Boot.ini question
 

A line in my boot.ini is:

default=multi (0) disk (0) rdisk (0) partition (2) \WINDOWS...

I figured out (I think) that rdisk (0) is drive 0 or the C: drive.

Also partition (2) must be the second partition in the C: drive or drive 0.
(Dell-purchased computer that has the XP operation system on the second
partition of C: drive.)

Correct me if I am wrong and what do the other two items "multi (0)" and
"disk (0)' refer to?

Thanks
--
Dave C.

Boot.ini question
 

Dave C. wrote:
A line in my boot.ini is:

default=multi (0) disk (0) rdisk (0) partition (2) \WINDOWS...

I figured out (I think) that rdisk (0) is drive 0 or the C: drive.

Also partition (2) must be the second partition in the C: drive or drive 0.
(Dell-purchased computer that has the XP operation system on the second
partition of C: drive.)

Correct me if I am wrong and what do the other two items "multi (0)" and
"disk (0)' refer to?


This is designed around SCSI notation, not all of it is used in IDE
drives. I believe that the multi refers to the controller number (0
being first, 1 being second, 2 being third, etc.). In IDE drives I don't
think the disk portion is used, so it's always 0.

Yousuf Khan

Boot.ini question
 

Dave C. myaddress.net wrote:

A line in my boot.ini is:

default=multi (0) disk (0) rdisk (0) partition (2) \WINDOWS...

I figured out (I think) that rdisk (0) is drive 0 or the C: drive.

Also partition (2) must be the second partition in the C: drive or drive 0.
(Dell-purchased computer that has the XP operation system on the second
partition of C: drive.)

Correct me if I am wrong

No you arent.

and what do the other two items "multi (0)" and "disk (0)' refer to?

Multi refers to the number of the controller. Disk is always 0.

And to make things even more messy,
partition counts from 1, the others from 0.

http://www.microsoft.com/resources/d...d_std_ccef.asp

Boot.ini question
 

And I thank you for your replied, Rod and Yousuf.

(The MS Resource Kit is good to read through.)

--
Dave C.



"Rod Speed" wrote in message
...
Dave C. myaddress.net wrote:

A line in my boot.ini is:

default=multi (0) disk (0) rdisk (0) partition (2) \WINDOWS...

I figured out (I think) that rdisk (0) is drive 0 or the C: drive.

Also partition (2) must be the second partition in the C: drive or drive
0. (Dell-purchased computer that has the XP operation system on the
second partition of C: drive.)

Correct me if I am wrong

No you arent.

and what do the other two items "multi (0)" and "disk (0)' refer to?

Multi refers to the number of the controller. Disk is always 0.

And to make things even more messy,
partition counts from 1, the others from 0.

http://www.microsoft.com/resources/d...d_std_ccef.asp

Boot.ini question
 

In ,
Dave C. va escriu
A line in my boot.ini is:

default=multi (0) disk (0) rdisk (0) partition (2) \WINDOWS...

I figured out (I think) that rdisk (0) is drive 0 or the C: drive.

The former. More precisely, disk 0x80 as seen by BIOS.
Will become \Device\Harddisk0, unless you got the 0x7B bugcheck.


Also partition (2) must be the second partition in the C: drive or
drive 0.

The second partition of the drive 0. Which partition happens to be your C:
drive (a volume or drive or letter is a file system, so it lies inside a
partition).


Correct me if I am wrong and what do the other two items "multi (0)"
and "disk (0)' refer to?

Much more details at http://www.linux-mips.org/wiki/ARC,
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/102873 and also .../227704.

multi() refers to some kind of "multi-purpose" bus; I never saw any other
than one such bus, thus multi(0). For Windows NTLDR it really means it
should rely on BIOS (INT13h).

disk() refers to some disk subsystem on the bus; since BIOS only has only
one way to address disks, it is always disk(0).

rdisk(N) is the "real" disk number (as assigned by the BIOS - 0x80; and up
to 3 according to MS doc).


Antoine

Boot.ini question
 

"Antoine Leca" wrote:
rdisk(N) is the "real" disk number (as assigned
by the BIOS - 0x80; and up to 3 according to MS doc).


You can also think of "rdisk()" as meaning the
"relative disk position", that is, relative to the head
of the BIOS's hard drive boot order. Since the
boot order can be adjusted manually by the user
via keyboard input to the BIOS, the hard drive
referred to by "rdisk(0)" can be changed at will.
Thus, "rdisk(0)" will refer to the top of the boot
order list, "rdisk(1)" will refer to the next in the list,
"rdisk(2)" will refer to the next after that, etc., but
which hard drive those arguments refer to only
depends on cabling and I/O channel in the default
case.

*TimDaniels*

Boot.ini question
 

Timothy Daniels wrote
Antoine Leca wrote

rdisk(N) is the "real" disk number (as assigned by the BIOS - 0x80; and
up to 3 according to MS doc).

You can also think of "rdisk()" as meaning the
"relative disk position", that is, relative to the head of the BIOS's
hard drive boot order.

No you cant.

Since the boot order can be adjusted manually by the user via keyboard
input to the BIOS, the hard drive referred to by "rdisk(0)" can be
changed at will.

No it cant. The boot order setting doesnt
change the N in the rdisk entry.

Thus, "rdisk(0)" will refer to the top of the boot
order list, "rdisk(1)" will refer to the next in the list, "rdisk(2)"
will refer to the next after that, etc.,

No it doesnt. It has nothing to do with the boot order list at all.

It JUST refers to the physical order.

but which hard drive those arguments refer to only
depends on cabling and I/O channel in the default case.

In all cases, actually. The boot order in the bios is irrelevant to that.

Boot.ini question
 

"Rod Speed" wrote:
Timothy Daniels wrote
Antoine Leca wrote

rdisk(N) is the "real" disk number (as assigned by
the BIOS - 0x80; and up to 3 according to MS doc).

You can also think of "rdisk()" as meaning the
"relative disk position", that is, relative to the head
of the BIOS's hard drive boot order.

No you cant.

Since the boot order can be adjusted manually by the
user via keyboard input to the BIOS, the hard drive
referred to by "rdisk(0)" can be changed at will.

No it cant. The boot order setting doesnt
change the N in the rdisk entry.

Thus, "rdisk(0)" will refer to the top of the boot
order list, "rdisk(1)" will refer to the next in the list,
"rdisk(2)" will refer to the next after that, etc.,

No it doesnt. It has nothing to do with the boot order
list at all.

It JUST refers to the physical order.

but which hard drive those arguments refer to only
depends on cabling and I/O channel in the default case.

In all cases, actually. The boot order in the bios is
irrelevant to that.


I stand by my claim, Rod. You can check if you want,
and you can make all the denials you want, but it is true,
and anyone can check that out - the "rdisk()" parameter
is relative to the top of the hard drive boot order, and it
only relates to physical position, i.e. cable position or
IDE channel number, in the default case. In the DEFAULT
case, the hard drive boot order is:

Master, IDE channel 0,
Slave, IDE channel 0,
Master, IDE channel 1,
Slave, IDE channel 1.

But when this order is changed in the BIOS, the
meaning of "rdisk()" changes physically, but it retains
its logical meaning as a reference to the boot order.
That means that "rdisk(0)" will ALWAYS refer to the
head of the boot order, regardless of which physical
hard drive is put at the head of the boot order, and
"rdisk(1)" will ALWAYS refer to the next one in the list.

Accordingly, I code boot.ini files to implement
switching between up to 7 or 8 clone OSes which are
resident simultaneously on 3 hard drives in my computer,
and the "rdisk()" parameter has always meant what I've
described above. I base this on the behavior of my
Dell Dimension XPS system which is about as common
as a PC can get.

*TimDaniels*

Boot.ini question
 

Timothy Daniels wrote
Rod Speed wrote
Timothy Daniels wrote
Antoine Leca wrote

rdisk(N) is the "real" disk number (as assigned by
the BIOS - 0x80; and up to 3 according to MS doc).

You can also think of "rdisk()" as meaning the
"relative disk position", that is, relative to the head of the BIOS's
hard drive boot order.

No you cant.

Since the boot order can be adjusted manually by the
user via keyboard input to the BIOS, the hard drive
referred to by "rdisk(0)" can be changed at will.

No it cant. The boot order setting doesnt
change the N in the rdisk entry.

Thus, "rdisk(0)" will refer to the top of the boot
order list, "rdisk(1)" will refer to the next in the list,
"rdisk(2)" will refer to the next after that, etc.,

No it doesnt. It has nothing to do with the boot order
list at all.

It JUST refers to the physical order.

but which hard drive those arguments refer to only
depends on cabling and I/O channel in the default case.

In all cases, actually. The boot order in the bios is
irrelevant to that.

I stand by my claim, Rod.

You can stand anywhere you like,
it changes absolutely nothing at all.

You can check if you want, and you can make all the denials you want, but
it is true, and anyone can check that out - the "rdisk()" parameter is
relative to the top of the hard drive boot order, and it only relates to
physical position, i.e. cable position or IDE channel number, in the
default case. In the DEFAULT case, the hard drive boot order is:

Thats just repeating your earlier assertion.

You can keep repeating that till you go blue
in the face if you like, changes nothing.

The obvious problem with your claim is trivial to prove.
Setup a test config where the boot.ini comes off the
first drive in the boot list in the bios, with an entry to
boot off a different physical drive. When you move
that later physical drive in the boot order in the bios,
that doesnt make any difference to which drive gets
booted when you select that entry in the boot.ini at
boot time. The N value changes according to you
because you have moved it in the bios boot sequence
list. XP still boots the same physical drive regardless.

Master, IDE channel 0,
Slave, IDE channel 0,
Master, IDE channel 1,
Slave, IDE channel 1.

But when this order is changed in the BIOS, the
meaning of "rdisk()" changes physically, but it retains
its logical meaning as a reference to the boot order.
That means that "rdisk(0)" will ALWAYS refer to the
head of the boot order, regardless of which physical
hard drive is put at the head of the boot order, and
"rdisk(1)" will ALWAYS refer to the next one in the list.

Again, that is just repeating original assertion and its
completely trivial to prove that its just plain wrong.

Accordingly, I code boot.ini files to implement
switching between up to 7 or 8 clone OSes which are
resident simultaneously on 3 hard drives in my computer,
and the "rdisk()" parameter has always meant what I've
described above. I base this on the behavior of my
Dell Dimension XPS system which is about as common
as a PC can get.

Doesnt explain the test I listed that proves you are just plain wrong.

Boot.ini question
 

rdisk(N) refers to Int13 drive 80h+N, simple as that.
How Int13 drives are ordered is completely up to the BIOS.
"fdisk /status" from DOS tells you, Disk Manager does NOT.

"Timothy Daniels" wrote in message
...

I stand by my claim, Rod. You can check if you want,
and you can make all the denials you want, but it is true,
and anyone can check that out - the "rdisk()" parameter
is relative to the top of the hard drive boot order, and it
only relates to physical position, i.e. cable position or
IDE channel number, in the default case. In the DEFAULT
case, the hard drive boot order is:

Master, IDE channel 0,
Slave, IDE channel 0,
Master, IDE channel 1,
Slave, IDE channel 1.

But when this order is changed in the BIOS, the
meaning of "rdisk()" changes physically, but it retains
its logical meaning as a reference to the boot order.
That means that "rdisk(0)" will ALWAYS refer to the
head of the boot order, regardless of which physical
hard drive is put at the head of the boot order, and
"rdisk(1)" will ALWAYS refer to the next one in the list.

Accordingly, I code boot.ini files to implement
switching between up to 7 or 8 clone OSes which are
resident simultaneously on 3 hard drives in my computer,
and the "rdisk()" parameter has always meant what I've
described above. I base this on the behavior of my
Dell Dimension XPS system which is about as common
as a PC can get.

*TimDaniels*