Dual Boot XP Pro with XP Pro not working

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kinsten

240 posts

Master Geek

#70720 29-Oct-2010 11:36

Fixing up a PC for a friend, and he runs a music studio on his existing setup, but now also wants to play some games. So we bought a new HDD and a better GFX card.

I fist installed new HDD and GFX Card and made sure existing system could see these. Yep, all working and doing ok.

Then started to install Windows XP Pro onto second HDD, yep, this all installed fine, the system can see dual boot options (both Windows XP Professional). I could select them and the correct system would load, so renamed them to Gaming / Studio.

Then the bizzare happens, I REMOVE the Windows Install CD, and now the dual boot does not appear. Instead I get the following message: 'Invalid partition table'.

OK, so in the BIOS I change the HDD boot priority, so the NEW install of windows for gaming loads first, now I get an error message like: 'NTLDR is missing, press Ctrl-Alt-Del to reboot'
I read that the second message is appearing cos some files are missing, so I copy these onto the new HDD and get the new message: 'Boot.ini is invalid, loading Boot.ini from C:\' which then loads the Gaming setup which is actually on F:\.

I think my problem is that both the drives are set to Active, and they are fighting over control or something, and nothing is being resolved, cos they are bad windows children. But this is only an assumption, which is defiantly making an a** out of me.

If I leave the windows install cd in the drive, the boot options work perfectly. I have tried to re-install the new windows 4 times now, and every time I get the same issues.
Does anyone know what on earth is going wrong? This is driving me crazy!

Thanks

Intel Core 2 Duo E6600, 4x 2GB Adata 1066+ DDR2, Sapphire HD4850 X2 2GB GDDR3 PCI-E Quad DVI, 1000w PSU & over 4TB HDD space, Windows 7 Ultimate 64bit
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Oblivian

7301 posts

Uber Geek

ID Verified

#397265 29-Oct-2010 12:04

Don't think of the way windows boots as knowing drive letters. It doesn't.

The first boot drive will have a record slapped at the boot MBR area telling it to load NTLDR

Ntldr calls boot.ini. Which then looks for installs via disk/partition number as referred to in bios.

Ala Disk 0, partition 2 if it was the 2nd partition on the first disk.

In your case you will possibly need to do a fixmbr on the primary drive. And modify the boot.ini on that drive to reflect the right information.

IE it would likely need to be similar to (but not exactly)

[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /fastdetect
games(0)disk(1)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Windows on 2nd drive"

kinsten

240 posts

Master Geek

#397292 29-Oct-2010 12:47

[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(2)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(2)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Gaming" /fastdetect
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Studio" /fastdetect

OK, so my boot.ini file looks more like this. Are they not both supposed to have 'multi' at the start?

I tried the fixing tool as recommended by MS techNet, and this did not help or change anything. The closest I got was when I copied the needed boot files onto Disk(2) the gaming drive. Which then spat out the message saying the boot.ini was invalid.

I know the boot.ini is valid, because it uses this file to boot perfectly if the install CD is left in the drive.

I set disk(2) to active using DiskPart commands, but when viewed in the windows Disk Manager it always shows Disk(0) as Active. Both drives are System drives (thought I should point that out also).

I am certain this should work flawlessly, in fact, I helped another friend do this on his laptop, only difference, is the laptop HDD was partitioned on the same drive, and this is using 2 separate HDD's.

Intel Core 2 Duo E6600, 4x 2GB Adata 1066+ DDR2, Sapphire HD4850 X2 2GB GDDR3 PCI-E Quad DVI, 1000w PSU & over 4TB HDD space, Windows 7 Ultimate 64bit
PS3 Slim

Oblivian

7301 posts

Uber Geek

ID Verified

#397337 29-Oct-2010 13:52

kinsten: [boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(2)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(2)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Gaming" /fastdetect
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Studio" /fastdetect

OK, so my boot.ini file looks more like this. Are they not both supposed to have 'multi' at the start?

