Re: Detecting which WinXP/partiton is booting (by default) / BOOT.INI setup

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I have never posted this before as I have never seen the appropriate
question asked.

Here is a trick I used 6 years ago when I was beta testing Windows XP. At
times I had three different betas on my computer, along with Windows 2000.

1. Boot up into one of the operating systems. Go to "My Computer" |
"Manage" | "Disk Management". See which partition/drive you are in. Look in
the top window in the "Status" column. You will see an entry for "Healthy
(System)" Click once on that line. It will highlight the partition in the
lower graphic. If it is the first partition to the left of the drive,
consider this as operating system "Windows XP-1". If it is the system on the
first hard drive, consider it also as Windows XP-1. .

2. Go back to the top window. Right click on the selected line and go to
properties. Name this partition/drive "WinXP-1".

3. Exit Computer Management

4. Now you edit the boot.ini file in the root of the selected partition.:


[boot loader]
timeout=05
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Windows XP-1" /fastdetect
/NoExecute=OptIn
C:\CMDCONS\BOOTSECT.DAT="Microsoft Windows Recovery Console" /cmdcons


See the line that begins with "multi"? You want to change the name between
the quotations to read ="Windows XP-1". Do not change anything else. Save
and exit boot.ini.

Reboot your computer. You will now see one of your choices as WinXP-1.

5. Boot into the second operating system.

6. Perform steps 1-4 as above.

7. This time, name the partition as WinXP-2

8. Reboot.

Now, whenever you boot the computer you will see the options as

WinXP-1
WinXP-2


NOTE: If you have installed the recovery console as a startup option, you
will have to reinstall the console again in each operating system. If you
don't, you will not be able to enter the recovery console as a boot option.

I hope this will help you.

--

Regards,

Richard Urban
Microsoft MVP Windows Shell/User
(For email, remove the obvious from my address)

Quote from George Ankner:
If you knew as much as you think you know,
You would realize that you don't know what you thought you knew!

"Marcus Mender" <mmmm@xxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:45599015$0$18839$9b4e6d93@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
I got a computer from a friend which has 2 WinXP installations: One on
partition C:
and the other on partition D:

Both appear with a description
"Microsoft Windows XP Professional" in the bootup selection menu

Sorry for this newbie question, but how can I find out which XP
installation is booted
when I select e.g. the first line in the boot menu ?

In BOOT.INI there are two lines:

multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS

Is partition(2) ALWAYS partition D:
and
partition(1) ALWAYS partition C: ?

Marcus



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