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P4P800 Dlx W2K new SATA?



 
 
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  #1  
Old December 30th 03, 10:15 PM
Ken Fox
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default P4P800 Dlx W2K new SATA?

Hi,

I've got a P4P800 Deluxe running well now with 4 HDs including a RAID Mirror
for data only.

I'm building another system, a SFF box, into which I'm going to put some
older components, to try to learn about Linux, which is not the point of
this post!

I decided to take this opportunity to swap out the 120gig EIDE Hard Disk I
use for my system partition, with the rest (the majority) of the disk being
used for storing large video files. My plan is to swap out the 120 EIDE
disk and replace it with a Maxtor 160gig 7200 RPM 8MB cache SATA drive I've
ordered from Newegg. Presumably I would plan to partition this 160gig disk
into a 30 or 35GB system/boot partition for W2K, and use the rest for my
video files in a separate partition. Currently my W2K system is upgraded to
include all service packs (SP4) plus patches to date.

Anyway, I was intending to use an image (Norton Ghost 2003) of my old
system partition and to put it back onto the new system partition of the new
160GB SATA drive. Norton Ghost is compatible with SATA drives according to
the Symantec knowledge base. My understanding is that I need to have the
SATA driver loaded but as far as I can tell there is no separate SATA
driver, merely the Intel chipset driver includes this driver. But I'm not
really sure about this nor can I find the answer to this in a google groups
search of this and other ngs. I did read a post or two that implied it was
best to have installed the SATA driver during the initial install of W2K but
trying to do that now with all my other programs loaded would be a nightmare
for this system that is only 6 weeks old at most! The thought of having to
do THAT (complete reinstall of all software) would be enough to convince me
to put the sata drive in the new SFF system and leave the present setup
as-is.

Any advice on how best to proceed with this situation would be most
appreciated. My SATA drive will be installed directly to the mobo with a
serial drive cable, not through an add-on card.

Thanks in advance for all advice!

Ken


  #2  
Old December 31st 03, 02:09 PM
Len
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default

Have you considered enabling SATA and installing the driver BEFORE making
the image for Ghost? You will also have to repair the boot.ini as it will
not be looking in the proper location for boot files once you change the
drive to a new controler.

FWIW,
Len

"Ken Fox" wrote in message
...
Hi,

I've got a P4P800 Deluxe running well now with 4 HDs including a RAID

Mirror
for data only.

I'm building another system, a SFF box, into which I'm going to put some
older components, to try to learn about Linux, which is not the point of
this post!

I decided to take this opportunity to swap out the 120gig EIDE Hard Disk I
use for my system partition, with the rest (the majority) of the disk

being
used for storing large video files. My plan is to swap out the 120 EIDE
disk and replace it with a Maxtor 160gig 7200 RPM 8MB cache SATA drive

I've
ordered from Newegg. Presumably I would plan to partition this 160gig

disk
into a 30 or 35GB system/boot partition for W2K, and use the rest for my
video files in a separate partition. Currently my W2K system is upgraded

to
include all service packs (SP4) plus patches to date.

Anyway, I was intending to use an image (Norton Ghost 2003) of my old
system partition and to put it back onto the new system partition of the

new
160GB SATA drive. Norton Ghost is compatible with SATA drives according

to
the Symantec knowledge base. My understanding is that I need to have the
SATA driver loaded but as far as I can tell there is no separate SATA
driver, merely the Intel chipset driver includes this driver. But I'm not
really sure about this nor can I find the answer to this in a google

groups
search of this and other ngs. I did read a post or two that implied it

was
best to have installed the SATA driver during the initial install of W2K

but
trying to do that now with all my other programs loaded would be a

nightmare
for this system that is only 6 weeks old at most! The thought of having

to
do THAT (complete reinstall of all software) would be enough to convince

me
to put the sata drive in the new SFF system and leave the present setup
as-is.

Any advice on how best to proceed with this situation would be most
appreciated. My SATA drive will be installed directly to the mobo with a
serial drive cable, not through an add-on card.

Thanks in advance for all advice!

Ken




  #3  
Old December 31st 03, 05:03 PM
Ken Fox
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default

"Len" wrote in message
.. .
Have you considered enabling SATA and installing the driver BEFORE making
the image for Ghost? You will also have to repair the boot.ini as it will
not be looking in the proper location for boot files once you change the
drive to a new controler.

FWIW,
Len


Hi Len,

I appreciate your suggestions. My initial idea was to take advantage of the
fact that this new Maxtor drive can function as both an SATA and as an IDE
drive (has connectors for both plus the SATA function is via a chip rather
than native, i.e. this drive is a converted IDE drive) by first putting
everything on there with the drive installed as an IDE type drive. I have
another HD in the box, currently the slave on the (same) primary IDE
channel, that functions solely as the repository for ghost images. I'm
assuming that ultimately I would want to switch the cabling and jumpers on
this "ghost drive" to make it the primary on that channel if I'm no longer
using 2 drives on that channel, because maybe performance would benefit
(just guessing on that, might make no difference whatsoever).

Anyway, the scenario I had cooked up was to load the SATA drivers on the
boot drive (but I'm not sure there are such specifically "sata" drivers for
this board/chipset), make a ghost image, then put the ghost image onto the
SATA drive partition via the IDE cable, then switch the cabling over to
SATA. But from what you are suggesting, which sounds like a great idea, is
to first put this drive in as an additional drive, get it recognized by W2K,
possibly use this as the opportunity to format it/partition it, then make
the ghost image to be redeposited onto the new drive which will become the
"C" drive, same as the original IDE drive.

