WD drive causing WinXP lockup

Have an ABIT BE6 mb.
Presently I have this IDE/ATA configuration -
IDE3 master(ATA) - 80GB with 2 partitions of 40GB. First is Win98se and second
just for data.(C: & F
IDE3 slave (ATA) - 12GB just for data. (D
IDE4 master(ATA) - 120GB just for data (E
(All FAT32)

IDE1 & 2 - Total of 3 cd/dvd burners/drives. (W:, X:, Y
Have the latest Highpoint controller s/w for this board (V1.25)and Win98se.

Recently made some changes, putting the 120GB as IDE3 slave and the 12GB as IDE4
master. All OK.
Wanted to install WinXP on the 12GB so, to be safe, unplugged all the other
hd's. Installed Win XP using Highpoint drivers (F6) for Win2000 that I was told
would work OK.
Everything installed OK
Start plugging in the hd's.
All is OK except if I plug in the 120 GB. This is a Western Digital 7200 Eide.
With this drive plugged in and booting to Win98se all is OK. However, booting to
WinXP won't work. Gets to the WinXP splash screen and locks up. Unplug just this
drive and WinXP boots fine and see's the 80GB with the Win98se and data
partitions.
Any ideas?

JPW wrote:
Have an ABIT BE6 mb.
Presently I have this IDE/ATA configuration -
IDE3 master(ATA) - 80GB with 2 partitions of 40GB.
First is Win98se and second just for data.(C: & F
IDE3 slave (ATA) - 12GB just for data. (D
IDE4 master(ATA) - 120GB just for data (E
(All FAT32)

IDE1 & 2 - Total of 3 cd/dvd burners/drives. (W:, X:, Y
Have the latest Highpoint controller s/w for this board
(V1.25)and Win98se.

Recently made some changes, putting the 120GB as
IDE3 slave and the 12GB as IDE4 master. All OK.


So now you have:
Ultra DMA 33 IDE channels 1 & 2 - 3 ATAPI devices
Ultra DMA 33/66 IDE channel 3, Master - Win98SE, data
Ultra DMA 33/66 IDE channel 3, Slave - 120GB data
Ultra DMA 33/66 IDE channel 4, Master - 12GB data (-WinXP)


Wanted to install WinXP on the 12GB so, to be safe,
unplugged all the other hd's. Installed Win XP using
Highpoint drivers (F6) for Win2000 that I was told
would work OK.
Everything installed OK

Start plugging in the hd's.
All is OK except if I plug in the 120 GB.
This is a Western Digital 7200 Eide.
With this drive plugged in and booting to Win98se all is OK.
However, booting to WinXP won't work.
Gets to the WinXP splash screen and locks up.
Unplug just this drive and WinXP boots fine and
see's the 80GB with the Win98se and data partitions.
Any ideas?


Yeah. Boot.ini on the WinXP partition thinks that it's
on the 2nd HD in the boot sequence. When the 120GB
HD isn't there, WinXP *is* on the 2nd HD (i.e. rdisk(1) ),
but when the 120GB HD is there, *it* is the the 2nd HD
in the boot sequence (i.e. rdisk(1) ), and WinXP's boot
manager sends control to the wrong HD. Just change
the rdisk value boot.ini which refers to the WinXP HD
to "rdisk(2)", i.e. the 3rd HD relative to the start of the
HD boot sequence. Boot.ini can be found just below
the root in WinXP's file structure. You can easily edit
it with Notepad.

*TimDaniels*

On Thu, 9 Dec 2004 23:09:22 -0800, "Timothy Daniels"
wrote:

JPW wrote:
Have an ABIT BE6 mb.
Presently I have this IDE/ATA configuration -
IDE3 master(ATA) - 80GB with 2 partitions of 40GB.
First is Win98se and second just for data.(C: & F
IDE3 slave (ATA) - 12GB just for data. (D
IDE4 master(ATA) - 120GB just for data (E
(All FAT32)

IDE1 & 2 - Total of 3 cd/dvd burners/drives. (W:, X:, Y
Have the latest Highpoint controller s/w for this board
(V1.25)and Win98se.

Recently made some changes, putting the 120GB as
IDE3 slave and the 12GB as IDE4 master. All OK.


So now you have:
Ultra DMA 33 IDE channels 1 & 2 - 3 ATAPI devices
Ultra DMA 33/66 IDE channel 3, Master - Win98SE, data
Ultra DMA 33/66 IDE channel 3, Slave - 120GB data
Ultra DMA 33/66 IDE channel 4, Master - 12GB data (-WinXP)


Wanted to install WinXP on the 12GB so, to be safe,
unplugged all the other hd's. Installed Win XP using
Highpoint drivers (F6) for Win2000 that I was told
would work OK.
Everything installed OK

Start plugging in the hd's.
All is OK except if I plug in the 120 GB.
This is a Western Digital 7200 Eide.
With this drive plugged in and booting to Win98se all is OK.
However, booting to WinXP won't work.
Gets to the WinXP splash screen and locks up.
Unplug just this drive and WinXP boots fine and
see's the 80GB with the Win98se and data partitions.
Any ideas?


