63
Heads: 255
Hidden Secs: 63
NA 2: 0x0
NA 3: 0x800080
Total Sectors: 0x024C1258
MFT LCN: 0x0B42FF
MFT Mirr LCN: 0x03D54EA
Clust Per FRS: 0xF6
Clust Per IBlock: 0x1
Volume SN: 0x4228D79E28D78EF3
Checksum: 0x0
Boot Flag: 0xAA55
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
File System ID: 0x7 LBA: 38539935 Total Sectors: 274036770 ID:
0x2
Jump: EB 52 90
OEM Name: NTFS
Bytes Per Sec: 512
Sec Per Clust: 8
Res Sectors: 0
Zero 1: 0x0
Zero 2: 0x0
NA 1: 0x0
Media: 0xF8
Zero 3: 0x0
Sec Per Track: 63
Heads: 255
Hidden Secs: 38539935
NA 2: 0x0
NA 3: 0x800080
Total Sectors: 0x010557821
MFT LCN: 0x0C0000
MFT Mirr LCN: 0x01055782
Clust Per FRS: 0xF6
Clust Per IBlock: 0x1
Volume SN: 0x7E38F7BF38F7750D
Checksum: 0x0
Boot Flag: 0xAA55
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"David Cockram" wrote in message
.. .
Walter,

I had a look at that link. Very, very interesting! That is exactly what
has happened with my system. I think I'd almost be inclined to treat my
cloned drive like a virus after this.

I had another look at an older version of BootItNG I had. Perhaps it's a
confidence thing but I wasn't sure about the fact that it creates it's own
boot partition, and then I had great difficulty removing it afterwards.
After I removed it I could no longer boot, but I may well have done
something wrong. Is it reasonably easy to use for people like me who may
be computer literate but haven't much of a clue about the intricacies of
XP'x boot process.

Let me preface things by saying, I'm comfortable with using virtually any
partitioning/boot management tool since I understand things at a rather low
level.

I find BING easy to use albeit a bit awkward for some things. Then again,
it's one of the few tools that is fully functional from diskette, although
you do have to install it to enable boot management. It lacks some of the
fancy GUIs and frills of other tools. When I switched from Partition Magic,
there were some GUI features that I initally missed until I realized how
much functionality PM lacked for twice the cost. Then again I know some
rather technically compotent people that find BING unusable.
It need not go into it's own partition if you have an existing fat partition
handy. Up until last summer I had BING running out of my Me instance until I
finally blew that partition away. However by installing it in it's own
partition you render it totally OS neutral.
As for uninstalling it and leaving your self non-bootable, yes, that's more
an indication of having done things incorrectly.
Part of the problem you're going have regardless, is that you do have to be
aware of some low level things in order to do what you want, exactly the way
you want and I can also state that doing so is going to really adventerous.
Yes, it's possible to do what you want, but it does require that you be
aware of what you're doing. More in a bit...



Would it enable me to clone, leaving both drives in situ, freely booting
from either, without the worry of all these partion and enumeration
problems?

Sort of. There are things you need be aware of and it's going to be a PITA
to do things exactly the way you want with any tool. Keeping multipe OS
images on a single drive and hot booting between them is no large deal. At
one time I had 6 different OS images on a single drive (yes 6 bootable
primaries) I was switching between. When you introduce multiple physical
bootable drives, things get rather complicated when you start talking NT
kernels. 9x kernels could be fired up from any drive rather eaisly. NT
kernels are rather picky since they enumerate the hardware differently. Yes,
BING can make things a bit safer, but you'll have to boot twice when
shifting from HD0 to HD1 with jumping into the BIOS in between a necessity.


Dave

Just so I can understand what you're thinking, exactly why do you want to
copy the OS to a different drive and fire it up from there?

--
Walter Clayton
Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced.

Thanks for that insight Walter. This is clearly nothing like as simple a job
as many software vendors indicate.

Let me put it on the line. I had an XP installation that started to become
problematic. No real idea why, but some programs stopped working properly,
and wouldn't reinstall. I have a lot of installed apps. Reinstalling XP is a
breeze. Reinstalling all the apps is a complete pita.

So I decided to do something that I used to do with ease on Win98 (xcopy or
xxcopy) and create a clone. That's where my problems started.