What I'm not clear on is what I would need to do to "repair" the boot.ini
file. Of course I would change the boot order in the P4P800 BIOS to make
the new SATA partition the first boot partition, and I sort of assumed the
OS would simply just treat it like it was the old "C" drive, because the old
drive would no longer even be in the box.

But it sounds like I am missing a step somewhere as involves the boot.ini
file.

I'm not exactly expecting the machine to get a *huge* performance boost from
this, but the Intel controller on the primary/secondary IDE channel is
limited to ATA 100 even though the existing drive is ATA-133. By spending
$20 or $30 more than I might have gotten an IDE 160GB drive and instead
getting this SATA drive, I can *theoretically* pick up, with incredible
luck, as much as a 50% on drive function alone. At the same time I'm
replacing my ancient recycled P4 and PC2100 DDR RAM, so the total benefit
could even possibly be *noticeable.*

If you could suggest to me how I might repair the boot.ini file to fit this
scenario, I'd greatly appreciate it!

TIA,

ken





"Ken Fox" wrote in message
...
Hi,

I've got a P4P800 Deluxe running well now with 4 HDs including a RAID

Mirror
for data only.

I'm building another system, a SFF box, into which I'm going to put some
older components, to try to learn about Linux, which is not the point of
this post!

I decided to take this opportunity to swap out the 120gig EIDE Hard Disk

I
use for my system partition, with the rest (the majority) of the disk

being
used for storing large video files. My plan is to swap out the 120 EIDE
disk and replace it with a Maxtor 160gig 7200 RPM 8MB cache SATA drive

I've
ordered from Newegg. Presumably I would plan to partition this 160gig

disk
into a 30 or 35GB system/boot partition for W2K, and use the rest for

my
video files in a separate partition. Currently my W2K system is

upgraded
to
include all service packs (SP4) plus patches to date.

Anyway, I was intending to use an image (Norton Ghost 2003) of my old
system partition and to put it back onto the new system partition of the

new
160GB SATA drive. Norton Ghost is compatible with SATA drives according

to
the Symantec knowledge base. My understanding is that I need to have

the
SATA driver loaded but as far as I can tell there is no separate SATA
driver, merely the Intel chipset driver includes this driver. But I'm

not
really sure about this nor can I find the answer to this in a google

groups
search of this and other ngs. I did read a post or two that implied it

was
best to have installed the SATA driver during the initial install of W2K

but
trying to do that now with all my other programs loaded would be a

nightmare
for this system that is only 6 weeks old at most! The thought of having

to
do THAT (complete reinstall of all software) would be enough to convince

me
to put the sata drive in the new SFF system and leave the present setup
as-is.

Any advice on how best to proceed with this situation would be most
appreciated. My SATA drive will be installed directly to the mobo with

a
serial drive cable, not through an add-on card.

Thanks in advance for all advice!

Ken






  #4  
Old December 31st 03, 06:43 PM
Ken Fox
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default

addendum:

Is there even such a file, called "boot.ini" in W2K??????

I'm visiting family right now, in another state, so I don't have access to
my desktop, onto which the SATA drive will be "implanted," but my W2K
notebook does not have a "Win.ini" file. In fact, there are no *.ini files
of any type in the root directory. My windows explorer setup shows "hidden
files," so that is not the problem. I think that boot.ini might be found in
older MS operating systems such as W9x.

Ken



"Ken Fox" wrote in message
...
"Len" wrote in message
.. .
Have you considered enabling SATA and installing the driver BEFORE

making
the image for Ghost? You will also have to repair the boot.ini as it

will
not be looking in the proper location for boot files once you change the
drive to a new controler.

FWIW,
Len


Hi Len,

I appreciate your suggestions. My initial idea was to take advantage of

the
fact that this new Maxtor drive can function as both an SATA and as an IDE
drive (has connectors for both plus the SATA function is via a chip rather
than native, i.e. this drive is a converted IDE drive) by first putting
everything on there with the drive installed as an IDE type drive. I have
another HD in the box, currently the slave on the (same) primary IDE
channel, that functions solely as the repository for ghost images. I'm
assuming that ultimately I would want to switch the cabling and jumpers on
this "ghost drive" to make it the primary on that channel if I'm no longer
using 2 drives on that channel, because maybe performance would benefit
(just guessing on that, might make no difference whatsoever).

Anyway, the scenario I had cooked up was to load the SATA drivers on the
boot drive (but I'm not sure there are such specifically "sata" drivers

for
this board/chipset), make a ghost image, then put the ghost image onto the
SATA drive partition via the IDE cable, then switch the cabling over to
SATA. But from what you are suggesting, which sounds like a great idea,

is
to first put this drive in as an additional drive, get it recognized by

W2K,
possibly use this as the opportunity to format it/partition it, then make
the ghost image to be redeposited onto the new drive which will become the
"C" drive, same as the original IDE drive.

What I'm not clear on is what I would need to do to "repair" the boot.ini
file. Of course I would change the boot order in the P4P800 BIOS to make
the new SATA partition the first boot partition, and I sort of assumed the
OS would simply just treat it like it was the old "C" drive, because the

old
drive would no longer even be in the box.

But it sounds like I am missing a step somewhere as involves the boot.ini
file.

I'm not exactly expecting the machine to get a *huge* performance boost

from
this, but the Intel controller on the primary/secondary IDE channel is
limited to ATA 100 even though the existing drive is ATA-133. By spending
$20 or $30 more than I might have gotten an IDE 160GB drive and instead
getting this SATA drive, I can *theoretically* pick up, with incredible
luck, as much as a 50% on drive function alone. At the same time I'm
replacing my ancient recycled P4 and PC2100 DDR RAM, so the total benefit
could even possibly be *noticeable.*

If you could suggest to me how I might repair the boot.ini file to fit

this
scenario, I'd greatly appreciate it!

TIA,

ken





"Ken Fox" wrote in message
...
Hi,

I've got a P4P800 Deluxe running well now with 4 HDs including a RAID

Mirror
for data only.

I'm building another system, a SFF box, into which I'm going to put

some
older components, to try to learn about Linux, which is not the point

of
this post!

I decided to take this opportunity to swap out the 120gig EIDE Hard

Disk
I
use for my system partition, with the rest (the majority) of the disk

being
used for storing large video files. My plan is to swap out the 120

EIDE
disk and replace it with a Maxtor 160gig 7200 RPM 8MB cache SATA drive

I've
ordered from Newegg. Presumably I would plan to partition this 160gig

disk
into a 30 or 35GB system/boot partition for W2K, and use the rest for

my
video files in a separate partition. Currently my W2K system is

upgraded
to
include all service packs (SP4) plus patches to date.

Anyway, I was intending to use an image (Norton Ghost 2003) of my old
system partition and to put it back onto the new system partition of

the
new
160GB SATA drive. Norton Ghost is compatible with SATA drives

according
to
the Symantec knowledge base. My understanding is that I need to have

the
SATA driver loaded but as far as I can tell there is no separate SATA
driver, merely the Intel chipset driver includes this driver. But I'm

not
really sure about this nor can I find the answer to this in a google

groups
search of this and other ngs. I did read a post or two that implied

it
was
best to have installed the SATA driver during the initial install of

W2K
but
trying to do that now with all my other programs loaded would be a

nightmare
for this system that is only 6 weeks old at most! The thought of

having
to
do THAT (complete reinstall of all software) would be enough to

convince
me
to put the sata drive in the new SFF system and leave the present

setup
as-is.

Any advice on how best to proceed with this situation would be most
appreciated. My SATA drive will be installed directly to the mobo

with
a
serial drive cable, not through an add-on card.

Thanks in advance for all advice!

Ken








  #5  
Old January 1st 04, 09:31 PM
Splitskull
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default

boot.ini in on the root of your system drive in w2k, winxp....don't remember
about win98

--

------Splitskull-----

"Ken Fox" wrote in message
...
| addendum:
|
| Is there even such a file, called "boot.ini" in W2K??????
|
| I'm visiting family right now, in another state, so I don't have access to
| my desktop, onto which the SATA drive will be "implanted," but my W2K
| notebook does not have a "Win.ini" file. In fact, there are no *.ini
files
| of any type in the root directory. My windows explorer setup shows
"hidden
| files," so that is not the problem. I think that boot.ini might be found
in
| older MS operating systems such as W9x.
|
| Ken
|
|
|
| "Ken Fox" wrote in message
| ...
| "Len" wrote in message
| .. .
| Have you considered enabling SATA and installing the driver BEFORE
| making
| the image for Ghost? You will also have to repair the boot.ini as it
| will
| not be looking in the proper location for boot files once you change
the
| drive to a new controler.
|
| FWIW,
| Len
|
| Hi Len,
|
| I appreciate your suggestions. My initial idea was to take advantage of
| the
| fact that this new Maxtor drive can function as both an SATA and as an
IDE
| drive (has connectors for both plus the SATA function is via a chip
rather
| than native, i.e. this drive is a converted IDE drive) by first putting
| everything on there with the drive installed as an IDE type drive. I
have
| another HD in the box, currently the slave on the (same) primary IDE
| channel, that functions solely as the repository for ghost images. I'm
| assuming that ultimately I would want to switch the cabling and jumpers
on
| this "ghost drive" to make it the primary on that channel if I'm no
longer
| using 2 drives on that channel, because maybe performance would benefit
| (just guessing on that, might make no difference whatsoever).
|
| Anyway, the scenario I had cooked up was to load the SATA drivers on the
| boot drive (but I'm not sure there are such specifically "sata" drivers
| for
| this board/chipset), make a ghost image, then put the ghost image onto
the
| SATA drive partition via the IDE cable, then switch the cabling over to
| SATA. But from what you are suggesting, which sounds like a great idea,
| is
| to first put this drive in as an additional drive, get it recognized by
| W2K,
| possibly use this as the opportunity to format it/partition it, then
make
| the ghost image to be redeposited onto the new drive which will become
the
| "C" drive, same as the original IDE drive.
|
| What I'm not clear on is what I would need to do to "repair" the
boot.ini
| file. Of course I would change the boot order in the P4P800 BIOS to
make
| the new SATA partition the first boot partition, and I sort of assumed
the
| OS would simply just treat it like it was the old "C" drive, because the
| old
| drive would no longer even be in the box.
|
| But it sounds like I am missing a step somewhere as involves the
boot.ini
| file.
|
| I'm not exactly expecting the machine to get a *huge* performance boost
| from
| this, but the Intel controller on the primary/secondary IDE channel is
| limited to ATA 100 even though the existing drive is ATA-133. By
spending
| $20 or $30 more than I might have gotten an IDE 160GB drive and instead
| getting this SATA drive, I can *theoretically* pick up, with incredible
| luck, as much as a 50% on drive function alone. At the same time I'm
| replacing my ancient recycled P4 and PC2100 DDR RAM, so the total
benefit
| could even possibly be *noticeable.*
|
| If you could suggest to me how I might repair the boot.ini file to fit
| this
| scenario, I'd greatly appreciate it!
|
| TIA,
|
| ken
|
|
|
|
|
| "Ken Fox" wrote in message
| ...
| Hi,
|
| I've got a P4P800 Deluxe running well now with 4 HDs including a
RAID
| Mirror
| for data only.
|
| I'm building another system, a SFF box, into which I'm going to put
| some
| older components, to try to learn about Linux, which is not the
point
| of
| this post!
|
| I decided to take this opportunity to swap out the 120gig EIDE Hard
| Disk
| I
| use for my system partition, with the rest (the majority) of the
disk
| being
| used for storing large video files. My plan is to swap out the 120
| EIDE
| disk and replace it with a Maxtor 160gig 7200 RPM 8MB cache SATA
drive
| I've
| ordered from Newegg. Presumably I would plan to partition this
160gig
| disk
| into a 30 or 35GB system/boot partition for W2K, and use the rest
for
| my
| video files in a separate partition. Currently my W2K system is
| upgraded
| to
| include all service packs (SP4) plus patches to date.
|
| Anyway, I was intending to use an image (Norton Ghost 2003) of my
old
| system partition and to put it back onto the new system partition of
| the
| new
| 160GB SATA drive. Norton Ghost is compatible with SATA drives
| according
| to
| the Symantec knowledge base. My understanding is that I need to
have
| the
| SATA driver loaded but as far as I can tell there is no separate
SATA
| driver, merely the Intel chipset driver includes this driver. But
I'm
| not
| really sure about this nor can I find the answer to this in a google
| groups
| search of this and other ngs. I did read a post or two that implied
| it
| was
| best to have installed the SATA driver during the initial install of
| W2K
| but
| trying to do that now with all my other programs loaded would be a
| nightmare
| for this system that is only 6 weeks old at most! The thought of
| having
| to
| do THAT (complete reinstall of all software) would be enough to
| convince
| me
| to put the sata drive in the new SFF system and leave the present
| setup
| as-is.
|
| Any advice on how best to proceed with this situation would be most
| appreciated. My SATA drive will be installed directly to the mobo
| with
| a
| serial drive cable, not through an add-on card.
|
| Thanks in advance for all advice!
|
| Ken
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|


