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boot.ini can't boot image from different partition

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AP81

AP81

Programmer
Apr 11, 2003
740
AU
Hi,

I have a few boot images which I have dumped in the root of C:, which can be loaded fine from boot.ini. i.e.

Code: 
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Windows XP [DEFAULT]" /fastdetect /NoExecute=OptIn
C:\XPBOOT.bin="SYSTEM RECOVERY"
C:\GHOST.bin="Ghost"

The problem I am having is I can't get these images to boot from a different partition (D:).

I want all these images to reside in a second partition (D:) on the first hard drive, and still be able to boot them from D: drive, so my boot.ini entry would look like this:

Code: 
D:\XPBOOT.bin="SYSTEM RECOVERY"
D:\GHOST.bin="Ghost"

-OR-

Code: 
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\XPBOOT.bin="SYSTEM RECOVERY"
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\GHOST.bin="Ghost"

From what I have read, any images need to be on the windows boot partition. I have no success with this so far, and get hal.dll errors. I have also tried copying the Windows Dir to this drive and have had no luck.

The main reason why I want to be able to boot images off D: is due to ghost. It just seems silly to launch ghost from C: drive then ghost back to it.

I guess I really want to know the following:
1. Can windows boot an image from a different partition or hard drive?
2. If this isn't possible, will loading the image into a RAM disk suffice (by that I mean not cause problems with Ghost)?

I already have boot CDs and bootable USB pens with all this on it working, but I still need a hard drive solution.

Any ideas?

Thanks,
Adam


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afaik, boot images need to be on the booted partition - so I don't think D: will work (and the multi only works for windows installations afaik). You could of course put them on the second hard drive, with its own boot.ini and as C: - and if you need to boot from them, change the boot order of the drives in the bios (so second drive is first boot drive, and therefore C:). I've no idea how this would affect your recovery operations, which sound a little over the top to me (can't you do all the recovery you need booting from Cd or USB - I certainly can!).

I've no idea if/how you could use a ramdisk for this.
 
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Thanks Wolluf.

I am going to give the RAM disk a go and see if it works.


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Boot.ini for all the stuff that Microsoft has upgraded through the years has stayed basically the same....and my personal opinion it sucks as a boot manager


NUMBER ONE RULE Do NOT use FDISK
it will wipe the other partitions on the drive
the FORMAT command and the SYS command will work in their individual primary partitions...when you boot up into them

a neet trick is just pull the drive and slave it in a windows xp computer and use the DISK MANAGEMENT console
you can build the disk the way you want it

though it is limited

Ok the first thing you should use if the boot.ini is not doing the job .....simple enough...use a third party boot manager

the main reason you are getting the errors you are getting is because the second partition does not have a boot sector assigned to it in the MBR

a basic hard drive set up you can install 3 primary partitions and a bunch of Logical partitions and only one primary partition can be the active partition
to get the second partition on your hard drive to boot you have to do a few things

first you need to hide the first partition so it will be OK when you get back to it ....making the second partition active may be OK for what you are doing

next

you need to make that second partition a primary bootable...it sounds like a good old fashion DOS FAT32/FAT partition will be fine for your purposes

in the scheme of things the second partition has to be active while you are doing the format and loading the SYS files for the second partition

after you are done

make the first partition active and do the third code options you listed in your post

that should work

I use the XOSL boot manager

its old but I like it because of the option to fool any hard drive into thinking it is the primary drive in the system

here are some boot managers from Cnet

I would recommend that you get partition magic ...it makes life a whole lot easier in making partition's active


The new Hiren's BootCD 8.7 is out and has lots of toys on it including partition magic 8.5

But...I won't give the link or the search for it because some software giants raise a big Ole sink and just mess the day up totally
 
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SMAK my head
a hard drive can consist of
1 to 3 Primary Partitions
1 Extended Partition
1 to 254 Logical Partitions within the Extended Partition (Way too many for me)

It's 1 am and I am tired .....LOL
 
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