Re: ARC boot path question SATA vs IDE boot order

You're interested in what value to set the rdisk() argument.
Here's background:

In just an IDE environment, "rdisk(x)" refers to the disk that
is at position "x" relative to the start of the HD boot order.
The *default* HD boot order is:

Master, IDE ch. 0,
Slave, IDE ch.0,
Master, IDE ch. 1,
Slave, IDE ch. 1.

In this default HD boot order, assuming that all IDE ch. positions
are occupied by a HD, rdisk(0) refers to the Master on IDE ch. 0,
rdisk(1) refers to the Slave on IDE ch. 0, etc. If there is no HD
with an MBR at a particular position, rdisk() just refers to the next
HD in the HD boot order.

Many, if not most, BIOSes allow the user to reset the HD boot
order via keyboard during the POST phase of the boot process.
But the meaning of "rdisk(x)" continues to follow whatever HD
boot order that the user sets up. This can be used to change
which HD controls booting merely by resetting the HD boot order,
and it can be used as a crude (but effective) method of multi-
booting. The only thing it lacks is partition selection to find the OS.

A crude way of selecting the partition to control booting is to
set which Primary partition on a HD is "active" before restarting
the PC. Once a HD is selected for booting, the MBR of that HD
hands off control to the boot sector of the "active" partition, where
ntldr and boot.ini and ntdetect.com are expected to be found.
In WinXP, the "active" setting can be manually controlled with
Disk Management - rt-clk a partition in the GUI, and if "Mark
Partition as Active" is greyed out, it's already "active".

But, of course, the most convenient way of multi-booting is to
use the menu information contained in the entries of the boot.ini
file. There, "rdisk(x)" refers to the HD relative to its position x in
the HD boot order, starting with "0", and "partition()" refers to the
position of the partition within the HD, starting with "1". The
partitions are no'd starting with the Primary partitions, then the
Local Drives on the Extended partition if there is one. Thus, the
OS can be in any partition on any HD in the system. There can
even be more than one OS in each partition since the file name
containing the OS must be given, too, which the installer usually
chooses to be "WINDOWS" unless there is already a "WINDOWS"
folder present. (I don't recommend more than one OS in a
partition, though.)

Now, as you have found, when the SATA HD boot order is
selected, "rdidk(0)" refers to the 1st SATA HD in the HD boot
order, *probably* SATA ch. 0. "rdisk(1)" would *probably* refer
to the 2nd SATA HD in the default SATA HD boot order -
*probably* SATA ch. 1.

Your question is "How does one combine the "rdisk()" spaces
of the IDE and SATA HDs?" I don't know the answer to that,
but the answer is probably *very* BIOS-specific. Since your
ASUS is a Phoenix-based BIOS, it's probably a common
implementation, so the answer would be valuable to a lot of
PC users. Please favor us with an experiment:

Set the BIOS to use the IDE controller first.
In the boot.ini file of an "active" Primary partition of an IDE HD,
place an OS entry that has the "rdisk()" argument set to the
no. of IDE HDs in the system. That is, if there is one IDE HD,
use "rdisk(1)" in the new entry. See if it causes the SATA HD
to control booting. If it does, it would appear that the rdisk()
space of the IDE HD boot order spills over into the SATA HD
boot order. If "rdisk(1)" doesn't work, try "rdisk(5)".

I suspect, though, that the rdisk() spaces don't overlap since
the controllers are so different. But please let us know.

*TimDaniels*


"- Bobb -" wrote:
One question about the ARC Path Naming Conventions :
I have a SATA and just added a temporary bootable IDE drive
(old drive that I used here prior to sata purchase). I see that in
the boot.ini of each drive that the path is the same - it depends
on the order that I setup the ASUS ( phoenix) BIOS which boots
first. So if I set SATA first, then I get ITS boot menu - and it
works fine. If I make the IDE drive first in BIOS boot order, I get
the IDE boot menu. With both in there, other than changing BIOS ,
any way to specify which drive to boot ?? I would THINK that
they'd be a variable to set path of IDE channel 0 or 1 and/or
SATA channel 0 or 1 ? I'd like to leave them both in for now to
use old XP partitions for Vista x32 and x64 installs, but don't
want to have to toggle BIOS. ( yes I would reformat old partitions)

Old IDE drive:
[boot loader]
timeout=5
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS="Microsoft
Windows XP Professional" /fastdetect /NoExecute=OptIn
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Windows XP
Professional x64 Edition" /fastdetect

New SATA Drive
[boot loader]
timeout=5
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft
Windows XP Professional" /NOEXECUTE=OPTIN
/FASTDETECT
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS="Old XP Pro
on E:" /FASTDETECT /NOEXECUTE=OPTIN

.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: ARC boot path question SATA vs IDE boot order
    ... that the IDE boot order continues into the SATA boot order, ... SATA boot order continues into the IDE boot order if the ... "active" partition of the SATA HD to perform that experiment.) ...
    (microsoft.public.windowsxp.general)
  • Re: ARC boot path question SATA vs IDE boot order
    ... rdisk = 1 for SATA = XP Pro. ... I can now install Vista x64 to the IDE drive ... [boot loader] ... The only thing it lacks is partition selection to find the OS. ...
    (microsoft.public.windowsxp.general)
  • Re: ARC boot path question - SATA vs IDE boot order
    ... expectation is that with IDE set up as leading the HD ... I did install X64 last fall and HAD planned on using it as my primary OS, but soon realized that finding drivers were a nuisance, so removed drive then and installed XP pro on the SATA as my primary. ... is at position "x" relative to the start of the HD boot order. ... A crude way of selecting the partition to control booting is to ...
    (microsoft.public.windowsxp.general)
  • Re: Setup Multiboot XP Pro system on multiple harddrives...
    ... split partition for programs and data. ... First and second on Primary IDE. ... Third on SATA. ... or do both hard drives have to be set up ...
    (microsoft.public.windowsxp.setup_deployment)
  • Re: grub with sata drives? - Success
    ... Please post more information on your partition layout. ... You mentioned having two SATA drives, but do you also have any IDE drives? ...
    (Debian-User)
Loading