  #6  
Old January 2nd 04, 09:13 AM
Ken Fox
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default

"Splitskull" wrote in message
...
boot.ini in on the root of your system drive in w2k, winxp....don't

remember
about win98



I don't think so -----

It is present on the installation Win2K CD ROM, I think. It is not anywhere
on my C: (system) drive either on my W2K notebook nor (now after checking)
on my desktop. And yes, I have my system set up to allow viewing of "hidden
files" in windows explorer. I have searched for this file both with the
seach function in Windows explorer, and manually in the C: root directory as
well as in Winnt

ken



--

------Splitskull-----

"Ken Fox" wrote in message
...
| addendum:
|
| Is there even such a file, called "boot.ini" in W2K??????
|
| I'm visiting family right now, in another state, so I don't have access

to
| my desktop, onto which the SATA drive will be "implanted," but my W2K
| notebook does not have a "Win.ini" file. In fact, there are no *.ini
files
| of any type in the root directory. My windows explorer setup shows
"hidden
| files," so that is not the problem. I think that boot.ini might be

found
in
| older MS operating systems such as W9x.
|
| Ken
|
|
|
| "Ken Fox" wrote in message
| ...
| "Len" wrote in message
| .. .
| Have you considered enabling SATA and installing the driver BEFORE
| making
| the image for Ghost? You will also have to repair the boot.ini as

it
| will
| not be looking in the proper location for boot files once you change
the
| drive to a new controler.
|
| FWIW,
| Len
|
| Hi Len,
|
| I appreciate your suggestions. My initial idea was to take advantage

of
| the
| fact that this new Maxtor drive can function as both an SATA and as an
IDE
| drive (has connectors for both plus the SATA function is via a chip
rather
| than native, i.e. this drive is a converted IDE drive) by first

putting
| everything on there with the drive installed as an IDE type drive. I
have
| another HD in the box, currently the slave on the (same) primary IDE
| channel, that functions solely as the repository for ghost images.

I'm
| assuming that ultimately I would want to switch the cabling and

jumpers
on
| this "ghost drive" to make it the primary on that channel if I'm no
longer
| using 2 drives on that channel, because maybe performance would

benefit
| (just guessing on that, might make no difference whatsoever).
|
| Anyway, the scenario I had cooked up was to load the SATA drivers on

the
| boot drive (but I'm not sure there are such specifically "sata"

drivers
| for
| this board/chipset), make a ghost image, then put the ghost image onto
the
| SATA drive partition via the IDE cable, then switch the cabling over

to
| SATA. But from what you are suggesting, which sounds like a great

idea,
| is
| to first put this drive in as an additional drive, get it recognized

by
| W2K,
| possibly use this as the opportunity to format it/partition it, then
make
| the ghost image to be redeposited onto the new drive which will become
the
| "C" drive, same as the original IDE drive.
|
| What I'm not clear on is what I would need to do to "repair" the
boot.ini
| file. Of course I would change the boot order in the P4P800 BIOS to
make
| the new SATA partition the first boot partition, and I sort of assumed
the
| OS would simply just treat it like it was the old "C" drive, because

the
| old
| drive would no longer even be in the box.
|
| But it sounds like I am missing a step somewhere as involves the
boot.ini
| file.
|
| I'm not exactly expecting the machine to get a *huge* performance

boost
| from
| this, but the Intel controller on the primary/secondary IDE channel is
| limited to ATA 100 even though the existing drive is ATA-133. By
spending
| $20 or $30 more than I might have gotten an IDE 160GB drive and

instead
| getting this SATA drive, I can *theoretically* pick up, with

incredible
| luck, as much as a 50% on drive function alone. At the same time I'm
| replacing my ancient recycled P4 and PC2100 DDR RAM, so the total
benefit
| could even possibly be *noticeable.*
|
| If you could suggest to me how I might repair the boot.ini file to fit
| this
| scenario, I'd greatly appreciate it!
|
| TIA,
|
| ken
|
|
|
|
|
| "Ken Fox" wrote in message
| ...
| Hi,
|
| I've got a P4P800 Deluxe running well now with 4 HDs including a
RAID
| Mirror
| for data only.
|
| I'm building another system, a SFF box, into which I'm going to

put
| some
| older components, to try to learn about Linux, which is not the
point
| of
| this post!
|
| I decided to take this opportunity to swap out the 120gig EIDE

Hard
| Disk
| I
| use for my system partition, with the rest (the majority) of the
disk
| being
| used for storing large video files. My plan is to swap out the

120
| EIDE
| disk and replace it with a Maxtor 160gig 7200 RPM 8MB cache SATA
drive
| I've
| ordered from Newegg. Presumably I would plan to partition this
160gig
| disk
| into a 30 or 35GB system/boot partition for W2K, and use the rest
for
| my
| video files in a separate partition. Currently my W2K system is
| upgraded
| to
| include all service packs (SP4) plus patches to date.
|
| Anyway, I was intending to use an image (Norton Ghost 2003) of my
old
| system partition and to put it back onto the new system partition

of
| the
| new
| 160GB SATA drive. Norton Ghost is compatible with SATA drives
| according
| to
| the Symantec knowledge base. My understanding is that I need to
have
| the
| SATA driver loaded but as far as I can tell there is no separate
SATA
| driver, merely the Intel chipset driver includes this driver. But
I'm
| not
| really sure about this nor can I find the answer to this in a

google
| groups
| search of this and other ngs. I did read a post or two that

implied
| it
| was
| best to have installed the SATA driver during the initial install

of
| W2K
| but
| trying to do that now with all my other programs loaded would be a
| nightmare
| for this system that is only 6 weeks old at most! The thought of
| having
| to
| do THAT (complete reinstall of all software) would be enough to
| convince
| me
| to put the sata drive in the new SFF system and leave the present
| setup
| as-is.
|
| Any advice on how best to proceed with this situation would be

most
| appreciated. My SATA drive will be installed directly to the mobo
| with
| a
| serial drive cable, not through an add-on card.
|
| Thanks in advance for all advice!
|
| Ken
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|




  #7  
Old January 3rd 04, 02:19 PM
Len
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default

Here is the boot.ini file used by my W2K install (2nd OS) but without
multi-boot:

[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT="Microso ft Windows 2000
Professional" /fastdetect

If you do not have a file of this type in the root of your HD then I have no
clue how W2K or XP for that matter would know its "home" partition. That is
the function of this file - to tell the OS where its start-up files are.

FWIW,
Len

"Ken Fox" wrote in message
...
"Splitskull" wrote in message
...
boot.ini in on the root of your system drive in w2k, winxp....don't

remember
about win98



I don't think so -----

It is present on the installation Win2K CD ROM, I think. It is not

anywhere
on my C: (system) drive either on my W2K notebook nor (now after checking)
on my desktop. And yes, I have my system set up to allow viewing of

"hidden
files" in windows explorer. I have searched for this file both with the
seach function in Windows explorer, and manually in the C: root directory

as
well as in Winnt

ken



--

------Splitskull-----

"Ken Fox" wrote in message
...
| addendum:
|
| Is there even such a file, called "boot.ini" in W2K??????
|
| I'm visiting family right now, in another state, so I don't have

access
to
| my desktop, onto which the SATA drive will be "implanted," but my W2K
| notebook does not have a "Win.ini" file. In fact, there are no *.ini
files
| of any type in the root directory. My windows explorer setup shows
"hidden
| files," so that is not the problem. I think that boot.ini might be

found
in
| older MS operating systems such as W9x.
|
| Ken
|
|
|
| "Ken Fox" wrote in message
| ...
| "Len" wrote in message
| .. .
| Have you considered enabling SATA and installing the driver BEFORE
| making
| the image for Ghost? You will also have to repair the boot.ini as

it
| will
| not be looking in the proper location for boot files once you

change
the
| drive to a new controler.
|
| FWIW,
| Len
|
| Hi Len,
|
| I appreciate your suggestions. My initial idea was to take

advantage
of
| the
| fact that this new Maxtor drive can function as both an SATA and as

an
IDE
| drive (has connectors for both plus the SATA function is via a chip
rather
| than native, i.e. this drive is a converted IDE drive) by first

putting
| everything on there with the drive installed as an IDE type drive.

I
have
| another HD in the box, currently the slave on the (same) primary IDE
| channel, that functions solely as the repository for ghost images.

I'm
| assuming that ultimately I would want to switch the cabling and

jumpers
on
| this "ghost drive" to make it the primary on that channel if I'm no
longer
| using 2 drives on that channel, because maybe performance would

benefit
| (just guessing on that, might make no difference whatsoever).
|
| Anyway, the scenario I had cooked up was to load the SATA drivers on

the
| boot drive (but I'm not sure there are such specifically "sata"

drivers
| for
| this board/chipset), make a ghost image, then put the ghost image

onto
the
| SATA drive partition via the IDE cable, then switch the cabling over

to
| SATA. But from what you are suggesting, which sounds like a great

idea,
| is
| to first put this drive in as an additional drive, get it recognized

by
| W2K,
| possibly use this as the opportunity to format it/partition it, then
make
| the ghost image to be redeposited onto the new drive which will

become
the
| "C" drive, same as the original IDE drive.
|
| What I'm not clear on is what I would need to do to "repair" the
boot.ini
| file. Of course I would change the boot order in the P4P800 BIOS to
make
| the new SATA partition the first boot partition, and I sort of

assumed
the
| OS would simply just treat it like it was the old "C" drive, because

the
| old
| drive would no longer even be in the box.
|
| But it sounds like I am missing a step somewhere as involves the
boot.ini
| file.
|
| I'm not exactly expecting the machine to get a *huge* performance

boost
| from
| this, but the Intel controller on the primary/secondary IDE channel

is
| limited to ATA 100 even though the existing drive is ATA-133. By
spending
| $20 or $30 more than I might have gotten an IDE 160GB drive and

instead
| getting this SATA drive, I can *theoretically* pick up, with

incredible
| luck, as much as a 50% on drive function alone. At the same time

I'm
| replacing my ancient recycled P4 and PC2100 DDR RAM, so the total
benefit
| could even possibly be *noticeable.*
|
| If you could suggest to me how I might repair the boot.ini file to

fit
| this
| scenario, I'd greatly appreciate it!
|
| TIA,
|
| ken
|
|
|
|
|
| "Ken Fox" wrote in message
| ...
| Hi,
|
| I've got a P4P800 Deluxe running well now with 4 HDs including a
RAID
| Mirror
| for data only.
|
| I'm building another system, a SFF box, into which I'm going to

put
| some
| older components, to try to learn about Linux, which is not the
point
| of
| this post!
|
| I decided to take this opportunity to swap out the 120gig EIDE

Hard
| Disk
| I
| use for my system partition, with the rest (the majority) of the
disk
| being
| used for storing large video files. My plan is to swap out the

120
| EIDE
| disk and replace it with a Maxtor 160gig 7200 RPM 8MB cache SATA
drive
| I've
| ordered from Newegg. Presumably I would plan to partition this
160gig
| disk
| into a 30 or 35GB system/boot partition for W2K, and use the

rest
for
| my
| video files in a separate partition. Currently my W2K system is
| upgraded
| to
| include all service packs (SP4) plus patches to date.
|
| Anyway, I was intending to use an image (Norton Ghost 2003) of

my
old
| system partition and to put it back onto the new system

partition
of
| the
| new
| 160GB SATA drive. Norton Ghost is compatible with SATA drives
| according
| to
| the Symantec knowledge base. My understanding is that I need to
have
| the
| SATA driver loaded but as far as I can tell there is no separate
SATA
| driver, merely the Intel chipset driver includes this driver.

But
I'm
| not
| really sure about this nor can I find the answer to this in a

google
| groups
| search of this and other ngs. I did read a post or two that

implied
| it
| was
| best to have installed the SATA driver during the initial

install
of
| W2K
| but
| trying to do that now with all my other programs loaded would be

a
| nightmare
| for this system that is only 6 weeks old at most! The thought

of
| having
| to
| do THAT (complete reinstall of all software) would be enough to
| convince
| me
| to put the sata drive in the new SFF system and leave the

present
| setup
| as-is.
|
| Any advice on how best to proceed with this situation would be

most
| appreciated. My SATA drive will be installed directly to the

mobo
| with
| a
| serial drive cable, not through an add-on card.
|
| Thanks in advance for all advice!
|
| Ken
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|






  #8  
Old January 3rd 04, 05:09 PM
Ken Fox
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default

Hi Len,

Using Sandra I did find a boot.ini last night on my root directory, and it
has similar content to what you posted. For some reason it doesn't show up
or did not show up when I looked for it under W2K. I'd assume I could edit
it within a dos window using the old "edit" program. Presumably I'll just
have to figure out what disk number is being assigned by the OS which may
take some trial and error. A project for next week when the disk arrives!

Thanks,

ken



"Len" wrote in message
t...
Here is the boot.ini file used by my W2K install (2nd OS) but without
multi-boot:

[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT="Microso ft Windows 2000
Professional" /fastdetect

If you do not have a file of this type in the root of your HD then I have

no
clue how W2K or XP for that matter would know its "home" partition. That

is
the function of this file - to tell the OS where its start-up files are.

FWIW,
Len

"Ken Fox" wrote in message
...
"Splitskull" wrote in message
...
boot.ini in on the root of your system drive in w2k, winxp....don't

remember
about win98



I don't think so -----

It is present on the installation Win2K CD ROM, I think. It is not

anywhere
on my C: (system) drive either on my W2K notebook nor (now after

checking)
on my desktop. And yes, I have my system set up to allow viewing of

"hidden
files" in windows explorer. I have searched for this file both with the
seach function in Windows explorer, and manually in the C: root

directory
as
well as in Winnt

ken



--

------Splitskull-----

"Ken Fox" wrote in message
...
| addendum:
|
| Is there even such a file, called "boot.ini" in W2K??????
|
| I'm visiting family right now, in another state, so I don't have

access
to
| my desktop, onto which the SATA drive will be "implanted," but my

W2K
| notebook does not have a "Win.ini" file. In fact, there are no

*.ini
files
| of any type in the root directory. My windows explorer setup shows
"hidden
| files," so that is not the problem. I think that boot.ini might be

found
in
| older MS operating systems such as W9x.
|
| Ken
|
|
|
| "Ken Fox" wrote in message
| ...
| "Len" wrote in message
| .. .
| Have you considered enabling SATA and installing the driver

BEFORE
| making
| the image for Ghost? You will also have to repair the boot.ini

as
it
| will
| not be looking in the proper location for boot files once you

change
the
| drive to a new controler.
|
| FWIW,
| Len
|
| Hi Len,
|
| I appreciate your suggestions. My initial idea was to take

advantage
of
| the
| fact that this new Maxtor drive can function as both an SATA and

as
an
IDE
| drive (has connectors for both plus the SATA function is via a

chip
rather
| than native, i.e. this drive is a converted IDE drive) by first

putting
| everything on there with the drive installed as an IDE type drive.

I
have
| another HD in the box, currently the slave on the (same) primary

IDE
| channel, that functions solely as the repository for ghost images.

I'm
| assuming that ultimately I would want to switch the cabling and

jumpers
on
| this "ghost drive" to make it the primary on that channel if I'm

no
longer
| using 2 drives on that channel, because maybe performance would

benefit
| (just guessing on that, might make no difference whatsoever).
|
| Anyway, the scenario I had cooked up was to load the SATA drivers

on
the
| boot drive (but I'm not sure there are such specifically "sata"

drivers
| for
| this board/chipset), make a ghost image, then put the ghost image

onto
the
| SATA drive partition via the IDE cable, then switch the cabling

over
to
| SATA. But from what you are suggesting, which sounds like a great

idea,
| is
| to first put this drive in as an additional drive, get it

recognized
by
| W2K,
| possibly use this as the opportunity to format it/partition it,

then
make
| the ghost image to be redeposited onto the new drive which will

become
the
| "C" drive, same as the original IDE drive.
|
| What I'm not clear on is what I would need to do to "repair" the
boot.ini
| file. Of course I would change the boot order in the P4P800 BIOS

to
make
| the new SATA partition the first boot partition, and I sort of

assumed
the
| OS would simply just treat it like it was the old "C" drive,

because
the
| old
| drive would no longer even be in the box.
|
| But it sounds like I am missing a step somewhere as involves the
boot.ini
| file.
|
| I'm not exactly expecting the machine to get a *huge* performance

boost
| from
| this, but the Intel controller on the primary/secondary IDE

channel
is
| limited to ATA 100 even though the existing drive is ATA-133. By
spending
| $20 or $30 more than I might have gotten an IDE 160GB drive and

instead
| getting this SATA drive, I can *theoretically* pick up, with

incredible
| luck, as much as a 50% on drive function alone. At the same time

I'm
| replacing my ancient recycled P4 and PC2100 DDR RAM, so the total
benefit
| could even possibly be *noticeable.*
|
| If you could suggest to me how I might repair the boot.ini file to

fit
| this
| scenario, I'd greatly appreciate it!
|
| TIA,
|
| ken
|
|
|
|
|
| "Ken Fox" wrote in message
| ...
| Hi,
|
| I've got a P4P800 Deluxe running well now with 4 HDs including

a
RAID
| Mirror
| for data only.
|
| I'm building another system, a SFF box, into which I'm going

to
put
| some
| older components, to try to learn about Linux, which is not

the
point
| of
| this post!
|
| I decided to take this opportunity to swap out the 120gig EIDE

Hard
| Disk
| I
| use for my system partition, with the rest (the majority) of

the
disk
| being
| used for storing large video files. My plan is to swap out

the
120
| EIDE
| disk and replace it with a Maxtor 160gig 7200 RPM 8MB cache

SATA
drive
| I've
| ordered from Newegg. Presumably I would plan to partition

this
160gig
| disk
| into a 30 or 35GB system/boot partition for W2K, and use the

rest
for
| my
| video files in a separate partition. Currently my W2K system

is
| upgraded
| to
| include all service packs (SP4) plus patches to date.
|
| Anyway, I was intending to use an image (Norton Ghost 2003)

of
my
old
| system partition and to put it back onto the new system

partition
of
| the
| new
| 160GB SATA drive. Norton Ghost is compatible with SATA drives
| according
| to
| the Symantec knowledge base. My understanding is that I need

to
have
| the
| SATA driver loaded but as far as I can tell there is no

separate
SATA
| driver, merely the Intel chipset driver includes this driver.

But
I'm
| not
| really sure about this nor can I find the answer to this in a

google
| groups
| search of this and other ngs. I did read a post or two that

implied
| it
| was
| best to have installed the SATA driver during the initial

install
of
| W2K
| but
| trying to do that now with all my other programs loaded would

be
a
| nightmare
| for this system that is only 6 weeks old at most! The thought

of
| having
| to
| do THAT (complete reinstall of all software) would be enough

to
| convince
| me
| to put the sata drive in the new SFF system and leave the

present
| setup
| as-is.
|
| Any advice on how best to proceed with this situation would be

most
| appreciated. My SATA drive will be installed directly to the

mobo
| with
| a
| serial drive cable, not through an add-on card.
|
| Thanks in advance for all advice!
|
| Ken
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|








  #9  
Old January 7th 04, 03:45 PM
Ken Fox
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default

This is a followup to my original question about swapping out an IDE drive
and replacing it with a new SATA drive. After posting my question here, I
decided to post it also in the Windows 2000 ng on the chance that someone
else there had suggestions. I did not get any responses to my question, but
then proceeded to experiment with the new drive. I was able to successfully
do the swap, and surprisingly the issues of the "boot.ini" file and the SATA
driver turned into non-issues. W2K appears to have repaired the boot.ini
file itself, and the SATA driver must have been on my system all along,
having been loaded when I put all the chipset and other drivers in on my
2-month old P4P800 Deluxe i865 and ICH5 based mobo on the fresh W2K install
I did 2 months ago; if they weren't there initially, they must have gotten
put on there from SP4. In any event, it all works.

I very much appreciate the suggestions I got here from ng participants, as
well!

I typed up a detailed description of what happened, in the W2K ng., and
being the lazy slothful person that I am, I decided to just paste it in
here. At the bottom you will see the original questions I posed to the W2K
ng. Hope this helps some anonymous future google archives searcher!

ken


******** W2K ng post is pasted in below: **********

I'm posting a follow up because some other poor soul may find themselves in
the same position as I did, and all the googling, knowledge base, and other
searching beforehand yielded no useful information. I hope that someone
else may benefit from my experience.

As described below, my task was to take an already installed W2K
installation and to replace a 120GB Maxtor 7200RPM IDE drive (part of which
was the system partition) with a 160GB Maxtor SATA drive, both the 8MB
variety. The existing installation had the first IDE drive partitioned into
2 primary drives, drive "C," the boot and system drive, and drive "K," my
repository for video files (mostly TV programs from my add-in Wintek PVR
card). Drive "C" was about 35gig with the rest given to the "K" partition.
I should note that my system, with an Asus P4P800Deluxe mobo, has 4 hard
drives in it with two of them in a RAID Mirror configuration off a Via
controller.

I had been told previously that I would have a hell of a time accomplishing
the SATA install from a ghost image, because the "boot.ini" file would
reference the wrong drive, and also there was a need for a SATA driver that
needs to be installed early on in the install process using "F6" when other
drivers are requested during W2K install.

I spent about 3 hours trying to get the whole thing to work with varying
combinations of drives active at a given time, attempts made to edit the
"boot.ini" file, attempts made to load SATA drivers I'd downloaded
elsewhere, etc., etc. I was about to either give up or jump off a high
bridge, however there aren't any high bridges where I live so this would
have had to wait :-)

In the end, out of desperation, as a last ditch effort, I simply removed the
old 120GB IDE drive altogether, booted from a Norton Ghost boot floppy, then
once again installed a ghosted version of the system partition onto what was
destined to be the new "C" drive, e.g. the first and smaller partition on
the SATA drive. I should add that Norton Ghost 2003 never had any
difficulty recognizing the SATA drive from the first time I put the drive in
the box.

When I booted back up, windows booted from the sata drive, recognized the
new hardware, in fact re-recognized about half the stuff in my box that had
not changed at all in location, then indicated it needed a reboot. After
rebooting, low and behold, the first partition of the new SATA drive had
been correctly labelled as the "C" drive, and everything worked. There were
no problem devices in the system in device manager.

Obviously, as this process is going on one needs to check the bios to be
sure the bios knows that it is to boot from the new SATA drive, or the
system won't boot, and since this will be a new drive in the system, you
need to check and modify that if necessary.

Obviously, the SATA driver got loaded with the Intel chipset drivers (i865,
ICH5) from the intial installation so they were already there but not being
used until now. Once the drive image was put back onto the new active
partition system disk, drive "C," Windows 2K sorted it all out, both as
regards boot.ini and the SATA driver, not to mention drive letter
assignments.

What I can't say at this point without using the system longer is that I
notice an improvement in speed; I just haven't used the system enough yet to
tell. Also, it is possible that somewhere down the road some
incompatibilities, lost dlls, lost files, whatever, might rear their ugly
heads. But at this point it seems like everything is very much functioning
properly.

So, if you decide to upgrade your system by replacing the active partition
from an IDE to a SATA drive, on a pre-existent install, you might very well
get away with it by using a competent drive imaging program such as Ghost.

Finally, one small problem presented itself that I was able to rectify due
to the fact that I hold onto old computer parts I no longer need; it helps
to have a basement to store this sort of crap! The Hard disk bays are too
short in my box (Aspire X-Alien) to accomodate a SATA drive plus the
straight drive SATA connectors provided with my mobo. The more elegent
solution to this problem is to buy an angled connector but I don't have any
and I live in a rural area so it would have taken time to get one. Instead,
I put the drive into a spare 5" drive bay, with use of one of those 3.5-5"
conversion rail kits. Sometimes it pays to be a hoarder, and sometimes it
pays to have a large full tower case!

Good luck,

Hope this helps somebody out there eventually, that is what google groups
archives are for!

ken




"Ken Fox" wrote in message
...
Hi,

I've got a perplexing problem to which there may be no solution. Having
looked around in several ngs and having googled a bit, I can't find a
workable solution to this issue which may well present itself to a lot of
other people soon.

I'm running W2K SP4 with all patches on an Asus P4P800 Deluxe mobo; this

has
the i865 chip plus I believe ICH5 chip on board. Apparently it is

possible
wiht a new install to present W2K with a SATA chip driver and to install

W2K
on a SATA drive as the boot drive.

Were that my problem were so simple!

What I'd like to do is to take my present system including tons of other
software applications, make an image of the boot drive (partition) with
Norton Ghost 2003, off my Maxtor 120GB IDE drive, then reinstall the

partion
onto a Maxtor 160GB SATA drive. The new drive has both IDE and SATA
interfaces so I could conceivably partion and format the drive first using
the IDE interface, than switch over to the SATA connectors. I'm
reluctant/unwilling to reinstall all my software, having had to redo this
for this almost new system already just a couple of months ago. I would

be
willing to do some sort of "repair" installation of W2K if that would

work.

There are two potential problems I've already read about: (1) Boot.ini

will
have references to a different disk number and might need to be edited,

and,
(2) the drivers for the SATA controller (which I can't seem to locate
anywhere, which I'm assuming but not sure are a component of the intel
driver package for these chips) may need resources that have already been
assigned to other hardware and this could be a fatal problem in installing
the drivers after the initial W2K install. I don't really know how to

edit
boot.in although conceivably I could do that in a DOS window.

Having tried to get this whole idea to work for a few hours already, I'm
about ready to just throw in the towel and use this fairly expensive drive
as an IDE drive, which seems a bit of a waste to be honest!

Any and all helpful suggestions would be greatly appreciated!!!!

Thanks!

Ken





 




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