Ideally it would be nice to have another bootable XP OS so I could benchtest
certain apps or hardware with peace of mind. However this is a secondary
requirement, and mainly I want a security backup. But the point is, how do I
field test my cloned OS. Obviously I don't want to try it for real in case
there is a problem, so I figured that the obvious way would be to restore
the image to my other SATA drive. I did then intend to just leave it there
and use it occasionally as and when.

Now you know what I'm aiming for, what would you suggest, and can I do it
with Acronis 8.0 which I have?

Many thanks.

Dave



"Walter Clayton" wrote in message
...
"David Cockram" wrote in message
.. .
Walter,

I had a look at that link. Very, very interesting! That is exactly what
has happened with my system. I think I'd almost be inclined to treat my
cloned drive like a virus after this.

I had another look at an older version of BootItNG I had. Perhaps it's a
confidence thing but I wasn't sure about the fact that it creates it's
own boot partition, and then I had great difficulty removing it
afterwards. After I removed it I could no longer boot, but I may well
have done something wrong. Is it reasonably easy to use for people like
me who may be computer literate but haven't much of a clue about the
intricacies of XP'x boot process.

Let me preface things by saying, I'm comfortable with using virtually any
partitioning/boot management tool since I understand things at a rather
low level.

I find BING easy to use albeit a bit awkward for some things. Then again,
it's one of the few tools that is fully functional from diskette, although
you do have to install it to enable boot management. It lacks some of the
fancy GUIs and frills of other tools. When I switched from Partition
Magic, there were some GUI features that I initally missed until I
realized how much functionality PM lacked for twice the cost. Then again I
know some rather technically compotent people that find BING unusable.
It need not go into it's own partition if you have an existing fat
partition handy. Up until last summer I had BING running out of my Me
instance until I finally blew that partition away. However by installing
it in it's own partition you render it totally OS neutral.
As for uninstalling it and leaving your self non-bootable, yes, that's
more an indication of having done things incorrectly.
Part of the problem you're going have regardless, is that you do have to
be aware of some low level things in order to do what you want, exactly
the way you want and I can also state that doing so is going to really
adventerous. Yes, it's possible to do what you want, but it does require
that you be aware of what you're doing. More in a bit...



Would it enable me to clone, leaving both drives in situ, freely booting
from either, without the worry of all these partion and enumeration
problems?

Sort of. There are things you need be aware of and it's going to be a PITA
to do things exactly the way you want with any tool. Keeping multipe OS
images on a single drive and hot booting between them is no large deal. At
one time I had 6 different OS images on a single drive (yes 6 bootable
primaries) I was switching between. When you introduce multiple physical
bootable drives, things get rather complicated when you start talking NT
kernels. 9x kernels could be fired up from any drive rather eaisly. NT
kernels are rather picky since they enumerate the hardware differently.
Yes, BING can make things a bit safer, but you'll have to boot twice when
shifting from HD0 to HD1 with jumping into the BIOS in between a
necessity.


Dave

Just so I can understand what you're thinking, exactly why do you want to
copy the OS to a different drive and fire it up from there?

--
Walter Clayton
Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced.

"David Cockram" wrote in message
.. .
Thanks for that insight Walter. This is clearly nothing like as simple a
job as many software vendors indicate.

Unfortunately that is an absolutely correct statement. There is nothing that
makes the process 'idiot proof'. You really have to know what you're doing
or you'll get into a mess.


Let me put it on the line. I had an XP installation that started to become
problematic. No real idea why, but some programs stopped working properly,
and wouldn't reinstall. I have a lot of installed apps. Reinstalling XP is
a breeze. Reinstalling all the apps is a complete pita.

You're preaching to the choir. :-/
But you've excluded patch time which does vary with how long it's been since
the last SP, whether or not you have it stored locally, etc. It took me over
a week to load my laptop a couple of years ago. And that was then...
I haven't clean installed me desktop since 98/SE. Migrating to XP 64b is
going to be a hassle even once drivers and applications are available just
due to the shear amount of 'stuff' I have installed.
But I digress.


So I decided to do something that I used to do with ease on Win98 (xcopy
or xxcopy) and create a clone. That's where my problems started.

