error loading os

"David Cockram" wrote in message
.. .
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?

That will work but there's a slight twist that can be employed with BING
that makes it even better so that you don't have to worry about the number
of partitions in use, just the ones that you populate into the partition
table at any given time.

Should I give BootItNG it's own partition? Any obvious pitfalls I should
be aware of when installing BootItNG?

By installing BING in it's own partition, which is all of 8M, you isolate it
from OS related stuff.

Pitfalls are going to depend on how you choose to run BING.

The trick to making this work with the least amount of pain is to install
BING and enable the unlimited partitions capability. This does complicate
usage though since in this mode you have to tell it how to populate the
partition table on each drive whenever firing up a given OS instance and
there's not much automation in this regard. The big advantage is that you
can fire up any NT kernel from any primary on HD0 with the same boot.ini.
Without this feature enabled, you'd have to alter boot.ini in each OS
instance to reflect the position of the OS instance in the partition table.

I've got to see if I figure out an easy way to describe what needs be done,
but the best approach may be to have you take a look at the BING support
page and take a look at some of the tutorials (which I haven't done so I
don't know what they contain) and see if you have any questions after that.

Incidentally, do you keep all your program files with each of your OS's?

Actually I attempt to keep the data, applications and OS instances
segregated. Unfortuantely the "All Users" heirarchy has become the common
'dumping' ground for all applications even when overriding the default
installation. It's bad enough that application code is still dropped in
"program files" and/or Windows heiarchy, but still... Unfortunately MS is
just as bad about this as other vendors, especially since they published a
recommendation that some vendors take as gospel. Fortuantely most
applications will allow you to store data outside of the OS partition.

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

Many thanks,



--
Walter Clayton
Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced.
http://www.dts-l.org

Walter

I'll keep you posted as to how all this works out. I've looked at the
tutorials on BING website, and they are very clear and helpful.


The trick to making this work with the least amount of pain is to install
BING and enable the unlimited partitions capability.

This does complicate usage though since in this mode you have to tell it
how to populate the partition table on each drive whenever firing up a
given OS instance and there's not much automation in this regard.

Hmmm what exactly is involved here? The tutorials have always opted for
sticking with 4 primary partitions, and once set up correctly you just boot
from the menu, so I wasn't aware of this. Do you mean that if I go for
unlimited partitions then I will have to enter partition table info every
time I boot to a different OS? That seems like quite a high price to pay. Or
is it not as compicated as it sounds?


The big advantage is that you can fire up any NT kernel from any primary
on HD0 with the same boot.ini. Without this feature enabled, you'd have to
alter boot.ini in each OS instance to reflect the position of the OS
instance in the partition table.


Again, if this setting up was a one off process that would be fine. I don't
expect to be testing OS's as a hobby or anything, so once set up not much is
likely to change.

Dave

"David Cockram" wrote in message
.. .
Walter

I'll keep you posted as to how all this works out. I've looked at the
tutorials on BING website, and they are very clear and helpful.


The trick to making this work with the least amount of pain is to install
BING and enable the unlimited partitions capability.

This does complicate usage though since in this mode you have to tell it
how to populate the partition table on each drive whenever firing up a
given OS instance and there's not much automation in this regard.

Hmmm what exactly is involved here? The tutorials have always opted for
sticking with 4 primary partitions, and once set up correctly you just
boot from the menu, so I wasn't aware of this. Do you mean that if I go
for unlimited partitions then I will have to enter partition table info
every time I boot to a different OS? That seems like quite a high price to
pay. Or is it not as compicated as it sounds?

It's a one time configuration per defined OS instance. The only time you'd
need to change it is if you had a drive/partition and then only for the new
drive/partition.

The first time you set up an OS instance, the partition table entries on the
right will be empty. For each physical drive hit the partition table
position then hit the fill button. That will bring up a list of partitions
on that physical HD. Simply select the partition you want to appear in the
select spot and repeat for each partition slot you need to define. In this
instance, you'd only load a single OS instance since you don't want them
seeing each other.