Yeah mybad. Multi at the start, description at the end.

I tried the fixing tool as recommended by MS techNet, and this did not help or change anything. The closest I got was when I copied the needed boot files onto Disk(2) the gaming drive. Which then spat out the message saying the boot.ini was invalid.

I know the boot.ini is valid, because it uses this file to boot perfectly if the install CD is left in the drive.

More and more this sounds like your MBR is looking for the boot files at the wrong location. You need to whittle it down to have 1 confirmed/known booting disk (with MBR, boot.ini and NTLDR) present, and a second disk with a windows install that can be called up (and not booted directly from bios). If the bios doesn't like the boot sector of the disk you pick.. of course its going to find the next best one in the list. Which in this case may be disk 2 since you made both of them active/primaries.

When the PC boots..
Bios looks at which drive you have selected as the primary to attempt to boot off
Checks for a valid MBR
MBR says 'boot from disk x, and call the file called NTLDR'
NTLDR fires up and says 'find me what OS to load'
Opens boot.ini and selects which folder to launch the rest of the executables from.

I set disk(2) to active using DiskPart commands, but when viewed in the windows Disk Manager it always shows Disk(0) as Active. Both drives are System drives (thought I should point that out also).

I am certain this should work flawlessly, in fact, I helped another friend do this on his laptop, only difference, is the laptop HDD was partitioned on the same drive, and this is using 2 separate HDD's.

XP Doesn't tend to like it if there is 2 active/system partitions. And you get strange things like you have here. Especially if they end up referencing the same pagefile etc.

MrBooter has always been a good alternative for this sort of thing. An alternative boot manager. It lets you select which OS to boot, and hids the partition of the other from windows.

The way I see it theres 2 ways to go (but you could screw things up more following this.. no responsibility)

Correctly set the primary disk in BIOS.
Boot to recovery console

Optionally run FixMBR (to re-write the MBR code to the disk to look for NTLDR on the same disk) and fixboot.
Make sure boot.ini is on it, and validly set (the above says to boot the gaming build off the 2nd disk)
Or better yet, bootcfg let it find the installs and re-create the menu

Or

Remove the 2nd disk from the equation. Get the primary one going using above method. Then add the 2nd disk back. And re-create the menu manually choosing the different disk/partition.

kinsten

240 posts

Master Geek

#397365 29-Oct-2010 14:27

OK, Oblivian, you have given me some great options to try out. I think I will remove the secondary HDD (Gaming) and then get the original drive booting into itself again.

I need to re-install the Gaming WinXP OS again anyway, as I used the wrong media for the licence key (doh).

5th time lucky, will keep you posted, might only have a couple more shots at this.

Intel Core 2 Duo E6600, 4x 2GB Adata 1066+ DDR2, Sapphire HD4850 X2 2GB GDDR3 PCI-E Quad DVI, 1000w PSU & over 4TB HDD space, Windows 7 Ultimate 64bit
PS3 Slim

kinsten

240 posts

Master Geek

#397720 30-Oct-2010 14:16

OK, finally got this working.

As it turns out, the message 'Invalid partition table' was actually correct. As it was referring to the data HDD, which had not OS installed on it.

After unplugging the HDD's and looking at things individually I realized what the problem actually was. I had assumed the 2 Sata drives were the OS drives, but there was an IDE drive in there, which is where the original OS was installed.

The BIOS has a boot priority for HDD's, and I had it set to MMS (Sata, Sata, IDE), which is why it kept looking at the data drive for a partition table.
After altering this arrangement to SMM, leading with the IDE drive, then the second Sata drive I installed a second copy of windows on. Everything started working flawlessly.

Thanks for you help and knowledge Oblivian, =)

Intel Core 2 Duo E6600, 4x 2GB Adata 1066+ DDR2, Sapphire HD4850 X2 2GB GDDR3 PCI-E Quad DVI, 1000w PSU & over 4TB HDD space, Windows 7 Ultimate 64bit
PS3 Slim