18-Jul-06 / To: Computerhope
Roger that. Thanx again - GX1, pcdoc, panboy. Guess I've confused the issue.
OK. Re my comp (#1) only. Good progress. This morn able to boot to my own HD. Tried all kinds BIOS & HD jumper settings. All now back to almost original. Beats me.
> When you install XP , ...
> Did that Not happen?
Appreciate info. Yes, that did happen - but not before. Before kept getting error messages about "Windows can't boot from this HD because of hardware configuration problems..." - at BOTH choices. Always something preventing me from accessing ANYTHING AT ALL or booting to my own HD.
As I said, it was only by the Grace of God that I finally was able to get past the "Press TAB for POST. ..." . Had I not pulled the CMOS battery, I'd still be at that screen. Can't be normal.
There are 2 boot menu choices; both identical (XP...) - as both HD's have same OS. After all the mucking about this morn, the 2nd choice FINALLY opened XP on my original Master HD - which is the only one in there now. Previously I had to have both the CD and the Slave in there to get any action.
BTW, if Win XP is as smart as advertized, then it should know enough NOT to run its modified boot.ini file when it "sees" only the original HD.
Dumb as I am, I still know enough to construct a simple batch file, for example, with "if not exist J:\nul
goto :boot2" - or similar, as applies. Seems to me, somebody at MS missed out on 'boot camp'.
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I do not quite follow your message to me, above, panboy. What boot sector of what? HD do you mean?
(BTW and FYI, I had to, of necessity, also make the prime partition on the Slave bootable, obviously).
If you mean my Master HD, who gave permission to the Win XP CD for this? Why is this redundant, misguided boot.ini file still messing with my system when I've already removed the Slave HD?
Was supposed to be a simple op: Install OS to a Slave HD; then transfer HD to target computer. My memory quite poor nowadays; don't recollect running into this sort of situation before in last 2 or 3 decades - either w/ DOS or any other Win OS or Ap I'm familiar with. Why all the agro?
IMHO and frankly, I don't believe Windows has any business messing around with my Master HD nor my
Registry when all I asked it to do was to install on the Slave drive - not take over my system. Exactly
how can I avoid such a distasteful disaster in future?
Only logical reason I could see why this boot menu might come in handy, BTW (in this case, where 2 HD's have identical OS), is where the original OS on Disk-1 became corrupt. Don't think this would be a v. common practice. Must be better ways, w/ less HD space wasted, to achieve same objective.
To reiterate, as I could not install XP via the other 2 older computers, for reasons already given, I had no choice BUT to partition and format my friend's new HD in MY OWN COMP, connecting it as a Slave. If anyone can tell me some better way I could have done this, under circumstances, I'd really appreciate.
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BTW, can't find Boot.ini (via 'Search' or otherwise). All folders/files unhidden. All extensions exposed.
Thought "Registry" was supposed to have replaced all that and the "...ini" 's; unless it's on the Slave?
What I'd really like to know now is:
1) How to do a similar but "correct" XP install to a Slave drive (if this is possible),
2) How and where to edit that boot menu - to kill it (something else I've forgotten) and
3) how to get one of the 2 old comps to accept that XP installation. I'll be jumpering that new
Drive shortly as a Master and try to get it working in one of those old comps - again.
It looks like all else (TG) is back to normal now. Main Panic over. Got my box back.
Thanks for all the support so far. Learned a lot from you all. Got it all filed away and categorized in
my XP learner DB for future ref. Be needing that. Hope someone can answer the above first 2 anyway.
Jed...