The big advantage is that you can fire up any NT kernel from any primary
on HD0 with the same boot.ini. Without this feature enabled, you'd have
to alter boot.ini in each OS instance to reflect the position of the OS
instance in the partition table.


Again, if this setting up was a one off process that would be fine. I
don't expect to be testing OS's as a hobby or anything, so once set up not
much is likely to change.

Not a problem. It's set up once and change only as needed. :-)


Dave

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

OK Walter, that's excellent. I'm awaiting a new drive which I'll just use
for the OS's and I have my copy of BING ready to go.
From what I've read so far it seems to be a phenomenally useful little prog.
It will do everything I want.

I'll post a follow up when it's working and let you know how it panned out.

Thanks again,

Dave


"Walter Clayton" wrote in message
...

"David Cockram" wrote in message
.. .
Walter

I'll keep you posted as to how all this works out. I've looked at the
tutorials on BING website, and they are very clear and helpful.


The trick to making this work with the least amount of pain is to
install BING and enable the unlimited partitions capability.

This does complicate usage though since in this mode you have to tell it
how to populate the partition table on each drive whenever firing up a
given OS instance and there's not much automation in this regard.

Hmmm what exactly is involved here? The tutorials have always opted for
sticking with 4 primary partitions, and once set up correctly you just
boot from the menu, so I wasn't aware of this. Do you mean that if I go
for unlimited partitions then I will have to enter partition table info
every time I boot to a different OS? That seems like quite a high price
to pay. Or is it not as compicated as it sounds?

It's a one time configuration per defined OS instance. The only time you'd
need to change it is if you had a drive/partition and then only for the
new drive/partition.

The first time you set up an OS instance, the partition table entries on
the right will be empty. For each physical drive hit the partition table
position then hit the fill button. That will bring up a list of partitions
on that physical HD. Simply select the partition you want to appear in the
select spot and repeat for each partition slot you need to define. In this
instance, you'd only load a single OS instance since you don't want them
seeing each other.



The big advantage is that you can fire up any NT kernel from any primary
on HD0 with the same boot.ini. Without this feature enabled, you'd have
to alter boot.ini in each OS instance to reflect the position of the OS
instance in the partition table.


Again, if this setting up was a one off process that would be fine. I
don't expect to be testing OS's as a hobby or anything, so once set up
not much is likely to change.

Not a problem. It's set up once and change only as needed. :-)


Dave

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

Walter,

Great advice - I'm very, very impressed. I have a 120GB drive which so far
has 3 XP partitions cloned at various stages of installation. It really
couldn't be easier using BING. I love being able to resize, and also the
fact that the partitions are all hidden from one another is a great help.
The website videos and tutorials make a complex job seem very
straightforward.

Yes, I'd give BootIt NG 5 stars and wholeheartedly recommend it to anyone.
As you know my hassles with Acronis and Ghost were unbelievable. Yet this
has worked perfectly, first time, and it does more than either of those
programs.

Thanks again!!

Dave Cockram


"David Cockram" wrote in message
.. .
OK Walter, that's excellent. I'm awaiting a new drive which I'll just use
for the OS's and I have my copy of BING ready to go.
From what I've read so far it seems to be a phenomenally useful little
prog. It will do everything I want.

I'll post a follow up when it's working and let you know how it panned
out.

Thanks again,

Dave


"Walter Clayton" wrote in message
...

"David Cockram" wrote in message
.. .
Walter

I'll keep you posted as to how all this works out. I've looked at the
tutorials on BING website, and they are very clear and helpful.


The trick to making this work with the least amount of pain is to
install BING and enable the unlimited partitions capability.

This does complicate usage though since in this mode you have to tell
it how to populate the partition table on each drive whenever firing up
a given OS instance and there's not much automation in this regard.