Yeah. Boot.ini on the WinXP partition thinks that it's
on the 2nd HD in the boot sequence. When the 120GB
HD isn't there, WinXP *is* on the 2nd HD (i.e. rdisk(1) ),
but when the 120GB HD is there, *it* is the the 2nd HD
in the boot sequence (i.e. rdisk(1) ), and WinXP's boot
manager sends control to the wrong HD. Just change
the rdisk value boot.ini which refers to the WinXP HD
to "rdisk(2)", i.e. the 3rd HD relative to the start of the
HD boot sequence. Boot.ini can be found just below
the root in WinXP's file structure. You can easily edit
it with Notepad.

*TimDaniels*
Tim,
Got myself in a bit of a pickle here :-(.
I unplugged the 120GB so I could boot to WinXP. Here's the contents of Boot.ini
-
boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOW S
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Micro soft Windows XP Professional"
/fastdetect

Something I didn't mention but may be of importance - I use the Highpoint ATA
boot screen to change the boot drive. After choosing the drive to boot from,
that drive becomes the C: drive and the other drive letters change accordingly.
My BIOS is set to boot from C: first. So after making the change the system
reboots from whatever drive has become C:..

Is this why it says rdisk(0)?

My "pickle" is that I changed it to rdisk(1) in both lines (stupid!); powered
down; hooked the 120GB back and rebooted.
Now I get a message -
"Windows could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt:
windows root\system32\hal.dll
Please reinstall a copy of the file."

Don't know how I can get back in to change the boot.ini as Win98se doesn't
recognize the drive as it is NTFS. Should I just try to reinstall WinXP?

JPW wrote in message ...

My "pickle" is that I changed it to rdisk(1) in both lines (stupid!); powered
down; hooked the 120GB back and rebooted.
Now I get a message -
"Windows could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt:
windows root\system32\hal.dll
Please reinstall a copy of the file."

Don't know how I can get back in to change the boot.ini as Win98se doesn't
recognize the drive as it is NTFS. Should I just try to reinstall WinXP?

You should copy your boot files to a floppy formatted by XP, so that you can
easily edit boot.ini: ntldr, ntdetect, boot.ini.

I have rdisk(0) and (1) on mine, just because things change so often.

JPW got pickled:
"Timothy Daniels" wrote:
JPW wrote:
Have an ABIT BE6 mb.
Presently I have this IDE/ATA configuration -
IDE3 master(ATA) - 80GB with 2 partitions of 40GB.
First is Win98se and second just for data.(C: & F
IDE3 slave (ATA) - 12GB just for data. (D
IDE4 master(ATA) - 120GB just for data (E
(All FAT32)

IDE1 & 2 - Total of 3 cd/dvd burners/drives. (W:, X:, Y
Have the latest Highpoint controller s/w for this board
(V1.25)and Win98se.

Recently made some changes, putting the 120GB as
IDE3 slave and the 12GB as IDE4 master. All OK.


So now you have:
Ultra DMA 33 IDE channels 1 & 2 - 3 ATAPI devices
Ultra DMA 33/66 IDE channel 3, Master - Win98SE, data
Ultra DMA 33/66 IDE channel 3, Slave - 120GB data
Ultra DMA 33/66 IDE channel 4, Master - 12GB data (-WinXP)


Wanted to install WinXP on the 12GB so, to be safe,
unplugged all the other hd's. Installed Win XP using
Highpoint drivers (F6) for Win2000 that I was told
would work OK.
Everything installed OK

Start plugging in the hd's.
All is OK except if I plug in the 120 GB.
This is a Western Digital 7200 Eide.
With this drive plugged in and booting to Win98se all is OK.
However, booting to WinXP won't work.
Gets to the WinXP splash screen and locks up.
Unplug just this drive and WinXP boots fine and
see's the 80GB with the Win98se and data partitions.
Any ideas?


Yeah. Boot.ini on the WinXP partition thinks that it's
on the 2nd HD in the boot sequence. When the 120GB
HD isn't there, WinXP *is* on the 2nd HD (i.e. rdisk(1) ),
but when the 120GB HD is there, *it* is the the 2nd HD
in the boot sequence (i.e. rdisk(1) ), and WinXP's boot
manager sends control to the wrong HD. Just change
the rdisk value boot.ini which refers to the WinXP HD
to "rdisk(2)", i.e. the 3rd HD relative to the start of the
HD boot sequence. Boot.ini can be found just below
the root in WinXP's file structure. You can easily edit
it with Notepad.

