Booting Custom PC... OS selection...

[supertyler]

Ok here's the thing...

I have recenlty built a new PC, here is the spec (everything new except the temp HD):

Motherboard: ECS Extreme PF5
Graphics Card: NVIDIA GeForce 7600
Processor: Intel Dual Core 805: 2.67GHZ, 533MHz Sys Bus & 1mb L2 Cache
RAM: 1x Corsair 1GB DIMM 667MHz CL3
Storage: Western Digi SATA 250GB with XP SP2 (& currently a temporary Maxtor 80GB IDE HD with XP SP2)
Power: Coolermaster Hiper 580W

Having not done this before I hadn't anticipated the F6 boot disk requirement when installing XP onto my SATA drive, so ended up plugging in my old (non SATA) HD in order to boot the system so I could create a boot disk (from mobo disc). After a bit (loads) of fiddling I eventually got XP installed on the new HD, however when I boot I am now presented with three OS's to select from (one for each HD and one from god knows where - it appeared at some point while I was fumbling with the installation but doesn't load just results in black screen).

1. I do not want the 'Select OS' option to come up at all during boot as is confuses people (me) and wastes time (plus at the very least I need to get rid of the option which doesn't even work). I just want it to boot from whatever it booted from last time unless I intervene during booting - Is this possible?

2. Secondly, in addition to the problem above, when I later selected the SATA HD as primary boot device in BIOS (I intend to take the old HD out) the system won't boot, and I just get a black screen with flashing cursor at the point where I was previously having to select one of the three OS's to load.

So that's it really, can anyone help me solve these problems?

[supertyler]

double post

[mjc]

There is no need to post one quetsion more than one time, to more than one forum. The mods and most of the regulars look at all posts in all forums. If the question is better in another forum than where it was originally posted, then it will be moved.

[supertyler]

anyone...?

[mjc]

Both problems actually sound like the same problem...or at least part of the same problem.

Your boot.ini file has incorrect info in it.

Could you post the contents of it?

It will be easier to tell you what needs to be done when we see what is there. It will be a hidden file, so you will need to go into Explorer => Tools => Folder Options => View => Show Hidden files and uncheck Hide protected OS files.

[rond36]

Your S-ATA drive can't be set as the first boot device because it is not bootable.

When you installed Win XP on the 80GB drive it wrote a bootloader the boot sector of the drive and set the partition as active in the MBR. XP also wrote hidden system files to the root directory of that drive ntldr, ntdetect.com, and boot.ini these files along with other system files must be it the root directory of the boot drive.

When you installed XP on the 250GB drive with the 80GB drive in the system it just edited the boot.ini file on the 80GB drive it didn't write the boot loader to the boot sector or write the necessary system files to the root directory of the 250GB drive or set its partition active.

[supertyler]

Ok, found the boot.ini file on C:\ (old 80GB), this had a "default" entry followed by three "[Operating Systems]" entries.

I removed the entry which didn't work (they were listed in the same order they appear in the selection screen during boot so I knew the middle one was the dodgy one).

Rebooted and bingo the 'faulty' option is now gone.

I went on to duplicate the file and placed it on the Sata drive, didn't work first off, but after a a bit of tweaking (I changed the "rdisk" value from 1 to 0 - or possibly the other way round) I now have the system booting off just the SATA drive.

Nice one guys - bang on, sincere thanks.

I am toying with the idea of keeping the old drive wired in as I don't have another home for it, so I will still have two OS's but 99% of the time I will be booting from the sata drive. Unless there is another solution I am planning on changing the selection timer from 30 to 0 seconds in the boot.ini file as I don't want to wait 30 seconds for the PC to auto-select.

Essentially I am trying to minimise boot time, is there a better way of doing this?

Out of interest what's the fastest boot time anyone's achieved out there...?

[supertyler]

Ok, found the boot.ini file on C:\ (old 80GB), this had a "default" entry followed by three "[Operating Systems]" entries.

I removed the entry which didn't work (they were listed in the same order they appear in the selection screen during boot so I knew the middle one was the dodgy one).

Rebooted and bingo the 'faulty' option is now gone.

I went on to duplicate the file and placed it on the Sata drive, didn't work first off, but after a a bit of tweaking (I changed the "rdisk" value from 1 to 0 - or possibly the other way round) I now have the system booting off just the SATA drive.

Nice one guys - bang on, sincere thanks.

I am toying with the idea of keeping the old drive wired in as I don't have another home for it, so I will still have two OS's but 99% of the time I will be booting from the sata drive. Unless there is another solution I am planning on changing the selection timer from 30 to 0 seconds in the boot.ini file as I don't want to wait 30 seconds for the PC to auto-select.

Essentially I am trying to minimise boot time, is there a better way of doing this?

Out of interest what's the fastest boot time anyone's achieved out there...?

[jlreich]

If you set the timer to zero it will not countdown but just wait for you to choose (turns off the timer in effect). I usually set my boot manager to 2 seconds. That minimizes boot time but allows me time to hit a key to stop the timer so I can choose to boot a different OS if I want. Just make sure the default OS is the one you will boot to most of the time.

If you want to keep the OS on the other drive it might be a good OS to experiment on. Make an image of the drive and then have fun. You know, try out those free programs that your not sure about. Or tweak the OS to your hearts content. :D Then you will know if it's something you might want on your main OS.

[Fruss Tray Ted]

I have 2 harddrives, each with their own installation of Windows. In the BIOS settings I either choose ide-0 or ide-1 to select which one I want to boot to. It sounds to me as if this is a similar thing that you want to do.

Simply with your XP disk, select the repair option when only 1 harddrive is in place and connected to where you want it such as ide-0 or SATA-0, ide-1 etc... Repair both. Once both drives have only 1 boot option in their boot strings, there will be no hesitation to passing that point in the boot hence a fast boot time in comparison to a multiboot setup.

Enabling them as active partitions must be done with the slave drive as well. When you boot the one that is not booted to will just function as extra storage yet all the Windows files will be intact, just not running.

After the second drive is reinstalled, it will be assigned a drive letter as usual such as for any slave drive or usb device.

The only downfall to this is when you want to reassign which drive you want to be the default drive to boot from, you'll need to enter setup and change it. I rarely do this except for emergencies such as malware (virii included)