Hmmm what exactly is involved here? The tutorials have always opted for
sticking with 4 primary partitions, and once set up correctly you just
boot from the menu, so I wasn't aware of this. Do you mean that if I go
for unlimited partitions then I will have to enter partition table info
every time I boot to a different OS? That seems like quite a high price
to pay. Or is it not as compicated as it sounds?

It's a one time configuration per defined OS instance. The only time
you'd need to change it is if you had a drive/partition and then only for
the new drive/partition.

The first time you set up an OS instance, the partition table entries on
the right will be empty. For each physical drive hit the partition table
position then hit the fill button. That will bring up a list of
partitions on that physical HD. Simply select the partition you want to
appear in the select spot and repeat for each partition slot you need to
define. In this instance, you'd only load a single OS instance since you
don't want them seeing each other.



The big advantage is that you can fire up any NT kernel from any
primary on HD0 with the same boot.ini. Without this feature enabled,
you'd have to alter boot.ini in each OS instance to reflect the
position of the OS instance in the partition table.


Again, if this setting up was a one off process that would be fine. I
don't expect to be testing OS's as a hobby or anything, so once set up
not much is likely to change.

Not a problem. It's set up once and change only as needed. :-)


Dave

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

Walter and BING are impressionable. )

--

All the Best,
Kelly (MS-MVP)

Troubleshooting Windows XP
http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com


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

Great advice - I'm very, very impressed. I have a 120GB drive which so far
has 3 XP partitions cloned at various stages of installation. It really
couldn't be easier using BING. I love being able to resize, and also the
fact that the partitions are all hidden from one another is a great help.
The website videos and tutorials make a complex job seem very
straightforward.

Yes, I'd give BootIt NG 5 stars and wholeheartedly recommend it to
anyone. As you know my hassles with Acronis and Ghost were unbelievable.
Yet this has worked perfectly, first time, and it does more than either of
those programs.

Thanks again!!

Dave Cockram


"David Cockram" wrote in message
.. .
OK Walter, that's excellent. I'm awaiting a new drive which I'll just use
for the OS's and I have my copy of BING ready to go.
From what I've read so far it seems to be a phenomenally useful little
prog. It will do everything I want.

I'll post a follow up when it's working and let you know how it panned
out.

Thanks again,

Dave


"Walter Clayton" wrote in message
...

"David Cockram" wrote in message
.. .
Walter

I'll keep you posted as to how all this works out. I've looked at the
tutorials on BING website, and they are very clear and helpful.


The trick to making this work with the least amount of pain is to
install BING and enable the unlimited partitions capability.

This does complicate usage though since in this mode you have to tell
it how to populate the partition table on each drive whenever firing
up a given OS instance and there's not much automation in this regard.

Hmmm what exactly is involved here? The tutorials have always opted for
sticking with 4 primary partitions, and once set up correctly you just
boot from the menu, so I wasn't aware of this. Do you mean that if I go
for unlimited partitions then I will have to enter partition table info
every time I boot to a different OS? That seems like quite a high price
to pay. Or is it not as compicated as it sounds?

It's a one time configuration per defined OS instance. The only time
you'd need to change it is if you had a drive/partition and then only
for the new drive/partition.

The first time you set up an OS instance, the partition table entries on
the right will be empty. For each physical drive hit the partition table
position then hit the fill button. That will bring up a list of
partitions on that physical HD. Simply select the partition you want to
appear in the select spot and repeat for each partition slot you need to
define. In this instance, you'd only load a single OS instance since you
don't want them seeing each other.



The big advantage is that you can fire up any NT kernel from any
primary on HD0 with the same boot.ini. Without this feature enabled,
you'd have to alter boot.ini in each OS instance to reflect the
position of the OS instance in the partition table.


Again, if this setting up was a one off process that would be fine. I
don't expect to be testing OS's as a hobby or anything, so once set up
not much is likely to change.

Not a problem. It's set up once and change only as needed. :-)


Dave

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