*TimDaniels*

Tim,
Got myself in a bit of a pickle here :-(.
I unplugged the 120GB so I could boot to WinXP.
Here's the contents of Boot.ini
-
boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOW S
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS=
"Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /fastdetect

Something I didn't mention but may be of importance -
I use the Highpoint ATA boot screen to change the boot
drive. After choosing the drive to boot from,
that drive becomes the C: drive and the other drive letters
change accordingly.
My BIOS is set to boot from C: first. So after making the
change the system reboots from whatever drive has
become C:..

Is this why it says rdisk(0)?


The OS sets the drive letter, so your BIOS boots the
ntldr in the "active" partition of the HD at the head of
its boot sequence. The Highpoint BIOS apparently
passes its boot sequence on to the mb's BIOS which
then uses that as its HD boot sequence. During your
WinXP installation, the 1st partition on your 120GB HD
was marked "active" and boot.ini, ntldr and ntdetect.com
were put just under the root of its file system. And since
it was the only HD in the PC at the time - and thus at the
head of the boot sequence - rdisk() in the boot.ini file
was set to rdisk(0) to indicate that the OS could be found
at the 0th position in the boot sequence, and patition()
was set to parition(1) to mean that the OS could be found
in the 1st partition of that HD.


My "pickle" is that I changed it to rdisk(1) in both lines (stupid!);
powered down; hooked the 120GB back and rebooted.
Now I get a message -
"Windows could not start because the following file is
missing or corrupt: windows root\system32\hal.dll
Please reinstall a copy of the file."

Don't know how I can get back in to change the boot.ini
as Win98se doesn't recognize the drive as it is NTFS.
Should I just try to reinstall WinXP?


When you plugged in other drives ahead of it (in terms
of S-ATA channel position) on the Highpoint controller
card, you changed the boot sequence that it reported
to the mb's BIOS. With the Win98SE HD at the head
of the sequence, it was where it used to be, and it
booted fine. When you had the 120GB with WinXP
there (where it was 1st installed), the WinXP booted
fine. This "fine" position is at rdisk(0)partition(1).

Now the boot.ini file in the 120GB HD says it's at
position rdisk(1)partition(1), but it's not there - it's at
position rdisk(0)partition(1) when it's the only HD in
the system. Try putting it in the boot sequence that
Highpoint reports by plugging another HD into the
Highpoint card and manually setting its BIOS's boot
sequence so that the 120GB HD *is* at the 1th position
(i.e. at the 2nd relative position in the boot sequence).
That should get your WinXP booted.

Then reset the rdisk() values to rdisk(0) in both the
"default=" line and the "[operating systems]" line, and
put your 120GB drive at the head of the boot sequence -
either manually by adjusting the Highpoint BIOS, or by
physical channel position.

Dual booting:

If you want to maintain 2 OSes and dual boot to either
of them at startup, add another line to the boot.ini file
in the 120GB HD that says:

multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(1)\WINDOWS=
"Windows 98SE" /fastdetect

This says that the Win98SE system is on the 2nd HD
in the 1st partition. Change the default line back to
rdisk(0) like so:

default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOW S

Then change the timeout value to 20 seconds since
NOBODY needs 30 seconds to decide which OS to
boot. :-)

Then put in the other HDs at subsequent positions.
That will send control to your WinXP boot manager at
startup, and WinXP's boot manager will give you the
option of booting to your WinXP system (its default
system), or to your Win98SE system on the 2nd HD.

You can rearrange the non-WinXP drives if you want,
but just maintain the WinXP HD at the head of the boot
sequence, and keep the boot.ini file in the WinXP HD
pointing to the correct position in the boot sequence
for the Win98SE HD.

*TimDaniels*

Thanks Eric,
I decided to re-install but thats the first thing I will do when it's up and
running.




On Fri, 10 Dec 2004 14:30:51 -0800, "Eric Gisin" wrote:

JPW wrote in message ...

My "pickle" is that I changed it to rdisk(1) in both lines (stupid!); powered
down; hooked the 120GB back and rebooted.
Now I get a message -
"Windows could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt:
windows root\system32\hal.dll
Please reinstall a copy of the file."

Don't know how I can get back in to change the boot.ini as Win98se doesn't
recognize the drive as it is NTFS. Should I just try to reinstall WinXP?

You should copy your boot files to a floppy formatted by XP, so that you can
easily edit boot.ini: ntldr, ntdetect, boot.ini.

I have rdisk(0) and (1) on mine, just because things change so often.

