Re: Boot.ini question

"Gerhard Fiedler" <gefiedler@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message news:1zqpvqi7hpi3$.1aj60jysxvuic.dlg@xxxxxxxxxx
Timothy Daniels wrote:
"Gerhard Fiedler" enscribed:
Aren't there BIOS/controllers that don't boot from all disks connected
to them, yet these disks may still have rdisk numbers and allow
starting Windows on them?

This ends with a question mark, but it sure ain't a sentence. What is it?

Here's a simpler version, step by step:

1- You claimed that the rdisk number is related to the boot order.

2- One consequence of this is that if a controller can't boot from a disk,
I can't use your rule to determine the rdisk number.

3- I can use boot.ini entries to start Windows on drives the controller
can't boot from.

4- To do this, I use rdisk numbers determined in other ways than suggested
by you, because your method doesn't provide rdisk numbers for drives that
can't be booted by the controller.

5- This works. Windows can start from a drive that can't be booted by the
controller, given that the necessary files (ntldr and boot.ini among them)
are present and properly installed on a drive it can boot from.

6- Your claimed rule can't be used to determine the rdisk number for those
drives, yet they do have an rdisk number that can be used in boot.ini.

7- From this follows that the boot order (the term as used by you) is not a
generally usable method to determine the rdisk number of a drive for use in
boot.ini, as it requires the controller to be able to boot from the drive
in question.


(A maybe important side note:

There is a difference between "booting" and "starting Windows".

Only in words.

The boot drive does not have to be the one where Windows is installed.

As in: the second bootstage (OS bootstage) doesn't need it to be
on the same drive as where the OS bootstage is started from.

The boot drive needs to be the one that contains -- among other things --
boot.ini

and that gets booted by the controller.

Nope. That get's booted (through Int 19, supplied by the MoBo BIOS)
by the bootcode in the MBR (using Int13 supplied by the controller BIOS)
which in turn starts NTLDR which starts Windows.

Windows can be installed on another drive; that would be the one the rdisk
parameter points to, and this drive does not have to be bootable by the
controller.

It seems you can't replicate such a situation on your system,
because it seems your controller can boot from all drives you have
currently installed. You'd have to install a drive that you can't boot from
or run this on a system that has drives installed that the controller can't
boot to see first hand what I mean -- if you don't know it.)

That is a load of bollocks. Controllers don't boot, the system(MoBo) does.


Got it?

Gerhard
.

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