Ideally it would be nice to have another bootable XP OS so I could
benchtest certain apps or hardware with peace of mind. However this is a
secondary requirement, and mainly I want a security backup. But the point
is, how do I field test my cloned OS. Obviously I don't want to try it for
real in case there is a problem, so I figured that the obvious way would
be to restore the image to my other SATA drive. I did then intend to just
leave it there and use it occasionally as and when.

Now you know what I'm aiming for, what would you suggest, and can I do it
with Acronis 8.0 which I have?

With the version of Acronis you have, in short no. One of the issues I've
found with booting an NT kernel from anything other than HD0 is that it gets
rather interesting. I quit trying to do that during the beta of XP since it
was down right ugly. What you can do though, with a tool that allows the
partition table to be loaded on the fly such as BING, is run hot boot
between multiple NT kernal images off of HD0. Generally, that's not
problematic. In fact I have a test version of Pro 64b that I've been toying
with. Regardless, I have one drive that is I've delegated as nothing but OS
images. If I need to back one up, I either use BING to directly burn to
DVD-RW or I simply image the partition to a different drive and if things go
splat blow the image on HD0 away and replace it.

I've since switched to using virtual machines for a lot my experimentation
though. It's easier overall. In fact, I'm playing with a nasty I lifted off
a client machine today that I had to identify by eyeball.


--
Walter Clayton
Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced.

Walter,

Everything that you've said so far makes sense and tallies with my
experience. So I'll go with what you suggest and have HD0 just for OS's.

I'm happy to do my own research on this, but I gather BootItNG (Is that
BING?) is what you'd suggest, so I'll go with that. If I maybe create 3
partitions on HD0, install XP on the first, followed by BootItNG, could I
then copy clones to partitions 2 & 3 and freely boot from them? Should I
give BootItNG it's own partition? Any obvious pitfalls I should be aware of
when installing BootItNG? Incidentally, do you keep all your program files
with each of your OS's?

You've been very helpful offering all this advice. I'm sure others
appreciate it too.

Many thanks,

Dave



"Walter Clayton" wrote in message
...
"David Cockram" wrote in message
.. .
Thanks for that insight Walter. This is clearly nothing like as simple a
job as many software vendors indicate.

Unfortunately that is an absolutely correct statement. There is nothing
that makes the process 'idiot proof'. You really have to know what you're
doing or you'll get into a mess.


Let me put it on the line. I had an XP installation that started to
become problematic. No real idea why, but some programs stopped working
properly, and wouldn't reinstall. I have a lot of installed apps.
Reinstalling XP is a breeze. Reinstalling all the apps is a complete
pita.

You're preaching to the choir. :-/
But you've excluded patch time which does vary with how long it's been
since the last SP, whether or not you have it stored locally, etc. It took
me over a week to load my laptop a couple of years ago. And that was
then...
I haven't clean installed me desktop since 98/SE. Migrating to XP 64b is
going to be a hassle even once drivers and applications are available just
due to the shear amount of 'stuff' I have installed.
But I digress.


So I decided to do something that I used to do with ease on Win98 (xcopy
or xxcopy) and create a clone. That's where my problems started.

Ideally it would be nice to have another bootable XP OS so I could
benchtest certain apps or hardware with peace of mind. However this is a
secondary requirement, and mainly I want a security backup. But the point
is, how do I field test my cloned OS. Obviously I don't want to try it
for real in case there is a problem, so I figured that the obvious way
would be to restore the image to my other SATA drive. I did then intend
to just leave it there and use it occasionally as and when.

Now you know what I'm aiming for, what would you suggest, and can I do it
with Acronis 8.0 which I have?

With the version of Acronis you have, in short no. One of the issues I've
found with booting an NT kernel from anything other than HD0 is that it
gets rather interesting. I quit trying to do that during the beta of XP
since it was down right ugly. What you can do though, with a tool that
allows the partition table to be loaded on the fly such as BING, is run
hot boot between multiple NT kernal images off of HD0. Generally, that's
not problematic. In fact I have a test version of Pro 64b that I've been
toying with. Regardless, I have one drive that is I've delegated as
nothing but OS images. If I need to back one up, I either use BING to
directly burn to DVD-RW or I simply image the partition to a different
drive and if things go splat blow the image on HD0 away and replace it.

I've since switched to using virtual machines for a lot my experimentation
though. It's easier overall. In fact, I'm playing with a nasty I lifted
off a client machine today that I had to identify by eyeball.


--
Walter Clayton
Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced.