PartitionMagic Question

"Harvey Gratt" wrote in message
...
Rod Speed wrote:

"Rod Speed" wrote in message
...

"Harvey Gratt" wrote in message
...

Rod Speed wrote:


"Harvey Gratt" wrote in message
...


Rod Speed wrote:



"Harvey Gratt" wrote in message
...



Rod Speed wrote:




"Harvey Gratt" wrote in message
...




Rod Speed wrote:





"Harvey Gratt" wrote in message
...





Rod Speed wrote:






"Harvey Gratt" wrote in message
...






Bob H wrote:







Harvey Gratt wrote:







Bob H wrote:







Harvey Gratt wrote:







Bob H wrote:







Harvey Gratt wrote:







Bob H wrote:







Harvey Gratt wrote:







Rod Speed wrote:







"Harvey Gratt" wrote in message
news






Bob H wrote:








Harvey Gratt wrote:








I'm trying to verify whether PartitionMagic 8.01 will
automatically "fix" the boot.ini file and the
partition boot sector where it resides during the
rearrangement of disk partitions.

Specifically, say I have an XP primary, active
partition as the third partition on my HDD. The first
two partitions are logical partitions. Initially, the
boot.ini file would point to the third partition.

If I now delete the first two partitions so as to make
the XP partition the first partition, will
PartitionMagic automatically rewrite the boot.ini file
to make it point to the first partition so as to make
subsequent boot-ups possible?

Thanks,
Harvey










I wouldn't have thought so. You are in fact delting the
boot.ini file when you delete the first 2 partitions,
so where will the boot.ini file be? Deleted as well, I
say.
You will have to create another boot.ini file on the
same partition you want to boot from.



I appear to be mis-understanding something. I thought
the boot.ini file resided in the "partition boot sector"
which, in the original setup, would have been located in
the third partition (active, primary).

If not where does it reside? Are the "partition boot
sector (PBS)", boot.ini file always located at a
specific location on the HDD - I thought this was true
only of the MBR, which in turn pointed to the PBS (which
is located at an arbitrary location). Is my
understanding incorrect - it would appear so.










Sounds comprehensively mangled to me.

The boot.ini file is a file in a particular partition, it
wont even fit in a PBS.

More likely something works out which is the bootable
partition
on a particular physical drive and something works out
where the
boot.ini is from that and reads it from the appropriate
partition.

Dont know the answer to your original question, I'd
personally
ghost the entire physical drive so you can recover
gracefully
of PM didnt handle the deletion of the logical drives
properly.
Cant see why it shouldnt.


I guess this gets down to understanding the boot process.
My current state of confusion is:

1. The MBR is read from a fixed location on the HDD.

2. The code in the MBR eventually points to a bootable
partition (there may be more than one, but I guess only
one is active at a time) and jumps to the PBS of the
active partition.

3. Code in the PBS then starts to load the OS, eventually
reading the boot.ini file located in that partition's root
directory (as you indicated)

4. Now, if the boot.ini file contains lines for mutiple
OS's, a menu appears. A selection here would then cause a
jump to the approriate partition for the loading of the
selected OS.

My head hurts. Does the above seem correct? If not, what
does happen?

Thanks,
Harvey








Where is NTLDR? Which partition is that on?



Well, if my understanding is remotely correct, I would think
it's located on the active partition pointed to by the MBR.
I guess the MBR points to the PBS which contains code to
start the loader function (NTLDR). NTLDR is probably located
on the active partition and it would access the boot.ini
file.

Harvey


Go to: Windows Explorer, Tools, Folder Options.
In Folder Options click on the View tab at the top.
Then un tick Hide protected operating system files.

When you have done that, have a look in the root of each
partition to loctate NTLDR. So, is it in the OS partition or
any of the others?

Anyway to keep things nice and sipmle, if you are only using
1 OS why don't you just put boot.ini in the ctaive Primary
partition, if you are going to delete the others.



It is in the root directory. So it appears that the 4 step
process I described is essentially correct. However, this
thread seems to have wandered off course.

I guess the answer to the original question is that
PartitionMagic (PM) WILL NOT correctly change the boot.ini
file. So one question is, will the boot process get all the
way to the active partition boot sector (PBS),via the MBR,
(which I assume that PM CAN correctly set up) and then hang
because the boot.ini file points to a non-existent partition
(originally the third partition)?

A second question is:

Assume I install the Recovery Console in the OS in the
original third partition. When I go thru all the manipulations
as above, will the boot process bring up the Recovery Console
(so I can fix the boot.ini file without needing an XP cd)
instead of hanging?

Thanks,
Harvey




What root directory of what partition is NTLDR in?
I believe in the KISS theory, and like I said, if you are only
using ONE OS, why don't you make sure NTLDR and boot.ini are in
the root directory of the first active partition for the OS.

I would not put trust in PM to rebuild/make place any files on
another partition from whence they were moved. Sounds too
complicated to me.


On my IBM laptop they (ntldr and boot.ini)are in the root
directory (C:\) of the active, bootable partition containing XP.

Harvey


Ok, so if that is the present case, what was your point then?????

If you install either Win2k or WinXP on any partition other than
the first active primary partition, the OS will by default place
boot.ini, NTLDR and NTDETECT.COM among others on that first
active primary partition. If you delete that partition, then you
cannot boot WinXp or Win2k without first moving/copying those
files to the root of the OS and then making that the first active
partition.
But, whatever way you do it, the said files must be in the first
active partition.
Perhaps someone else who is more knowledgeable about the
multiboot process may have further information here. I know you
did not say anything about multiboot, but what you want to do, if
I unsderstand you correctly goes someway towards that.


The original "point" was that the OS resided in the third
partition of the HDD. The first two partitions was logical
partitions and were to be deleted. The ntldr and boot.ini files
are located in the root directory of the third partition (the only
active, bootable partition). The boot.ini file would have an ARC
path pointing to this third partition.

So, the original question was could PM be used to delete the first
2 partitions (yes to this) and would PM correctly fix the boot.ini
file so that the ARC path pointed to the first partition where the
OS (ntldr and boot.ini are in the root directory of this
partition) now resides (apparently not).


This appears to be where you are confusing yourself.

Since everything is setup to boot the partition that the OS is
installed
on, I cant see why deleting the logical partitions changes anything
on
that. It isnt as if there is something that says 'boot the third
partition'
and so that fails when it becomes the only partition after the
deletion
of the logical partitions.







A second question was (assuming the boot.ini pointed to the wrong
partition):


Assume I install the Recovery Console in the OS in the original
third partition. When I go thru all the manipulations as above,
will
the boot process bring up the Recovery Console (so I can fix the
boot.ini file without needing an XP cd) instead of hanging?


You can always boot the CD and do whatever repair is necessary from
there.
http://support.microsoft.com/default...b;en-us;330184

The obvious approach would be to run bootcfg /scan
and get it to re-enumerate the available OSs, just one
in your case, with its new partition number.


On my Dell Desktop, which has 2 partitions (the first is a
diagnostic partition, the second is the XP partition) the boot.ini
file looks like:

[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partiti on(2)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WI NDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP
Professional" /fastdetect /NoExecute=OptIn


I would think that the boot.ini entries of ...partition(2) would
have to change to ...partition(1) after the diagnostic partition is
deleted.


Presumably. Havent actually tried it tho.






Otherwise, boot.ini points to a non-existent partition from which
the OS is to be loaded, and the boot process would hang.


But you arent necessarily going to just delete that
diagnostic partition. Or are you planning to expand the
OS partition to include the space its currently occupying ?



The idea was to completely remove the diagnostic partition, leaving
only one partition (OS partition). I assume that would imply that the
OS partition would be expanded to reclaim the space obtained by
deleting the diagnostic partition.


To return to your original question, I'd be surprised if
PM actually edits the boot.ini, but I havent tried that.


Not sure what happens if the boot.ini has a non existent partition
number
in that line you listed. Its possible that if there is only one
partition on the physical drive it will just assume that thats the one
intended.


Just checked that by manually editing the boot.ini in a system which
has a single XP partition on boot drive, changing the partition numbers
in both lines from the original 1 to 3 and XP is so stupid that it just gives
up and doesnt give you any opportunity to run the recovery console.

Booted the XP CD, ran the recovery console from there, ran
bootcfg /rebuild
and it found the only OS installation and just asked what to call it etc.

That produced a boot menu at boot time because the original dud entry
was still there, but that was easy to edit out once the full XP booted again.


No big deal if it doesnt, just boot the CD and run bootcfg /rebuild

from the recovery console and have it redo the boot.ini and fix it.


Yeah, the XP cd route appears to be the way to handle this. However, my
other question was whether one could install the XP recovery Console
prior to manipulating the partitions.


You dont need to install it, you basically run it from the booted CD.




What I hope would happen is that the Recovery Console comes up first,
before the boot process hangs trying to find the non-existent partition.


Yeah, it probably does.




The repair could then be done at that point without needing the cd.


You could always just edit the boot.ini manually if you dont have the cd.


Chicken before the egg???


Nope.



If I can't boot to the OS, I can't edit the boot.ini file unless it's done
before the whole process.


You can boot another OS from floppy or CD.

The knoppix CD would allow you to edit it.



I believe that's why you need to do the repair either from the cd or from
the Recovery Console if the above works.


Nope.



The problem I face is that some of my machines did not come with an XP cd.
And, an OEM cd (like Dell) will not work


Any bootable XP CD will do fine, it doesnt have to be the one
used to install XP on that particular machine to edit the boot.ini



- so that's why the question about the Recovery Console.


See above.



Are you saying that a Dell XP cd, which is tied to the Dell BIOS, will still
allow me to access the Recovery Console?

Dunno. I was actually talking about a standard XP CD.

It doesnt have to be the CD that was used to install
XP on that particular machine, it can be any XP CD.

Havent played with a Dell XP CD.

If you dont have a standard XP CD you
can get one off the web using torrent etc.

Knoppix is certain to allow you to edit the boot.ini too.
You would however need some minimal linux knowledge.

Thanks for testing it out. Just to be certain, you did have the Recovery
Console installed so it would normally come up during the boot process?

Nope, and I think its unlikely that would make any difference given
that whatever puts the message up isnt likely to know where it is
when its decided that the boot.ini entry that has an impossible partition
number for the physical drive and so cant work out what to boot.

You then modified the boot.ini file

I did that from the fully booted XP.

and the machine hung without showing the Console?

No, it says that the drive isnt bootable and doesnt give
you any options. If you hit enter it just reboots again.

If so, that really sucks.

Yeah, it is a tad crude.

A bootable XP cd is then required.

Or something that allows the boot.ini to be manually edited, anyway.

That isnt hard, the knoppix CD should, and so should the PE bootable CDs too.

Thanks Rod. I appreciate your taking the time to investigate this.

No probs, it was an interesting question for me.

Rod Speed wrote:

"Harvey Gratt" wrote in message
...

Rod Speed wrote:


"Rod Speed" wrote in message
...


"Harvey Gratt" wrote in message
...


Rod Speed wrote:



"Harvey Gratt" wrote in message
...



Rod Speed wrote:




"Harvey Gratt" wrote in message
...




Rod Speed wrote:





"Harvey Gratt" wrote in message
...





Rod Speed wrote:






"Harvey Gratt" wrote in message
...






Rod Speed wrote:







"Harvey Gratt" wrote in message
...







Bob H wrote:








Harvey Gratt wrote:








Bob H wrote:








Harvey Gratt wrote:








Bob H wrote:








Harvey Gratt wrote:








Bob H wrote:








Harvey Gratt wrote:








Rod Speed wrote:








"Harvey Gratt" wrote in message
news







Bob H wrote:









Harvey Gratt wrote:









I'm trying to verify whether PartitionMagic 8.01 will
automatically "fix" the boot.ini file and the
partition boot sector where it resides during the
rearrangement of disk partitions.

Specifically, say I have an XP primary, active
partition as the third partition on my HDD. The first
two partitions are logical partitions. Initially, the
boot.ini file would point to the third partition.

If I now delete the first two partitions so as to make
the XP partition the first partition, will
PartitionMagic automatically rewrite the boot.ini file
to make it point to the first partition so as to make
subsequent boot-ups possible?

Thanks,
Harvey










I wouldn't have thought so. You are in fact delting the
boot.ini file when you delete the first 2 partitions,
so where will the boot.ini file be? Deleted as well, I
say.
You will have to create another boot.ini file on the
same partition you want to boot from.



I appear to be mis-understanding something. I thought
the boot.ini file resided in the "partition boot sector"
which, in the original setup, would have been located in
the third partition (active, primary).

If not where does it reside? Are the "partition boot
sector (PBS)", boot.ini file always located at a
specific location on the HDD - I thought this was true
only of the MBR, which in turn pointed to the PBS (which
is located at an arbitrary location). Is my
understanding incorrect - it would appear so.










Sounds comprehensively mangled to me.

The boot.ini file is a file in a particular partition, it
wont even fit in a PBS.

More likely something works out which is the bootable
partition
on a particular physical drive and something works out
where the
boot.ini is from that and reads it from the appropriate
partition.

Dont know the answer to your original question, I'd
personally
ghost the entire physical drive so you can recover
gracefully
of PM didnt handle the deletion of the logical drives
properly.
Cant see why it shouldnt.


I guess this gets down to understanding the boot process.
My current state of confusion is:

1. The MBR is read from a fixed location on the HDD.

2. The code in the MBR eventually points to a bootable
partition (there may be more than one, but I guess only
one is active at a time) and jumps to the PBS of the
active partition.

3. Code in the PBS then starts to load the OS, eventually
reading the boot.ini file located in that partition's root
directory (as you indicated)

4. Now, if the boot.ini file contains lines for mutiple
OS's, a menu appears. A selection here would then cause a
jump to the approriate partition for the loading of the
selected OS.

My head hurts. Does the above seem correct? If not, what
does happen?

Thanks,
Harvey








Where is NTLDR? Which partition is that on?



Well, if my understanding is remotely correct, I would think
it's located on the active partition pointed to by the MBR.
I guess the MBR points to the PBS which contains code to
start the loader function (NTLDR). NTLDR is probably located
on the active partition and it would access the boot.ini
file.

Harvey


Go to: Windows Explorer, Tools, Folder Options.
In Folder Options click on the View tab at the top.
Then un tick Hide protected operating system files.

When you have done that, have a look in the root of each
partition to loctate NTLDR. So, is it in the OS partition or
any of the others?

Anyway to keep things nice and sipmle, if you are only using
1 OS why don't you just put boot.ini in the ctaive Primary
partition, if you are going to delete the others.



It is in the root directory. So it appears that the 4 step
process I described is essentially correct. However, this
thread seems to have wandered off course.

I guess the answer to the original question is that
PartitionMagic (PM) WILL NOT correctly change the boot.ini
file. So one question is, will the boot process get all the
way to the active partition boot sector (PBS),via the MBR,
(which I assume that PM CAN correctly set up) and then hang
because the boot.ini file points to a non-existent partition
(originally the third partition)?

A second question is:

Assume I install the Recovery Console in the OS in the
original third partition. When I go thru all the manipulations
as above, will the boot process bring up the Recovery Console
(so I can fix the boot.ini file without needing an XP cd)
instead of hanging?

Thanks,
Harvey




What root directory of what partition is NTLDR in?
I believe in the KISS theory, and like I said, if you are only
using ONE OS, why don't you make sure NTLDR and boot.ini are in
the root directory of the first active partition for the OS.

I would not put trust in PM to rebuild/make place any files on
another partition from whence they were moved. Sounds too
complicated to me.


On my IBM laptop they (ntldr and boot.ini)are in the root
directory (C:\) of the active, bootable partition containing XP.

Harvey


Ok, so if that is the present case, what was your point then?????

If you install either Win2k or WinXP on any partition other than
the first active primary partition, the OS will by default place
boot.ini, NTLDR and NTDETECT.COM among others on that first
active primary partition. If you delete that partition, then you
cannot boot WinXp or Win2k without first moving/copying those
files to the root of the OS and then making that the first active
partition.
But, whatever way you do it, the said files must be in the first
active partition.
Perhaps someone else who is more knowledgeable about the
multiboot process may have further information here. I know you
did not say anything about multiboot, but what you want to do, if
I unsderstand you correctly goes someway towards that.


The original "point" was that the OS resided in the third
partition of the HDD. The first two partitions was logical
partitions and were to be deleted. The ntldr and boot.ini files
are located in the root directory of the third partition (the only
active, bootable partition). The boot.ini file would have an ARC
path pointing to this third partition.

So, the original question was could PM be used to delete the first
2 partitions (yes to this) and would PM correctly fix the boot.ini
file so that the ARC path pointed to the first partition where the
OS (ntldr and boot.ini are in the root directory of this
partition) now resides (apparently not).


This appears to be where you are confusing yourself.

Since everything is setup to boot the partition that the OS is
installed
on, I cant see why deleting the logical partitions changes anything
on
that. It isnt as if there is something that says 'boot the third
partition'
and so that fails when it becomes the only partition after the
deletion
of the logical partitions.








A second question was (assuming the boot.ini pointed to the wrong
partition):


Assume I install the Recovery Console in the OS in the original
third partition. When I go thru all the manipulations as above,
will
the boot process bring up the Recovery Console (so I can fix the
boot.ini file without needing an XP cd) instead of hanging?


You can always boot the CD and do whatever repair is necessary from
there.
http://support.microsoft.com/default...b;en-us;330184

The obvious approach would be to run bootcfg /scan
and get it to re-enumerate the available OSs, just one
in your case, with its new partition number.


On my Dell Desktop, which has 2 partitions (the first is a
diagnostic partition, the second is the XP partition) the boot.ini
file looks like:

[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partit ion(2)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\W INDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP
Professional" /fastdetect /NoExecute=OptIn


I would think that the boot.ini entries of ...partition(2) would
have to change to ...partition(1) after the diagnostic partition is
deleted.


Presumably. Havent actually tried it tho.







Otherwise, boot.ini points to a non-existent partition from which
the OS is to be loaded, and the boot process would hang.


But you arent necessarily going to just delete that
diagnostic partition. Or are you planning to expand the
OS partition to include the space its currently occupying ?



The idea was to completely remove the diagnostic partition, leaving
only one partition (OS partition). I assume that would imply that the
OS partition would be expanded to reclaim the space obtained by
deleting the diagnostic partition.


To return to your original question, I'd be surprised if
PM actually edits the boot.ini, but I havent tried that.


Not sure what happens if the boot.ini has a non existent partition
number
in that line you listed. Its possible that if there is only one
partition on the physical drive it will just assume that thats the one
intended.


Just checked that by manually editing the boot.ini in a system which
has a single XP partition on boot drive, changing the partition numbers
in both lines from the original 1 to 3 and XP is so stupid that it just gives
up and doesnt give you any opportunity to run the recovery console.

Booted the XP CD, ran the recovery console from there, ran
bootcfg /rebuild
and it found the only OS installation and just asked what to call it etc.

That produced a boot menu at boot time because the original dud entry
was still there, but that was easy to edit out once the full XP booted again.



No big deal if it doesnt, just boot the CD and run bootcfg /rebuild

from the recovery console and have it redo the boot.ini and fix it.


Yeah, the XP cd route appears to be the way to handle this. However, my
other question was whether one could install the XP recovery Console
prior to manipulating the partitions.


You dont need to install it, you basically run it from the booted CD.





What I hope would happen is that the Recovery Console comes up first,
before the boot process hangs trying to find the non-existent partition.


Yeah, it probably does.





The repair could then be done at that point without needing the cd.


You could always just edit the boot.ini manually if you dont have the cd.


Chicken before the egg???


Nope.




If I can't boot to the OS, I can't edit the boot.ini file unless it's done
before the whole process.


You can boot another OS from floppy or CD.

The knoppix CD would allow you to edit it.




I believe that's why you need to do the repair either from the cd or from
the Recovery Console if the above works.


Nope.




The problem I face is that some of my machines did not come with an XP cd.
And, an OEM cd (like Dell) will not work


Any bootable XP CD will do fine, it doesnt have to be the one
used to install XP on that particular machine to edit the boot.ini




- so that's why the question about the Recovery Console.


See above.



Are you saying that a Dell XP cd, which is tied to the Dell BIOS, will still
allow me to access the Recovery Console?

Dunno. I was actually talking about a standard XP CD.

It doesnt have to be the CD that was used to install
XP on that particular machine, it can be any XP CD.

Havent played with a Dell XP CD.

If you dont have a standard XP CD you
can get one off the web using torrent etc.

Knoppix is certain to allow you to edit the boot.ini too.
You would however need some minimal linux knowledge.


Thanks for testing it out. Just to be certain, you did have the Recovery
Console installed so it would normally come up during the boot process?


Nope, and I think its unlikely that would make any difference given
that whatever puts the message up isnt likely to know where it is
when its decided that the boot.ini entry that has an impossible partition
number for the physical drive and so cant work out what to boot.


You then modified the boot.ini file


I did that from the fully booted XP.


and the machine hung without showing the Console?


No, it says that the drive isnt bootable and doesnt give
you any options. If you hit enter it just reboots again.


If so, that really sucks.


Yeah, it is a tad crude.


A bootable XP cd is then required.


Or something that allows the boot.ini to be manually edited, anyway.

That isnt hard, the knoppix CD should, and so should the PE bootable CDs too.


Thanks Rod. I appreciate your taking the time to investigate this.


No probs, it was an interesting question for me.


My understanding is that the Recovery Console installation puts an entry
into the boot.ini file so that when the file is parsed and executed the
Console comes up. If this happens prior to looking for the boot
partition, then the process may work as I had hoped.

Any chance of you being sufficiently interested to try this out?

Thanks,
Harvey

"Harvey Gratt" wrote in message
...
Rod Speed wrote:

"Harvey Gratt" wrote in message
...

Rod Speed wrote:


"Rod Speed" wrote in message
...


"Harvey Gratt" wrote in message
...


Rod Speed wrote:



"Harvey Gratt" wrote in message
...



Rod Speed wrote:




"Harvey Gratt" wrote in message
...




Rod Speed wrote:





"Harvey Gratt" wrote in message
...





Rod Speed wrote:






"Harvey Gratt" wrote in message
...






Rod Speed wrote:







"Harvey Gratt" wrote in message
...







Bob H wrote:








Harvey Gratt wrote:








Bob H wrote:








Harvey Gratt wrote:








Bob H wrote:








Harvey Gratt wrote:








Bob H wrote:








Harvey Gratt wrote:








Rod Speed wrote:








"Harvey Gratt" wrote in message
news







Bob H wrote:









Harvey Gratt wrote:









I'm trying to verify whether PartitionMagic 8.01
will automatically "fix" the boot.ini file and the
partition boot sector where it resides during the
rearrangement of disk partitions.

Specifically, say I have an XP primary, active
partition as the third partition on my HDD. The
first two partitions are logical partitions.
Initially, the boot.ini file would point to the
third partition.

If I now delete the first two partitions so as to
make the XP partition the first partition, will
PartitionMagic automatically rewrite the boot.ini
file to make it point to the first partition so as
to make subsequent boot-ups possible?

Thanks,
Harvey










I wouldn't have thought so. You are in fact delting
the boot.ini file when you delete the first 2
partitions, so where will the boot.ini file be?
Deleted as well, I say.
You will have to create another boot.ini file on the
same partition you want to boot from.



I appear to be mis-understanding something. I thought
the boot.ini file resided in the "partition boot
sector" which, in the original setup, would have been
located in the third partition (active, primary).

If not where does it reside? Are the "partition boot
sector (PBS)", boot.ini file always located at a
specific location on the HDD - I thought this was true
only of the MBR, which in turn pointed to the PBS
(which is located at an arbitrary location). Is my
understanding incorrect - it would appear so.










Sounds comprehensively mangled to me.

The boot.ini file is a file in a particular partition,
it wont even fit in a PBS.

More likely something works out which is the bootable
partition
on a particular physical drive and something works out
where the
boot.ini is from that and reads it from the appropriate
partition.

Dont know the answer to your original question, I'd
personally
ghost the entire physical drive so you can recover
gracefully
of PM didnt handle the deletion of the logical drives
properly.
Cant see why it shouldnt.


I guess this gets down to understanding the boot
process. My current state of confusion is:

1. The MBR is read from a fixed location on the HDD.

2. The code in the MBR eventually points to a bootable
partition (there may be more than one, but I guess only
one is active at a time) and jumps to the PBS of the
active partition.

3. Code in the PBS then starts to load the OS,
eventually reading the boot.ini file located in that
partition's root directory (as you indicated)

4. Now, if the boot.ini file contains lines for mutiple
OS's, a menu appears. A selection here would then cause
a jump to the approriate partition for the loading of
the selected OS.

My head hurts. Does the above seem correct? If not, what
does happen?

Thanks,
Harvey








Where is NTLDR? Which partition is that on?



Well, if my understanding is remotely correct, I would
think it's located on the active partition pointed to by
the MBR. I guess the MBR points to the PBS which contains
code to start the loader function (NTLDR). NTLDR is
probably located on the active partition and it would
access the boot.ini file.

Harvey


Go to: Windows Explorer, Tools, Folder Options.
In Folder Options click on the View tab at the top.
Then un tick Hide protected operating system files.

When you have done that, have a look in the root of each
partition to loctate NTLDR. So, is it in the OS partition
or any of the others?

Anyway to keep things nice and sipmle, if you are only
using 1 OS why don't you just put boot.ini in the ctaive
Primary partition, if you are going to delete the others.



It is in the root directory. So it appears that the 4 step
process I described is essentially correct. However, this
thread seems to have wandered off course.

I guess the answer to the original question is that
PartitionMagic (PM) WILL NOT correctly change the boot.ini
file. So one question is, will the boot process get all the
way to the active partition boot sector (PBS),via the MBR,
(which I assume that PM CAN correctly set up) and then hang
because the boot.ini file points to a non-existent partition
(originally the third partition)?

A second question is:

Assume I install the Recovery Console in the OS in the
original third partition. When I go thru all the
manipulations as above, will the boot process bring up the
Recovery Console (so I can fix the boot.ini file without
needing an XP cd) instead of hanging?

Thanks,
Harvey




What root directory of what partition is NTLDR in?
I believe in the KISS theory, and like I said, if you are
only using ONE OS, why don't you make sure NTLDR and boot.ini
are in the root directory of the first active partition for
the OS.

I would not put trust in PM to rebuild/make place any files
on another partition from whence they were moved. Sounds too
complicated to me.


On my IBM laptop they (ntldr and boot.ini)are in the root
directory (C:\) of the active, bootable partition containing
XP.

Harvey


Ok, so if that is the present case, what was your point
then?????

If you install either Win2k or WinXP on any partition other
than the first active primary partition, the OS will by default
place boot.ini, NTLDR and NTDETECT.COM among others on that
first active primary partition. If you delete that partition,
then you cannot boot WinXp or Win2k without first
moving/copying those files to the root of the OS and then
making that the first active partition.
But, whatever way you do it, the said files must be in the
first active partition.
Perhaps someone else who is more knowledgeable about the
multiboot process may have further information here. I know you
did not say anything about multiboot, but what you want to do,
if I unsderstand you correctly goes someway towards that.


The original "point" was that the OS resided in the third
partition of the HDD. The first two partitions was logical
partitions and were to be deleted. The ntldr and boot.ini files
are located in the root directory of the third partition (the
only active, bootable partition). The boot.ini file would have
an ARC path pointing to this third partition.

So, the original question was could PM be used to delete the
first 2 partitions (yes to this) and would PM correctly fix the
boot.ini file so that the ARC path pointed to the first
partition where the OS (ntldr and boot.ini are in the root
directory of this partition) now resides (apparently not).


This appears to be where you are confusing yourself.

Since everything is setup to boot the partition that the OS is
installed
on, I cant see why deleting the logical partitions changes
anything on
that. It isnt as if there is something that says 'boot the third
partition'
and so that fails when it becomes the only partition after the
deletion
of the logical partitions.








A second question was (assuming the boot.ini pointed to the
wrong partition):


Assume I install the Recovery Console in the OS in the original
third partition. When I go thru all the manipulations as above,
will
the boot process bring up the Recovery Console (so I can fix the
boot.ini file without needing an XP cd) instead of hanging?


You can always boot the CD and do whatever repair is necessary
from there.
http://support.microsoft.com/default...b;en-us;330184

The obvious approach would be to run bootcfg /scan
and get it to re-enumerate the available OSs, just one
in your case, with its new partition number.


On my Dell Desktop, which has 2 partitions (the first is a
diagnostic partition, the second is the XP partition) the boot.ini
file looks like:

[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)parti tion(2)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\ WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP
Professional" /fastdetect /NoExecute=OptIn


I would think that the boot.ini entries of ...partition(2) would
have to change to ...partition(1) after the diagnostic partition
is deleted.


Presumably. Havent actually tried it tho.







Otherwise, boot.ini points to a non-existent partition from which
the OS is to be loaded, and the boot process would hang.


But you arent necessarily going to just delete that
diagnostic partition. Or are you planning to expand the
OS partition to include the space its currently occupying ?



The idea was to completely remove the diagnostic partition, leaving
only one partition (OS partition). I assume that would imply that
the OS partition would be expanded to reclaim the space obtained by
deleting the diagnostic partition.


To return to your original question, I'd be surprised if
PM actually edits the boot.ini, but I havent tried that.


Not sure what happens if the boot.ini has a non existent partition
number
in that line you listed. Its possible that if there is only one
partition on the physical drive it will just assume that thats the
one intended.


Just checked that by manually editing the boot.ini in a system which
has a single XP partition on boot drive, changing the partition numbers
in both lines from the original 1 to 3 and XP is so stupid that it just
gives
up and doesnt give you any opportunity to run the recovery console.

Booted the XP CD, ran the recovery console from there, ran
bootcfg /rebuild
and it found the only OS installation and just asked what to call it etc.

That produced a boot menu at boot time because the original dud entry
was still there, but that was easy to edit out once the full XP booted
again.



No big deal if it doesnt, just boot the CD and run bootcfg /rebuild

from the recovery console and have it redo the boot.ini and fix it.


Yeah, the XP cd route appears to be the way to handle this. However,
my other question was whether one could install the XP recovery
Console prior to manipulating the partitions.


You dont need to install it, you basically run it from the booted CD.





What I hope would happen is that the Recovery Console comes up first,
before the boot process hangs trying to find the non-existent
partition.


Yeah, it probably does.





The repair could then be done at that point without needing the cd.


You could always just edit the boot.ini manually if you dont have the
cd.


Chicken before the egg???


Nope.




If I can't boot to the OS, I can't edit the boot.ini file unless it's
done before the whole process.


You can boot another OS from floppy or CD.

The knoppix CD would allow you to edit it.




I believe that's why you need to do the repair either from the cd or
from the Recovery Console if the above works.


Nope.




The problem I face is that some of my machines did not come with an XP
cd. And, an OEM cd (like Dell) will not work


Any bootable XP CD will do fine, it doesnt have to be the one
used to install XP on that particular machine to edit the boot.ini




- so that's why the question about the Recovery Console.


See above.



Are you saying that a Dell XP cd, which is tied to the Dell BIOS, will
still allow me to access the Recovery Console?

Dunno. I was actually talking about a standard XP CD.

It doesnt have to be the CD that was used to install
XP on that particular machine, it can be any XP CD.

Havent played with a Dell XP CD.

If you dont have a standard XP CD you
can get one off the web using torrent etc.

Knoppix is certain to allow you to edit the boot.ini too.
You would however need some minimal linux knowledge.


Thanks for testing it out. Just to be certain, you did have the Recovery
Console installed so it would normally come up during the boot process?


Nope, and I think its unlikely that would make any difference given
that whatever puts the message up isnt likely to know where it is
when its decided that the boot.ini entry that has an impossible partition
number for the physical drive and so cant work out what to boot.


You then modified the boot.ini file


I did that from the fully booted XP.


and the machine hung without showing the Console?


No, it says that the drive isnt bootable and doesnt give
you any options. If you hit enter it just reboots again.


If so, that really sucks.


Yeah, it is a tad crude.


A bootable XP cd is then required.


Or something that allows the boot.ini to be manually edited, anyway.

That isnt hard, the knoppix CD should, and so should the PE bootable CDs too.


Thanks Rod. I appreciate your taking the time to investigate this.


No probs, it was an interesting question for me.
My understanding is that the Recovery Console installation puts an entry into
the boot.ini file so that when the file is parsed and executed the Console
comes up. If this happens prior to looking for the boot partition, then the
process may work as I had hoped.

Any chance of you being sufficiently interested to try this out?

Not trivial to do in my case.

When I try to do it, it moans that the version
of Win on the system is newer than on the CD.

The CD is XP Pro with SP1 slipstreamed
and I have since applied SP2 to that system.

I have been meaning to make am XP Pro with SP2
slipstreamed, but havent gotten around to doing that.

"Rod Speed" wrote in message
...

"Harvey Gratt" wrote in message
...
Rod Speed wrote:

"Harvey Gratt" wrote in message
...

Rod Speed wrote:


"Rod Speed" wrote in message
...


"Harvey Gratt" wrote in message
...


Rod Speed wrote:



"Harvey Gratt" wrote in message
...



Rod Speed wrote:




"Harvey Gratt" wrote in message
...




Rod Speed wrote:





"Harvey Gratt" wrote in message
...





Rod Speed wrote:






"Harvey Gratt" wrote in message
...






Rod Speed wrote:







"Harvey Gratt" wrote in message
...







Bob H wrote:








Harvey Gratt wrote:








Bob H wrote:








Harvey Gratt wrote:








Bob H wrote:








Harvey Gratt wrote:








Bob H wrote:








Harvey Gratt wrote:








Rod Speed wrote:








"Harvey Gratt" wrote in message
news







Bob H wrote:









Harvey Gratt wrote:









I'm trying to verify whether PartitionMagic 8.01
will automatically "fix" the boot.ini file and the
partition boot sector where it resides during the
rearrangement of disk partitions.

Specifically, say I have an XP primary, active
partition as the third partition on my HDD. The
first two partitions are logical partitions.
Initially, the boot.ini file would point to the
third partition.

If I now delete the first two partitions so as to
make the XP partition the first partition, will
PartitionMagic automatically rewrite the boot.ini
file to make it point to the first partition so as
to make subsequent boot-ups possible?

Thanks,
Harvey










I wouldn't have thought so. You are in fact delting
the boot.ini file when you delete the first 2
partitions, so where will the boot.ini file be?
Deleted as well, I say.
You will have to create another boot.ini file on the
same partition you want to boot from.



I appear to be mis-understanding something. I thought
the boot.ini file resided in the "partition boot
sector" which, in the original setup, would have been
located in the third partition (active, primary).

If not where does it reside? Are the "partition boot
sector (PBS)", boot.ini file always located at a
specific location on the HDD - I thought this was
true
only of the MBR, which in turn pointed to the PBS
(which is located at an arbitrary location). Is my
understanding incorrect - it would appear so.










Sounds comprehensively mangled to me.

The boot.ini file is a file in a particular partition,
it wont even fit in a PBS.

More likely something works out which is the bootable
partition
on a particular physical drive and something works out
where the
boot.ini is from that and reads it from the
appropriate
partition.

Dont know the answer to your original question, I'd
personally
ghost the entire physical drive so you can recover
gracefully
of PM didnt handle the deletion of the logical drives
properly.
Cant see why it shouldnt.


I guess this gets down to understanding the boot
process. My current state of confusion is:

1. The MBR is read from a fixed location on the HDD.

2. The code in the MBR eventually points to a bootable
partition (there may be more than one, but I guess only
one is active at a time) and jumps to the PBS of the
active partition.

3. Code in the PBS then starts to load the OS,
eventually reading the boot.ini file located in that
partition's root directory (as you indicated)

4. Now, if the boot.ini file contains lines for mutiple
OS's, a menu appears. A selection here would then cause
a jump to the approriate partition for the loading of
the selected OS.

My head hurts. Does the above seem correct? If not,
what
does happen?

Thanks,
Harvey








Where is NTLDR? Which partition is that on?



Well, if my understanding is remotely correct, I would
think it's located on the active partition pointed to by
the MBR. I guess the MBR points to the PBS which contains
code to start the loader function (NTLDR). NTLDR is
probably located on the active partition and it would
access the boot.ini file.

Harvey


Go to: Windows Explorer, Tools, Folder Options.
In Folder Options click on the View tab at the top.
Then un tick Hide protected operating system files.

When you have done that, have a look in the root of each
partition to loctate NTLDR. So, is it in the OS partition
or any of the others?

Anyway to keep things nice and sipmle, if you are only
using 1 OS why don't you just put boot.ini in the ctaive
Primary partition, if you are going to delete the others.



It is in the root directory. So it appears that the 4 step
process I described is essentially correct. However, this
thread seems to have wandered off course.

I guess the answer to the original question is that
PartitionMagic (PM) WILL NOT correctly change the boot.ini
file. So one question is, will the boot process get all the
way to the active partition boot sector (PBS),via the MBR,
(which I assume that PM CAN correctly set up) and then hang
because the boot.ini file points to a non-existent
partition
(originally the third partition)?

A second question is:

Assume I install the Recovery Console in the OS in the
original third partition. When I go thru all the
manipulations as above, will the boot process bring up the
Recovery Console (so I can fix the boot.ini file without
needing an XP cd) instead of hanging?

Thanks,
Harvey




What root directory of what partition is NTLDR in?
I believe in the KISS theory, and like I said, if you are
only using ONE OS, why don't you make sure NTLDR and
boot.ini
are in the root directory of the first active partition for
the OS.

I would not put trust in PM to rebuild/make place any files
on another partition from whence they were moved. Sounds too
complicated to me.


On my IBM laptop they (ntldr and boot.ini)are in the root
directory (C:\) of the active, bootable partition containing
XP.

Harvey


Ok, so if that is the present case, what was your point
then?????

If you install either Win2k or WinXP on any partition other
than the first active primary partition, the OS will by
default
place boot.ini, NTLDR and NTDETECT.COM among others on that
first active primary partition. If you delete that partition,
then you cannot boot WinXp or Win2k without first
moving/copying those files to the root of the OS and then
making that the first active partition.
But, whatever way you do it, the said files must be in the
first active partition.
Perhaps someone else who is more knowledgeable about the
multiboot process may have further information here. I know
you
did not say anything about multiboot, but what you want to do,
if I unsderstand you correctly goes someway towards that.


The original "point" was that the OS resided in the third
partition of the HDD. The first two partitions was logical
partitions and were to be deleted. The ntldr and boot.ini files
are located in the root directory of the third partition (the
only active, bootable partition). The boot.ini file would have
an ARC path pointing to this third partition.

So, the original question was could PM be used to delete the
first 2 partitions (yes to this) and would PM correctly fix the
boot.ini file so that the ARC path pointed to the first
partition where the OS (ntldr and boot.ini are in the root
directory of this partition) now resides (apparently not).


This appears to be where you are confusing yourself.

Since everything is setup to boot the partition that the OS is
installed
on, I cant see why deleting the logical partitions changes
anything on
that. It isnt as if there is something that says 'boot the third
partition'
and so that fails when it becomes the only partition after the
deletion
of the logical partitions.








A second question was (assuming the boot.ini pointed to the
wrong partition):


Assume I install the Recovery Console in the OS in the original
third partition. When I go thru all the manipulations as above,
will
the boot process bring up the Recovery Console (so I can fix
the
boot.ini file without needing an XP cd) instead of hanging?


You can always boot the CD and do whatever repair is necessary
from there.
http://support.microsoft.com/default...b;en-us;330184

The obvious approach would be to run bootcfg /scan
and get it to re-enumerate the available OSs, just one
in your case, with its new partition number.


On my Dell Desktop, which has 2 partitions (the first is a
diagnostic partition, the second is the XP partition) the
boot.ini
file looks like:

[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)part ition(2)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2) \WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP
Professional" /fastdetect /NoExecute=OptIn


I would think that the boot.ini entries of ...partition(2) would
have to change to ...partition(1) after the diagnostic partition
is deleted.


Presumably. Havent actually tried it tho.







Otherwise, boot.ini points to a non-existent partition from which
the OS is to be loaded, and the boot process would hang.


But you arent necessarily going to just delete that
diagnostic partition. Or are you planning to expand the
OS partition to include the space its currently occupying ?



The idea was to completely remove the diagnostic partition, leaving
only one partition (OS partition). I assume that would imply that
the OS partition would be expanded to reclaim the space obtained by
deleting the diagnostic partition.


To return to your original question, I'd be surprised if
PM actually edits the boot.ini, but I havent tried that.


Not sure what happens if the boot.ini has a non existent partition
number
in that line you listed. Its possible that if there is only one
partition on the physical drive it will just assume that thats the
one intended.


Just checked that by manually editing the boot.ini in a system which
has a single XP partition on boot drive, changing the partition numbers
in both lines from the original 1 to 3 and XP is so stupid that it just
gives
up and doesnt give you any opportunity to run the recovery console.

Booted the XP CD, ran the recovery console from there, ran
bootcfg /rebuild
and it found the only OS installation and just asked what to call it etc.

That produced a boot menu at boot time because the original dud entry
was still there, but that was easy to edit out once the full XP booted
again.



No big deal if it doesnt, just boot the CD and run bootcfg /rebuild

from the recovery console and have it redo the boot.ini and fix it.


Yeah, the XP cd route appears to be the way to handle this. However,
my other question was whether one could install the XP recovery
Console prior to manipulating the partitions.


You dont need to install it, you basically run it from the booted CD.





What I hope would happen is that the Recovery Console comes up first,
before the boot process hangs trying to find the non-existent
partition.


Yeah, it probably does.





The repair could then be done at that point without needing the cd.


You could always just edit the boot.ini manually if you dont have the
cd.


Chicken before the egg???


Nope.




If I can't boot to the OS, I can't edit the boot.ini file unless it's
done before the whole process.


You can boot another OS from floppy or CD.

The knoppix CD would allow you to edit it.




I believe that's why you need to do the repair either from the cd or
from the Recovery Console if the above works.


Nope.




The problem I face is that some of my machines did not come with an XP
cd. And, an OEM cd (like Dell) will not work


Any bootable XP CD will do fine, it doesnt have to be the one
used to install XP on that particular machine to edit the boot.ini




- so that's why the question about the Recovery Console.


See above.



Are you saying that a Dell XP cd, which is tied to the Dell BIOS, will
still allow me to access the Recovery Console?

Dunno. I was actually talking about a standard XP CD.

It doesnt have to be the CD that was used to install
XP on that particular machine, it can be any XP CD.

Havent played with a Dell XP CD.

If you dont have a standard XP CD you
can get one off the web using torrent etc.

Knoppix is certain to allow you to edit the boot.ini too.
You would however need some minimal linux knowledge.


Thanks for testing it out. Just to be certain, you did have the Recovery
Console installed so it would normally come up during the boot process?


Nope, and I think its unlikely that would make any difference given
that whatever puts the message up isnt likely to know where it is
when its decided that the boot.ini entry that has an impossible partition
number for the physical drive and so cant work out what to boot.


You then modified the boot.ini file


I did that from the fully booted XP.


and the machine hung without showing the Console?


No, it says that the drive isnt bootable and doesnt give
you any options. If you hit enter it just reboots again.


If so, that really sucks.


Yeah, it is a tad crude.


A bootable XP cd is then required.


Or something that allows the boot.ini to be manually edited, anyway.

That isnt hard, the knoppix CD should, and so should the PE bootable CDs
too.


Thanks Rod. I appreciate your taking the time to investigate this.


No probs, it was an interesting question for me.
My understanding is that the Recovery Console installation puts an entry into
the boot.ini file so that when the file is parsed and executed the Console
comes up. If this happens prior to looking for the boot partition, then the
process may work as I had hoped.

Any chance of you being sufficiently interested to try this out?

Not trivial to do in my case.

When I try to do it, it moans that the version
of Win on the system is newer than on the CD.

The CD is XP Pro with SP1 slipstreamed
and I have since applied SP2 to that system.

I have been meaning to make am XP Pro with SP2
slipstreamed, but havent gotten around to doing that.

Just done it.

Yes, the recovery console is added to the list of what to boot.

Yes, when the boot.ini is deliberately edited to include a partition
number that does not exist, you can still run the recovery console
and bootcfg /rebuild works fine from that and makes XP bootable
again. You can obviously manually clean up the boot.ini after that
to get it back to the original with the correct partition number used.

On Wed, 02 Feb 2005 15:14:56 -0600, Harvey Gratt
wrote:


On my Dell Desktop, which has 2 partitions (the first is a diagnostic
partition, the second is the XP partition) the boot.ini file looks like:

[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDO WS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS="Micr osoft Windows XP
Professional" /fastdetect /NoExecute=OptIn

I would think that the boot.ini entries of ...partition(2) would have to
change to ...partition(1) after the diagnostic partition is deleted.
Otherwise, boot.ini points to a non-existent partition from which the OS
is to be loaded, and the boot process would hang.


Just add another entry for partition(1).


Thanks,
Harvey

"Rod Speed" wrote in message
...

"Rod Speed" wrote in message
...

"Harvey Gratt" wrote in message
...
Rod Speed wrote:

"Harvey Gratt" wrote in message
...

Rod Speed wrote:


"Rod Speed" wrote in message
...


"Harvey Gratt" wrote in message
...


Rod Speed wrote:



"Harvey Gratt" wrote in message
...



Rod Speed wrote:




"Harvey Gratt" wrote in message
...




Rod Speed wrote:





"Harvey Gratt" wrote in message
...





Rod Speed wrote:






"Harvey Gratt" wrote in message
...






Rod Speed wrote:







"Harvey Gratt" wrote in message
...







Bob H wrote:








Harvey Gratt wrote:








Bob H wrote:








Harvey Gratt wrote:








Bob H wrote:








Harvey Gratt wrote:








Bob H wrote:








Harvey Gratt wrote:








Rod Speed wrote:








"Harvey Gratt" wrote in message
news







Bob H wrote:









Harvey Gratt wrote:









I'm trying to verify whether PartitionMagic 8.01
will automatically "fix" the boot.ini file and the
partition boot sector where it resides during the
rearrangement of disk partitions.

Specifically, say I have an XP primary, active
partition as the third partition on my HDD. The
first two partitions are logical partitions.
Initially, the boot.ini file would point to the
third partition.

If I now delete the first two partitions so as to
make the XP partition the first partition, will
PartitionMagic automatically rewrite the boot.ini
file to make it point to the first partition so as
to make subsequent boot-ups possible?

Thanks,
Harvey










I wouldn't have thought so. You are in fact delting
the boot.ini file when you delete the first 2
partitions, so where will the boot.ini file be?
Deleted as well, I say.
You will have to create another boot.ini file on
the
same partition you want to boot from.



I appear to be mis-understanding something. I
thought
the boot.ini file resided in the "partition boot
sector" which, in the original setup, would have
been
located in the third partition (active, primary).

If not where does it reside? Are the "partition boot
sector (PBS)", boot.ini file always located at a
specific location on the HDD - I thought this was
true
only of the MBR, which in turn pointed to the PBS
(which is located at an arbitrary location). Is my
understanding incorrect - it would appear so.










Sounds comprehensively mangled to me.

The boot.ini file is a file in a particular
partition,
it wont even fit in a PBS.

More likely something works out which is the bootable
partition
on a particular physical drive and something works
out
where the
boot.ini is from that and reads it from the
appropriate
partition.

Dont know the answer to your original question, I'd
personally
ghost the entire physical drive so you can recover
gracefully
of PM didnt handle the deletion of the logical drives
properly.
Cant see why it shouldnt.


I guess this gets down to understanding the boot
process. My current state of confusion is:

1. The MBR is read from a fixed location on the HDD.

2. The code in the MBR eventually points to a bootable
partition (there may be more than one, but I guess
only
one is active at a time) and jumps to the PBS of the
active partition.

3. Code in the PBS then starts to load the OS,
eventually reading the boot.ini file located in that
partition's root directory (as you indicated)

4. Now, if the boot.ini file contains lines for
mutiple
OS's, a menu appears. A selection here would then
cause
a jump to the approriate partition for the loading of
the selected OS.

My head hurts. Does the above seem correct? If not,
what
does happen?

Thanks,
Harvey








Where is NTLDR? Which partition is that on?



Well, if my understanding is remotely correct, I would
think it's located on the active partition pointed to by
the MBR. I guess the MBR points to the PBS which
contains
code to start the loader function (NTLDR). NTLDR is
probably located on the active partition and it would
access the boot.ini file.

Harvey


Go to: Windows Explorer, Tools, Folder Options.
In Folder Options click on the View tab at the top.
Then un tick Hide protected operating system files.

When you have done that, have a look in the root of each
partition to loctate NTLDR. So, is it in the OS partition
or any of the others?

Anyway to keep things nice and sipmle, if you are only
using 1 OS why don't you just put boot.ini in the ctaive
Primary partition, if you are going to delete the others.



It is in the root directory. So it appears that the 4 step
process I described is essentially correct. However, this
thread seems to have wandered off course.

I guess the answer to the original question is that
PartitionMagic (PM) WILL NOT correctly change the boot.ini
file. So one question is, will the boot process get all
the
way to the active partition boot sector (PBS),via the MBR,
(which I assume that PM CAN correctly set up) and then
hang
because the boot.ini file points to a non-existent
partition
(originally the third partition)?

A second question is:

Assume I install the Recovery Console in the OS in the
original third partition. When I go thru all the
manipulations as above, will the boot process bring up the
Recovery Console (so I can fix the boot.ini file without
needing an XP cd) instead of hanging?

Thanks,
Harvey




What root directory of what partition is NTLDR in?
I believe in the KISS theory, and like I said, if you are
only using ONE OS, why don't you make sure NTLDR and
boot.ini
are in the root directory of the first active partition for
the OS.

I would not put trust in PM to rebuild/make place any files
on another partition from whence they were moved. Sounds
too
complicated to me.


On my IBM laptop they (ntldr and boot.ini)are in the root
directory (C:\) of the active, bootable partition containing
XP.

Harvey


Ok, so if that is the present case, what was your point
then?????

If you install either Win2k or WinXP on any partition other
than the first active primary partition, the OS will by
default
place boot.ini, NTLDR and NTDETECT.COM among others on that
first active primary partition. If you delete that partition,
then you cannot boot WinXp or Win2k without first
moving/copying those files to the root of the OS and then
making that the first active partition.
But, whatever way you do it, the said files must be in the
first active partition.
Perhaps someone else who is more knowledgeable about the
multiboot process may have further information here. I know
you
did not say anything about multiboot, but what you want to
do,
if I unsderstand you correctly goes someway towards that.


The original "point" was that the OS resided in the third
partition of the HDD. The first two partitions was logical
partitions and were to be deleted. The ntldr and boot.ini
files
are located in the root directory of the third partition (the
only active, bootable partition). The boot.ini file would have
an ARC path pointing to this third partition.

So, the original question was could PM be used to delete the
first 2 partitions (yes to this) and would PM correctly fix
the
boot.ini file so that the ARC path pointed to the first
partition where the OS (ntldr and boot.ini are in the root
directory of this partition) now resides (apparently not).


This appears to be where you are confusing yourself.

Since everything is setup to boot the partition that the OS is
installed
on, I cant see why deleting the logical partitions changes
anything on
that. It isnt as if there is something that says 'boot the
third
partition'
and so that fails when it becomes the only partition after the
deletion
of the logical partitions.








A second question was (assuming the boot.ini pointed to the
wrong partition):


Assume I install the Recovery Console in the OS in the
original
third partition. When I go thru all the manipulations as
above,
will
the boot process bring up the Recovery Console (so I can fix
the
boot.ini file without needing an XP cd) instead of hanging?


You can always boot the CD and do whatever repair is necessary
from there.
http://support.microsoft.com/default...b;en-us;330184

The obvious approach would be to run bootcfg /scan
and get it to re-enumerate the available OSs, just one
in your case, with its new partition number.


On my Dell Desktop, which has 2 partitions (the first is a
diagnostic partition, the second is the XP partition) the
boot.ini
file looks like:

[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)par tition(2)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2 )\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows
XP
Professional" /fastdetect /NoExecute=OptIn


I would think that the boot.ini entries of ...partition(2) would
have to change to ...partition(1) after the diagnostic partition
is deleted.


Presumably. Havent actually tried it tho.







Otherwise, boot.ini points to a non-existent partition from
which
the OS is to be loaded, and the boot process would hang.


