A question about NT4 or 2000 boot.ini

[Pace]

My question relates to getting NT4 (which is on the 2nd partition of my second drive) into my Win2000 boot menu.

[boot loader]
timeout=3
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINNT
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINNT="Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional" /fastdetect
C:\ = "Microsoft Windows Millennium Edition"

Any help getting NT4 into this is appreciated! However what does multi, disk and rdisk mean?

Also, just a small point, but why does the counter for these 3 start at zero when the partition counter starts at 1? Or is there something wrong with my boot.ini (or my logic )

Paul.

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[Johnny Ray]

There's nothing wrong with your logic...controllers and drives always start counting at 0, while partition numbers start at 1.

You must add a line indicating where your NT install is. First is the controller, then hard drive, then partition. "multi" is the controller (sometimes appears as "SCSI" if not SCSI BIOS booted or two SCSI host adapters). "disk" is the physical disk and should be 0 (or if "SCSI" it is the device ID), "rdisk" indicates which drive holds the NT files if your config has "multi"; it should be 0 (for SCSI it is the LUN for the device), and then partition is the the logical drive NT is at.

So you'd add a line like:

multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1?)\your WinNT subdirectory="Windows NT Workstation Version 4.00"

Maybe someone else can add/correct something?

John


[This message has been edited by Johnny Ray (edited 05 September 2000).]

[Pace]

Primary IDE Channel: 20Gb drive

Partition 1 is WinMe
Partition 2 is Win2K

Secondary IDE Channel: 4Gb drive

Partition 1 is Win98
Partition 2 is WinNT4
Partition 3 will be Win2k Server (if it fits )

So should my boot.ini be this:

[boot loader]
timeout=3
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINNT
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINNT="Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional" /fastdetect
multi(0)disk(1)rdisk(1)partition(2)\WINNT4="Windows NT Workstation Version 4.00" 
multi(0)disk(1)rdisk(1)partition(2)\WINNT4="Windows NT Workstation Version 4.00 [VGA mode]" /basevideo /sos
C:\ = "Microsoft Windows Millennium Edition"

And how do I add Win98 into that? Impossible?

Ta, Paul.

[Sisyfos]

I assume you've only got 1 primary partition on each disk?
If that is so, your Win98 is on D:?
Put
D:\ = "Pace screwing up his setup with too many OS'es Edition" (or some such)
at the bottom of boot.ini

Kim

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[Pace]

Thanks for the info Kim - guess what that gives? A reboot! Woohoo! I knew that D:\ is the way to do it - just wasn't sure if the boot.ini supported multiple drives - anyone else got some?

And as for too many OSes I once tried to get every OS I owned onto my 20Gb - Win95, Win98, WinNT and Win2k (beta 3 at the time) as well as RedHat 6.0 or 6.1 and with space left over for BeOS. This failed at Win98 (couldn't get the 95 partition hidden!)

Paul.

[fds]

Why don't you simply get a boot manager such as System Commander 2000?

NT and Win2000 automatically add itself to your boot.ini. It will get added on installation or you could use the repair disk of an already installed system.

If you are interested in getting the correct multi(blah)disk(blah) path to one of your partitions, go to the Windows 2000 Recovery Console and type help. There is a command which lists just that, although I cannot remember the exact name.

[Pace]

Where would I get that then!

Paul.

[fds]

System Commander 2000 is available for puchase from <a href="http://www.v-com.com">V communications</a>. You can also find an illegal copy for free download on some other sites. [cough]fosi[cough]

There are plenty of free boot managers too but I don't really have much experience using them.

[This message has been edited by fds (edited 06 September 2000).]

[RAB]

Pace,
Edit the boot.ini with these guidelines:

"multi" is the IDE channel number, again numbering starting with 0.

"disk" is used only if you have a SCSI drive. In your case it should be 0 in each line - not 1.

"rdisk" means the number of the IDE hard drive on the channel, again starting with 0.

"partition" is the number of the partition on the hard drive. The numbering starts with 1 for partitions for some unknown reason.

"/basevideo /sos" is your Safe Mode for NT.

"timeout" is the number of seconds you have to make a choice of operating systems. You need to increase that to at least 5 and with four operation systems you might want to give yourself 10 seconds.

See if that helps.

RAB

[Pace]

Thanks Rab - I'll have a go at that next time I feel like a reboot .

I'll probably remove one of the 9x OSes (I like to have Win2k to use, 9x as a LAN game backup and NT as an overall backup) but I am still curious as to whether I can boot 98 from the primary drive - is it possible?

Thanks,

Paul.

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[RAB]

I haven't tried to quad boot before. But try adding a line for each OS pointing it to the system directory for that OS. For example, the Win98 line would be:
multi(1)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(1)\windows="Windo ws 98"

See what happens. Its generally recommended that you install the OS's in order for them to be recognized properly. I've had a bad boot.ini and had to restart with a DOS boot disk, but I got it working again.

RAB