On Fri, 10 Dec 2004 14:47:04 -0800, "Timothy Daniels"
wrote:

JPW got pickled:
"Timothy Daniels" wrote:
JPW wrote:
Have an ABIT BE6 mb.
Presently I have this IDE/ATA configuration -
IDE3 master(ATA) - 80GB with 2 partitions of 40GB.
First is Win98se and second just for data.(C: & F
IDE3 slave (ATA) - 12GB just for data. (D
IDE4 master(ATA) - 120GB just for data (E
(All FAT32)

IDE1 & 2 - Total of 3 cd/dvd burners/drives. (W:, X:, Y
Have the latest Highpoint controller s/w for this board
(V1.25)and Win98se.

Recently made some changes, putting the 120GB as
IDE3 slave and the 12GB as IDE4 master. All OK.


So now you have:
Ultra DMA 33 IDE channels 1 & 2 - 3 ATAPI devices
Ultra DMA 33/66 IDE channel 3, Master - Win98SE, data
Ultra DMA 33/66 IDE channel 3, Slave - 120GB data
Ultra DMA 33/66 IDE channel 4, Master - 12GB data (-WinXP)


Wanted to install WinXP on the 12GB so, to be safe,
unplugged all the other hd's. Installed Win XP using
Highpoint drivers (F6) for Win2000 that I was told
would work OK.
Everything installed OK

Start plugging in the hd's.
All is OK except if I plug in the 120 GB.
This is a Western Digital 7200 Eide.
With this drive plugged in and booting to Win98se all is OK.
However, booting to WinXP won't work.
Gets to the WinXP splash screen and locks up.
Unplug just this drive and WinXP boots fine and
see's the 80GB with the Win98se and data partitions.
Any ideas?


Yeah. Boot.ini on the WinXP partition thinks that it's
on the 2nd HD in the boot sequence. When the 120GB
HD isn't there, WinXP *is* on the 2nd HD (i.e. rdisk(1) ),
but when the 120GB HD is there, *it* is the the 2nd HD
in the boot sequence (i.e. rdisk(1) ), and WinXP's boot
manager sends control to the wrong HD. Just change
the rdisk value boot.ini which refers to the WinXP HD
to "rdisk(2)", i.e. the 3rd HD relative to the start of the
HD boot sequence. Boot.ini can be found just below
the root in WinXP's file structure. You can easily edit
it with Notepad.

*TimDaniels*

Tim,
Got myself in a bit of a pickle here :-(.
I unplugged the 120GB so I could boot to WinXP.
Here's the contents of Boot.ini
-
boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOW S
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS=
"Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /fastdetect

Something I didn't mention but may be of importance -
I use the Highpoint ATA boot screen to change the boot
drive. After choosing the drive to boot from,
that drive becomes the C: drive and the other drive letters
change accordingly.
My BIOS is set to boot from C: first. So after making the
change the system reboots from whatever drive has
become C:..

Is this why it says rdisk(0)?


The OS sets the drive letter, so your BIOS boots the
ntldr in the "active" partition of the HD at the head of
its boot sequence. The Highpoint BIOS apparently
passes its boot sequence on to the mb's BIOS which
then uses that as its HD boot sequence. During your
WinXP installation, the 1st partition on your 120GB HD
was marked "active" and boot.ini, ntldr and ntdetect.com
were put just under the root of its file system. And since
it was the only HD in the PC at the time - and thus at the
head of the boot sequence - rdisk() in the boot.ini file
was set to rdisk(0) to indicate that the OS could be found
at the 0th position in the boot sequence, and patition()
was set to parition(1) to mean that the OS could be found
in the 1st partition of that HD.


My "pickle" is that I changed it to rdisk(1) in both lines (stupid!);
powered down; hooked the 120GB back and rebooted.
Now I get a message -
"Windows could not start because the following file is
missing or corrupt: windows root\system32\hal.dll
Please reinstall a copy of the file."

Don't know how I can get back in to change the boot.ini
as Win98se doesn't recognize the drive as it is NTFS.
Should I just try to reinstall WinXP?


When you plugged in other drives ahead of it (in terms
of S-ATA channel position) on the Highpoint controller
card, you changed the boot sequence that it reported
to the mb's BIOS. With the Win98SE HD at the head
of the sequence, it was where it used to be, and it
booted fine. When you had the 120GB with WinXP
there (where it was 1st installed), the WinXP booted
fine. This "fine" position is at rdisk(0)partition(1).

Now the boot.ini file in the 120GB HD says it's at
position rdisk(1)partition(1), but it's not there - it's at
position rdisk(0)partition(1) when it's the only HD in
the system. Try putting it in the boot sequence that
Highpoint reports by plugging another HD into the
Highpoint card and manually setting its BIOS's boot
sequence so that the 120GB HD *is* at the 1th position
(i.e. at the 2nd relative position in the boot sequence).
That should get your WinXP booted.

Then reset the rdisk() values to rdisk(0) in both the
"default=" line and the "[operating systems]" line, and
put your 120GB drive at the head of the boot sequence -
either manually by adjusting the Highpoint BIOS, or by
physical channel position.

Dual booting:

If you want to maintain 2 OSes and dual boot to either
of them at startup, add another line to the boot.ini file
in the 120GB HD that says:

multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(1)\WINDOWS=
"Windows 98SE" /fastdetect

This says that the Win98SE system is on the 2nd HD
in the 1st partition. Change the default line back to
rdisk(0) like so:

default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDO WS

Then change the timeout value to 20 seconds since
NOBODY needs 30 seconds to decide which OS to
boot. :-)

Then put in the other HDs at subsequent positions.
That will send control to your WinXP boot manager at
startup, and WinXP's boot manager will give you the
option of booting to your WinXP system (its default
system), or to your Win98SE system on the 2nd HD.

You can rearrange the non-WinXP drives if you want,
but just maintain the WinXP HD at the head of the boot
sequence, and keep the boot.ini file in the WinXP HD
pointing to the correct position in the boot sequence
for the Win98SE HD.

*TimDaniels*

Wow Tim, thats a lot to take in for a newbie like me :-) I really appreciate you
taking time to explain this. I'll have to sit down and read up on all this.
Meanwhile, what I decided to do, prior to getting your reply, was to do a
re-install.
Just unplugged the 120GB for now and re-installed to the 12GB.
But I thought I'd try something different next.
Instead of putting the 120GB on the ATA I put it as a slave on the remaining
channel of IDE1 just for the heck of it. I also made sure that the BIOS boot
sequence was EXT, A, C where EXT is the ATA.
Rebooted.
WinXP boots!
Problem is it shows the drive as F: in Explorer but says "it is unformatted".
Re-booting back to Win98se and that see's and reads the drive fine as before.
Odd.

Jeff

JPW wrote:
"Timothy Daniels" wrote:

JPW got pickled:
"Timothy Daniels" wrote:
JPW wrote:
Have an ABIT BE6 mb.
Presently I have this IDE/ATA configuration -
IDE3 master(ATA) - 80GB with 2 partitions of 40GB.
First is Win98se and second just for data.(C: & F
IDE3 slave (ATA) - 12GB just for data. (D
IDE4 master(ATA) - 120GB just for data (E
(All FAT32)

IDE1 & 2 - Total of 3 cd/dvd burners/drives. (W:, X:, Y
Have the latest Highpoint controller s/w for this board
(V1.25)and Win98se.

Recently made some changes, putting the 120GB as
IDE3 slave and the 12GB as IDE4 master. All OK.


So now you have:
Ultra DMA 33 IDE channels 1 & 2 - 3 ATAPI devices
Ultra DMA 33/66 IDE channel 3, Master - Win98SE, data
Ultra DMA 33/66 IDE channel 3, Slave - 120GB data
Ultra DMA 33/66 IDE channel 4, Master - 12GB data (-WinXP)


Wanted to install WinXP on the 12GB so, to be safe,
unplugged all the other hd's. Installed Win XP using
Highpoint drivers (F6) for Win2000 that I was told
would work OK.
Everything installed OK

Start plugging in the hd's.
All is OK except if I plug in the 120 GB.
This is a Western Digital 7200 Eide.
With this drive plugged in and booting to Win98se all is OK.
However, booting to WinXP won't work.
Gets to the WinXP splash screen and locks up.
Unplug just this drive and WinXP boots fine and
see's the 80GB with the Win98se and data partitions.
Any ideas?


Yeah. Boot.ini on the WinXP partition thinks that it's
on the 2nd HD in the boot sequence. When the 120GB
HD isn't there, WinXP *is* on the 2nd HD (i.e. rdisk(1) ),
but when the 120GB HD is there, *it* is the the 2nd HD
in the boot sequence (i.e. rdisk(1) ), and WinXP's boot
manager sends control to the wrong HD. Just change
the rdisk value boot.ini which refers to the WinXP HD
to "rdisk(2)", i.e. the 3rd HD relative to the start of the
HD boot sequence. Boot.ini can be found just below
the root in WinXP's file structure. You can easily edit
it with Notepad.

*TimDaniels*

Tim,
Got myself in a bit of a pickle here :-(.
I unplugged the 120GB so I could boot to WinXP.
Here's the contents of Boot.ini
-
boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOW S
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS=
"Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /fastdetect

Something I didn't mention but may be of importance -
I use the Highpoint ATA boot screen to change the boot
drive. After choosing the drive to boot from,
that drive becomes the C: drive and the other drive letters
change accordingly.
My BIOS is set to boot from C: first. So after making the
change the system reboots from whatever drive has
become C:..

Is this why it says rdisk(0)?


The OS sets the drive letter, so your BIOS boots the
ntldr in the "active" partition of the HD at the head of
its boot sequence. The Highpoint BIOS apparently
passes its boot sequence on to the mb's BIOS which
then uses that as its HD boot sequence. During your
WinXP installation, the 1st partition on your 120GB HD
was marked "active" and boot.ini, ntldr and ntdetect.com
were put just under the root of its file system. And since
it was the only HD in the PC at the time - and thus at the
head of the boot sequence - rdisk() in the boot.ini file
was set to rdisk(0) to indicate that the OS could be found
at the 0th position in the boot sequence, and patition()
was set to parition(1) to mean that the OS could be found
in the 1st partition of that HD.


My "pickle" is that I changed it to rdisk(1) in both lines (stupid!);
powered down; hooked the 120GB back and rebooted.
Now I get a message -
"Windows could not start because the following file is
missing or corrupt: windows root\system32\hal.dll
Please reinstall a copy of the file."

Don't know how I can get back in to change the boot.ini
as Win98se doesn't recognize the drive as it is NTFS.
Should I just try to reinstall WinXP?


When you plugged in other drives ahead of it (in terms
of S-ATA channel position) on the Highpoint controller
card, you changed the boot sequence that it reported
to the mb's BIOS. With the Win98SE HD at the head
of the sequence, it was where it used to be, and it
booted fine. When you had the 120GB with WinXP
there (where it was 1st installed), the WinXP booted
fine. This "fine" position is at rdisk(0)partition(1).

Now the boot.ini file in the 120GB HD says it's at
position rdisk(1)partition(1), but it's not there - it's at
position rdisk(0)partition(1) when it's the only HD in
the system. Try putting it in the boot sequence that
Highpoint reports by plugging another HD into the
Highpoint card and manually setting its BIOS's boot
sequence so that the 120GB HD *is* at the 1th position
(i.e. at the 2nd relative position in the boot sequence).
That should get your WinXP booted.

Then reset the rdisk() values to rdisk(0) in both the
"default=" line and the "[operating systems]" line, and
put your 120GB drive at the head of the boot sequence -
either manually by adjusting the Highpoint BIOS, or by
physical channel position.

Dual booting:

If you want to maintain 2 OSes and dual boot to either
of them at startup, add another line to the boot.ini file
in the 120GB HD that says:

multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(1)\WINDOWS=
"Windows 98SE" /fastdetect

This says that the Win98SE system is on the 2nd HD
in the 1st partition. Change the default line back to
rdisk(0) like so:

default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WIND OWS

Then change the timeout value to 20 seconds since
NOBODY needs 30 seconds to decide which OS to
boot. :-)

Then put in the other HDs at subsequent positions.
That will send control to your WinXP boot manager at
startup, and WinXP's boot manager will give you the
option of booting to your WinXP system (its default
system), or to your Win98SE system on the 2nd HD.

You can rearrange the non-WinXP drives if you want,
but just maintain the WinXP HD at the head of the boot
sequence, and keep the boot.ini file in the WinXP HD
pointing to the correct position in the boot sequence
for the Win98SE HD.

*TimDaniels*

Wow Tim, thats a lot to take in for a newbie like me :-) I really appreciate you
taking time to explain this. I'll have to sit down and read up on all this.
Meanwhile, what I decided to do, prior to getting your reply, was to do a
re-install.
Just unplugged the 120GB for now and re-installed to the 12GB.
But I thought I'd try something different next.
Instead of putting the 120GB on the ATA I put it as a slave on the remaining
channel of IDE1 just for the heck of it. I also made sure that the BIOS boot
sequence was EXT, A, C where EXT is the ATA.
Rebooted.
WinXP boots!
Problem is it shows the drive as F: in Explorer but says "it is unformatted".
Re-booting back to Win98se and that see's and reads the drive fine as before.
Odd.


The key to understanding this is what you mean by "A" and "C".
If these are drives, remember that drive letters are assigned by
the running OS, and the running OS always calls itself "C:", and
it will name the other drives (for its own operations) according to
an algorithm that takes it through the alphabet. So what are "A"
and "C"?
By "ATA" I assume you mean the Highpoint IDE controller card.

*TimDaniels*

On Fri, 10 Dec 2004 19:45:11 -0800, "Timothy Daniels"
wrote:

JPW wrote:
"Timothy Daniels" wrote:

JPW got pickled:
"Timothy Daniels" wrote:
JPW wrote:
Have an ABIT BE6 mb.
Presently I have this IDE/ATA configuration -
IDE3 master(ATA) - 80GB with 2 partitions of 40GB.
First is Win98se and second just for data.(C: & F
IDE3 slave (ATA) - 12GB just for data. (D
IDE4 master(ATA) - 120GB just for data (E
(All FAT32)

IDE1 & 2 - Total of 3 cd/dvd burners/drives. (W:, X:, Y
Have the latest Highpoint controller s/w for this board
(V1.25)and Win98se.

Recently made some changes, putting the 120GB as
IDE3 slave and the 12GB as IDE4 master. All OK.


So now you have:
Ultra DMA 33 IDE channels 1 & 2 - 3 ATAPI devices
Ultra DMA 33/66 IDE channel 3, Master - Win98SE, data
Ultra DMA 33/66 IDE channel 3, Slave - 120GB data
Ultra DMA 33/66 IDE channel 4, Master - 12GB data (-WinXP)


Wanted to install WinXP on the 12GB so, to be safe,
unplugged all the other hd's. Installed Win XP using
Highpoint drivers (F6) for Win2000 that I was told
would work OK.
Everything installed OK

Start plugging in the hd's.
All is OK except if I plug in the 120 GB.
This is a Western Digital 7200 Eide.
With this drive plugged in and booting to Win98se all is OK.
However, booting to WinXP won't work.
Gets to the WinXP splash screen and locks up.
Unplug just this drive and WinXP boots fine and
see's the 80GB with the Win98se and data partitions.
Any ideas?


Yeah. Boot.ini on the WinXP partition thinks that it's
on the 2nd HD in the boot sequence. When the 120GB
HD isn't there, WinXP *is* on the 2nd HD (i.e. rdisk(1) ),
but when the 120GB HD is there, *it* is the the 2nd HD
in the boot sequence (i.e. rdisk(1) ), and WinXP's boot
manager sends control to the wrong HD. Just change
the rdisk value boot.ini which refers to the WinXP HD
to "rdisk(2)", i.e. the 3rd HD relative to the start of the
HD boot sequence. Boot.ini can be found just below
the root in WinXP's file structure. You can easily edit
it with Notepad.

*TimDaniels*

Tim,
Got myself in a bit of a pickle here :-(.
I unplugged the 120GB so I could boot to WinXP.
Here's the contents of Boot.ini
-
boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOW S
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS=
"Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /fastdetect

Something I didn't mention but may be of importance -
I use the Highpoint ATA boot screen to change the boot
drive. After choosing the drive to boot from,
that drive becomes the C: drive and the other drive letters
change accordingly.
My BIOS is set to boot from C: first. So after making the
change the system reboots from whatever drive has
become C:..

Is this why it says rdisk(0)?


The OS sets the drive letter, so your BIOS boots the
ntldr in the "active" partition of the HD at the head of
its boot sequence. The Highpoint BIOS apparently
passes its boot sequence on to the mb's BIOS which
then uses that as its HD boot sequence. During your
WinXP installation, the 1st partition on your 120GB HD
was marked "active" and boot.ini, ntldr and ntdetect.com
were put just under the root of its file system. And since
it was the only HD in the PC at the time - and thus at the
head of the boot sequence - rdisk() in the boot.ini file
was set to rdisk(0) to indicate that the OS could be found
at the 0th position in the boot sequence, and patition()
was set to parition(1) to mean that the OS could be found
in the 1st partition of that HD.


My "pickle" is that I changed it to rdisk(1) in both lines (stupid!);
powered down; hooked the 120GB back and rebooted.
Now I get a message -
"Windows could not start because the following file is
missing or corrupt: windows root\system32\hal.dll
Please reinstall a copy of the file."

Don't know how I can get back in to change the boot.ini
as Win98se doesn't recognize the drive as it is NTFS.
Should I just try to reinstall WinXP?


When you plugged in other drives ahead of it (in terms
of S-ATA channel position) on the Highpoint controller
card, you changed the boot sequence that it reported
to the mb's BIOS. With the Win98SE HD at the head
of the sequence, it was where it used to be, and it
booted fine. When you had the 120GB with WinXP
there (where it was 1st installed), the WinXP booted
fine. This "fine" position is at rdisk(0)partition(1).

Now the boot.ini file in the 120GB HD says it's at
position rdisk(1)partition(1), but it's not there - it's at
position rdisk(0)partition(1) when it's the only HD in
the system. Try putting it in the boot sequence that
Highpoint reports by plugging another HD into the
Highpoint card and manually setting its BIOS's boot
sequence so that the 120GB HD *is* at the 1th position
(i.e. at the 2nd relative position in the boot sequence).
That should get your WinXP booted.

Then reset the rdisk() values to rdisk(0) in both the
"default=" line and the "[operating systems]" line, and
put your 120GB drive at the head of the boot sequence -
either manually by adjusting the Highpoint BIOS, or by
physical channel position.

Dual booting:

If you want to maintain 2 OSes and dual boot to either
of them at startup, add another line to the boot.ini file
in the 120GB HD that says:

multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(1)\WINDOWS=
"Windows 98SE" /fastdetect

This says that the Win98SE system is on the 2nd HD
in the 1st partition. Change the default line back to
rdisk(0) like so:

default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WIN DOWS

Then change the timeout value to 20 seconds since
NOBODY needs 30 seconds to decide which OS to
boot. :-)

Then put in the other HDs at subsequent positions.
That will send control to your WinXP boot manager at
startup, and WinXP's boot manager will give you the
option of booting to your WinXP system (its default
system), or to your Win98SE system on the 2nd HD.

You can rearrange the non-WinXP drives if you want,
but just maintain the WinXP HD at the head of the boot
sequence, and keep the boot.ini file in the WinXP HD
pointing to the correct position in the boot sequence
for the Win98SE HD.

*TimDaniels*

Wow Tim, thats a lot to take in for a newbie like me :-) I really appreciate you
taking time to explain this. I'll have to sit down and read up on all this.
Meanwhile, what I decided to do, prior to getting your reply, was to do a
re-install.
Just unplugged the 120GB for now and re-installed to the 12GB.
But I thought I'd try something different next.
Instead of putting the 120GB on the ATA I put it as a slave on the remaining
channel of IDE1 just for the heck of it. I also made sure that the BIOS boot
sequence was EXT, A, C where EXT is the ATA.
Rebooted.
WinXP boots!
Problem is it shows the drive as F: in Explorer but says "it is unformatted".
Re-booting back to Win98se and that see's and reads the drive fine as before.
Odd.


The key to understanding this is what you mean by "A" and "C".
If these are drives, remember that drive letters are assigned by
the running OS, and the running OS always calls itself "C:", and
it will name the other drives (for its own operations) according to
an algorithm that takes it through the alphabet. So what are "A"
and "C"?
By "ATA" I assume you mean the Highpoint IDE controller card.

*TimDaniels*

Sorry for the confusion,
In the Award BIOS I can set various combinations of a group of three boot
priorities. Either a hard-drive letter (C in this case); floppy (A); CDROM or
EXT where EXT can be assigned and is set to UDMA (The Highpoint IDE
controller).
In this case I've got it set to EXT, A, C so it will first look for bootable os
on the Highpoint controller, then the floppy (A) and then the "C" drive.
Normally all the hd's are on the Highpoint controller and so the drive letter
assignment was as you see in the first part of the post. In the Highpoint boot
menu, whatever drive is set to the bootable drive is assigned the letter C: when
you reboot and the other drive letters are changed accordingly.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but because the 120GB is now on IDE1(slave), this would
have been seen as C: by the os, and would superceed whatever drive assignment
the Highpoint controller set(?) Therefore I had to set the BIOS to EXT, A, C so
it would still boot from the Highpoint controller first.
Is this what you needed to know?

"Timothy Daniels" wrote in message
JPW wrote:
"Timothy Daniels" wrote:
[very big snip]
Wow Tim, thats a lot to take in for a newbie like me :-) I really appreciate
you taking time to explain this. I'll have to sit down and read up on all this.
Meanwhile, what I decided to do, prior to getting your reply, was to do
a re-install.
Just unplugged the 120GB for now and re-installed to the 12GB.
But I thought I'd try something different next.
Instead of putting the 120GB on the ATA I put it as a slave on the remaining
channel of IDE1 just for the heck of it. I also made sure that the BIOS boot
sequence was EXT, A, C where EXT is the ATA.
Rebooted.
WinXP boots!
Problem is it shows the drive as F: in Explorer but says "it is unformatted".
Re-booting back to Win98se and that see's and reads the drive fine as before.
Odd.


The key to understanding this is what you mean by "A" and "C".
If these are drives, remember that drive letters are assigned by
the running OS, and the running OS always calls itself "C:",

And how is the bios to know about what OS will be running? Not.

and it will name the other drives (for its own operations) according to
to an algorithm that takes it through the alphabet.

So what are "A" and "C"?

A and C is what they always have been: the first removable diskdrive de-
vice and the first fixed disk drive device aka the floppy and the first HD.
They are name substitutes for device nr 00h and device nr 80h.

By "ATA" I assume you mean the Highpoint IDE controller card.

*TimDaniels*