But you arent necessarily going to just delete that
diagnostic partition. Or are you planning to expand the
OS partition to include the space its currently occupying ?



The idea was to completely remove the diagnostic partition,
leaving
only one partition (OS partition). I assume that would imply that
the OS partition would be expanded to reclaim the space obtained
by
deleting the diagnostic partition.


To return to your original question, I'd be surprised if
PM actually edits the boot.ini, but I havent tried that.


Not sure what happens if the boot.ini has a non existent partition
number
in that line you listed. Its possible that if there is only one
partition on the physical drive it will just assume that thats the
one intended.


Just checked that by manually editing the boot.ini in a system which
has a single XP partition on boot drive, changing the partition numbers
in both lines from the original 1 to 3 and XP is so stupid that it just
gives
up and doesnt give you any opportunity to run the recovery console.

Booted the XP CD, ran the recovery console from there, ran
bootcfg /rebuild
and it found the only OS installation and just asked what to call it etc.

That produced a boot menu at boot time because the original dud entry
was still there, but that was easy to edit out once the full XP booted
again.



No big deal if it doesnt, just boot the CD and run bootcfg /rebuild

from the recovery console and have it redo the boot.ini and fix it.


Yeah, the XP cd route appears to be the way to handle this. However,
my other question was whether one could install the XP recovery
Console prior to manipulating the partitions.


You dont need to install it, you basically run it from the booted CD.





What I hope would happen is that the Recovery Console comes up
first,
before the boot process hangs trying to find the non-existent
partition.


Yeah, it probably does.





The repair could then be done at that point without needing the cd.


You could always just edit the boot.ini manually if you dont have the
cd.


Chicken before the egg???


Nope.




If I can't boot to the OS, I can't edit the boot.ini file unless it's
done before the whole process.


You can boot another OS from floppy or CD.

The knoppix CD would allow you to edit it.




I believe that's why you need to do the repair either from the cd or
from the Recovery Console if the above works.


Nope.




The problem I face is that some of my machines did not come with an XP
cd. And, an OEM cd (like Dell) will not work


Any bootable XP CD will do fine, it doesnt have to be the one
used to install XP on that particular machine to edit the boot.ini




- so that's why the question about the Recovery Console.


See above.



Are you saying that a Dell XP cd, which is tied to the Dell BIOS, will
still allow me to access the Recovery Console?

Dunno. I was actually talking about a standard XP CD.

It doesnt have to be the CD that was used to install
XP on that particular machine, it can be any XP CD.

Havent played with a Dell XP CD.

If you dont have a standard XP CD you
can get one off the web using torrent etc.

Knoppix is certain to allow you to edit the boot.ini too.
You would however need some minimal linux knowledge.


Thanks for testing it out. Just to be certain, you did have the Recovery
Console installed so it would normally come up during the boot process?


Nope, and I think its unlikely that would make any difference given
that whatever puts the message up isnt likely to know where it is
when its decided that the boot.ini entry that has an impossible partition
number for the physical drive and so cant work out what to boot.


You then modified the boot.ini file


I did that from the fully booted XP.


and the machine hung without showing the Console?


No, it says that the drive isnt bootable and doesnt give
you any options. If you hit enter it just reboots again.


If so, that really sucks.


Yeah, it is a tad crude.


A bootable XP cd is then required.


Or something that allows the boot.ini to be manually edited, anyway.

That isnt hard, the knoppix CD should, and so should the PE bootable CDs
too.


Thanks Rod. I appreciate your taking the time to investigate this.


No probs, it was an interesting question for me.
My understanding is that the Recovery Console installation puts an entry
into
the boot.ini file so that when the file is parsed and executed the Console
comes up. If this happens prior to looking for the boot partition, then the
process may work as I had hoped.

Any chance of you being sufficiently interested to try this out?

Not trivial to do in my case.

When I try to do it, it moans that the version
of Win on the system is newer than on the CD.

The CD is XP Pro with SP1 slipstreamed
and I have since applied SP2 to that system.

I have been meaning to make am XP Pro with SP2
slipstreamed, but havent gotten around to doing that.

Just done it.

Yes, the recovery console is added to the list of what to boot.

Yes, when the boot.ini is deliberately edited to include a partition
number that does not exist, you can still run the recovery console
and bootcfg /rebuild works fine from that and makes XP bootable
again. You can obviously manually clean up the boot.ini after that
to get it back to the original with the correct partition number used.

One potential problem tho is that the recovery console gets a
completely different format entry in the boot.ini which is in the format
C:\CMDCONS\BOOTSECT.DAT="Microsoft Windows Recovery Console" /cmdcons

Not too clear what would happen to the drive letter
in your case, what it would get initially and what it
would be after the deletion of the diagnostic partition.

Its possible it wouldnt be able to find that to load the recovery console.

Harvey Gratt wrote:

Thanks Rod. I appreciate your taking the time to investigate this.
Harvey

Either of you frickin retards ever considering trimming a post?

chrisv wrote:
Harvey Gratt wrote:


Thanks Rod. I appreciate your taking the time to investigate this.
Harvey


Either of you frickin retards ever considering trimming a post?

No.

Rod Speed wrote:

"Rod Speed" wrote in message
...

"Rod Speed" wrote in message
...

"Harvey Gratt" wrote in message
...

Rod Speed wrote:


"Harvey Gratt" wrote in message
...


Rod Speed wrote:



"Rod Speed" wrote in message
...



"Harvey Gratt" wrote in message
...



Rod Speed wrote:




"Harvey Gratt" wrote in message
...




Rod Speed wrote:





"Harvey Gratt" wrote in message
...





Rod Speed wrote:






"Harvey Gratt" wrote in message
...






Rod Speed wrote:







"Harvey Gratt" wrote in message
...







Rod Speed wrote:








"Harvey Gratt" wrote in message
...








Bob H wrote:









Harvey Gratt wrote:









Bob H wrote:









Harvey Gratt wrote:









Bob H wrote:









Harvey Gratt wrote:









Bob H wrote:









Harvey Gratt wrote:









Rod Speed wrote:









"Harvey Gratt" wrote in message
news








Bob H wrote:










Harvey Gratt wrote:










I'm trying to verify whether PartitionMagic 8.01
will automatically "fix" the boot.ini file and the
partition boot sector where it resides during the
rearrangement of disk partitions.

Specifically, say I have an XP primary, active
partition as the third partition on my HDD. The
first two partitions are logical partitions.
Initially, the boot.ini file would point to the
third partition.

If I now delete the first two partitions so as to
make the XP partition the first partition, will
PartitionMagic automatically rewrite the boot.ini
file to make it point to the first partition so as
to make subsequent boot-ups possible?

Thanks,
Harvey










I wouldn't have thought so. You are in fact delting
the boot.ini file when you delete the first 2
partitions, so where will the boot.ini file be?
Deleted as well, I say.
You will have to create another boot.ini file on
the
same partition you want to boot from.



I appear to be mis-understanding something. I
thought
the boot.ini file resided in the "partition boot
sector" which, in the original setup, would have
been
located in the third partition (active, primary).

If not where does it reside? Are the "partition boot
sector (PBS)", boot.ini file always located at a
specific location on the HDD - I thought this was
true
only of the MBR, which in turn pointed to the PBS
(which is located at an arbitrary location). Is my
understanding incorrect - it would appear so.










Sounds comprehensively mangled to me.

The boot.ini file is a file in a particular
partition,
it wont even fit in a PBS.

More likely something works out which is the bootable
partition
on a particular physical drive and something works
out
where the
boot.ini is from that and reads it from the
appropriate
partition.

Dont know the answer to your original question, I'd
personally
ghost the entire physical drive so you can recover
gracefully
of PM didnt handle the deletion of the logical drives
properly.
Cant see why it shouldnt.


I guess this gets down to understanding the boot
process. My current state of confusion is:

1. The MBR is read from a fixed location on the HDD.

2. The code in the MBR eventually points to a bootable
partition (there may be more than one, but I guess
only
one is active at a time) and jumps to the PBS of the
active partition.

3. Code in the PBS then starts to load the OS,
eventually reading the boot.ini file located in that
partition's root directory (as you indicated)

4. Now, if the boot.ini file contains lines for
mutiple
OS's, a menu appears. A selection here would then
cause
a jump to the approriate partition for the loading of
the selected OS.

My head hurts. Does the above seem correct? If not,
what
does happen?

Thanks,
Harvey








Where is NTLDR? Which partition is that on?



Well, if my understanding is remotely correct, I would
think it's located on the active partition pointed to by
the MBR. I guess the MBR points to the PBS which
contains
code to start the loader function (NTLDR). NTLDR is
probably located on the active partition and it would
access the boot.ini file.

Harvey


Go to: Windows Explorer, Tools, Folder Options.
In Folder Options click on the View tab at the top.
Then un tick Hide protected operating system files.

When you have done that, have a look in the root of each
partition to loctate NTLDR. So, is it in the OS partition
or any of the others?

Anyway to keep things nice and sipmle, if you are only
using 1 OS why don't you just put boot.ini in the ctaive
Primary partition, if you are going to delete the others.



It is in the root directory. So it appears that the 4 step
process I described is essentially correct. However, this
thread seems to have wandered off course.

I guess the answer to the original question is that
PartitionMagic (PM) WILL NOT correctly change the boot.ini
file. So one question is, will the boot process get all
the
way to the active partition boot sector (PBS),via the MBR,
(which I assume that PM CAN correctly set up) and then
hang
because the boot.ini file points to a non-existent
partition
(originally the third partition)?

A second question is:

Assume I install the Recovery Console in the OS in the
original third partition. When I go thru all the
manipulations as above, will the boot process bring up the
Recovery Console (so I can fix the boot.ini file without
needing an XP cd) instead of hanging?

Thanks,
Harvey




What root directory of what partition is NTLDR in?
I believe in the KISS theory, and like I said, if you are
only using ONE OS, why don't you make sure NTLDR and
boot.ini
are in the root directory of the first active partition for
the OS.

I would not put trust in PM to rebuild/make place any files
on another partition from whence they were moved. Sounds
too
complicated to me.


On my IBM laptop they (ntldr and boot.ini)are in the root
directory (C:\) of the active, bootable partition containing
XP.

Harvey


Ok, so if that is the present case, what was your point
then?????

If you install either Win2k or WinXP on any partition other
than the first active primary partition, the OS will by
default
place boot.ini, NTLDR and NTDETECT.COM among others on that
first active primary partition. If you delete that partition,
then you cannot boot WinXp or Win2k without first
moving/copying those files to the root of the OS and then
making that the first active partition.
But, whatever way you do it, the said files must be in the
first active partition.
Perhaps someone else who is more knowledgeable about the
multiboot process may have further information here. I know
you
did not say anything about multiboot, but what you want to
do,
if I unsderstand you correctly goes someway towards that.


The original "point" was that the OS resided in the third
partition of the HDD. The first two partitions was logical
partitions and were to be deleted. The ntldr and boot.ini
files
are located in the root directory of the third partition (the
only active, bootable partition). The boot.ini file would have
an ARC path pointing to this third partition.

So, the original question was could PM be used to delete the
first 2 partitions (yes to this) and would PM correctly fix
the
boot.ini file so that the ARC path pointed to the first
partition where the OS (ntldr and boot.ini are in the root
directory of this partition) now resides (apparently not).


This appears to be where you are confusing yourself.

Since everything is setup to boot the partition that the OS is
installed
on, I cant see why deleting the logical partitions changes
anything on
that. It isnt as if there is something that says 'boot the
third
partition'
and so that fails when it becomes the only partition after the
deletion
of the logical partitions.









A second question was (assuming the boot.ini pointed to the
wrong partition):


Assume I install the Recovery Console in the OS in the
original
third partition. When I go thru all the manipulations as
above,
will
the boot process bring up the Recovery Console (so I can fix
the
boot.ini file without needing an XP cd) instead of hanging?


You can always boot the CD and do whatever repair is necessary

from there.

http://support.microsoft.com/default...b;en-us;330184

The obvious approach would be to run bootcfg /scan
and get it to re-enumerate the available OSs, just one
in your case, with its new partition number.


On my Dell Desktop, which has 2 partitions (the first is a
diagnostic partition, the second is the XP partition) the
boot.ini
file looks like:

[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)pa rtition(2)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition( 2)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows
XP
Professional" /fastdetect /NoExecute=OptIn


I would think that the boot.ini entries of ...partition(2) would
have to change to ...partition(1) after the diagnostic partition
is deleted.


Presumably. Havent actually tried it tho.








Otherwise, boot.ini points to a non-existent partition from
which
the OS is to be loaded, and the boot process would hang.


But you arent necessarily going to just delete that
diagnostic partition. Or are you planning to expand the
OS partition to include the space its currently occupying ?



The idea was to completely remove the diagnostic partition,
leaving
only one partition (OS partition). I assume that would imply that
the OS partition would be expanded to reclaim the space obtained
by
deleting the diagnostic partition.


To return to your original question, I'd be surprised if
PM actually edits the boot.ini, but I havent tried that.


Not sure what happens if the boot.ini has a non existent partition
number
in that line you listed. Its possible that if there is only one
partition on the physical drive it will just assume that thats the
one intended.


Just checked that by manually editing the boot.ini in a system which
has a single XP partition on boot drive, changing the partition numbers
in both lines from the original 1 to 3 and XP is so stupid that it just
gives
up and doesnt give you any opportunity to run the recovery console.

Booted the XP CD, ran the recovery console from there, ran
bootcfg /rebuild
and it found the only OS installation and just asked what to call it etc.

That produced a boot menu at boot time because the original dud entry
was still there, but that was easy to edit out once the full XP booted
again.




No big deal if it doesnt, just boot the CD and run bootcfg /rebuild

from the recovery console and have it redo the boot.ini and fix it.


Yeah, the XP cd route appears to be the way to handle this. However,
my other question was whether one could install the XP recovery
Console prior to manipulating the partitions.


You dont need to install it, you basically run it from the booted CD.






What I hope would happen is that the Recovery Console comes up
first,
before the boot process hangs trying to find the non-existent
partition.


Yeah, it probably does.






The repair could then be done at that point without needing the cd.


You could always just edit the boot.ini manually if you dont have the
cd.


Chicken before the egg???


Nope.





If I can't boot to the OS, I can't edit the boot.ini file unless it's
done before the whole process.


You can boot another OS from floppy or CD.

The knoppix CD would allow you to edit it.





I believe that's why you need to do the repair either from the cd or

from the Recovery Console if the above works.


Nope.





The problem I face is that some of my machines did not come with an XP
cd. And, an OEM cd (like Dell) will not work


Any bootable XP CD will do fine, it doesnt have to be the one
used to install XP on that particular machine to edit the boot.ini





- so that's why the question about the Recovery Console.


See above.



Are you saying that a Dell XP cd, which is tied to the Dell BIOS, will
still allow me to access the Recovery Console?

Dunno. I was actually talking about a standard XP CD.

It doesnt have to be the CD that was used to install
XP on that particular machine, it can be any XP CD.

Havent played with a Dell XP CD.

If you dont have a standard XP CD you
can get one off the web using torrent etc.

Knoppix is certain to allow you to edit the boot.ini too.
You would however need some minimal linux knowledge.


Thanks for testing it out. Just to be certain, you did have the Recovery
Console installed so it would normally come up during the boot process?


Nope, and I think its unlikely that would make any difference given
that whatever puts the message up isnt likely to know where it is
when its decided that the boot.ini entry that has an impossible partition
number for the physical drive and so cant work out what to boot.



You then modified the boot.ini file


I did that from the fully booted XP.



and the machine hung without showing the Console?


No, it says that the drive isnt bootable and doesnt give
you any options. If you hit enter it just reboots again.



If so, that really sucks.


Yeah, it is a tad crude.



A bootable XP cd is then required.


Or something that allows the boot.ini to be manually edited, anyway.

That isnt hard, the knoppix CD should, and so should the PE bootable CDs
too.



Thanks Rod. I appreciate your taking the time to investigate this.


No probs, it was an interesting question for me.

My understanding is that the Recovery Console installation puts an entry
into
the boot.ini file so that when the file is parsed and executed the Console
comes up. If this happens prior to looking for the boot partition, then the
process may work as I had hoped.

Any chance of you being sufficiently interested to try this out?

Not trivial to do in my case.

When I try to do it, it moans that the version
of Win on the system is newer than on the CD.

The CD is XP Pro with SP1 slipstreamed
and I have since applied SP2 to that system.

I have been meaning to make am XP Pro with SP2
slipstreamed, but havent gotten around to doing that.

Just done it.

Yes, the recovery console is added to the list of what to boot.

Yes, when the boot.ini is deliberately edited to include a partition
number that does not exist, you can still run the recovery console
and bootcfg /rebuild works fine from that and makes XP bootable
again. You can obviously manually clean up the boot.ini after that
to get it back to the original with the correct partition number used.


One potential problem tho is that the recovery console gets a
completely different format entry in the boot.ini which is in the format
C:\CMDCONS\BOOTSECT.DAT="Microsoft Windows Recovery Console" /cmdcons

Not too clear what would happen to the drive letter
in your case, what it would get initially and what it
would be after the deletion of the diagnostic partition.

Its possible it wouldnt be able to find that to load the recovery console.


Thanks. I think it's worth adding the RC to my setup and hope it works
correctly - makes things easier.

Harvey

"chrisv" wrote in message
...
Harvey Gratt wrote:

Thanks Rod. I appreciate your taking the time to investigate this.
Harvey

Either of you frickin retards ever considering trimming a post?

I dont deliberately to put a bomb under ****wits like you, chrissy.