Trying to Recover a Crashed System

I had a box with two Win2K SP4 installations on different HDs. The C drive
developed a fault that left it just about useless and I had to replace it.
The second drive will not boot up now. Using its (ERD) repair disk does not
work.

I have been rebuilding the new drive C but as time goes by I wish I could
get the D drive running again.

The boot.ini file has :

[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT="Win2K on C: Drive" /fastdetect
multi(0)disk(1)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT="Win2K on D: Drive" /fastdetect

There are only two installations.

When I try to boot to D I get

"Win2000 could not start because of computer disk hardware configuration.
Could not read from selected boot disk. Check boot path and disk hardware. "

Suggestions please.

RFR wrote:
I had a box with two Win2K SP4 installations on different HDs. The C drive
developed a fault that left it just about useless and I had to replace it.
The second drive will not boot up now. Using its (ERD) repair disk does not
work.

I have been rebuilding the new drive C but as time goes by I wish I could
get the D drive running again.

The boot.ini file has :

[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT="Win2K on C: Drive" /fastdetect
multi(0)disk(1)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT="Win2K on D: Drive" /fastdetect

There are only two installations.

When I try to boot to D I get

"Win2000 could not start because of computer disk hardware configuration.
Could not read from selected boot disk. Check boot path and disk hardware. "

Suggestions please.




boot from your cd and go to the repair console

then try issuing the command fixboot

might as well try fixmbr while you are at it

Try this syntax:
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(1)\WINNT="Win2K on D: Drive" /fastdetect

RFR wrote:

I had a box with two Win2K SP4 installations on different HDs. The C drive
developed a fault that left it just about useless and I had to replace it.
The second drive will not boot up now. Using its (ERD) repair disk does not
work.

I have been rebuilding the new drive C but as time goes by I wish I could
get the D drive running again.

The boot.ini file has :

[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT="Win2K on C: Drive" /fastdetect
multi(0)disk(1)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT="Win2K on D: Drive" /fastdetect

There are only two installations.

When I try to boot to D I get

"Win2000 could not start because of computer disk hardware configuration.
Could not read from selected boot disk. Check boot path and disk hardware. "

--
Mike Walsh

On Sun, 31 May 2009 12:30:19 -0800, "RFR" wrote:

I had a box with two Win2K SP4 installations on different HDs. The C drive
developed a fault that left it just about useless and I had to replace it.
The second drive will not boot up now. Using its (ERD) repair disk does not
work.

I have been rebuilding the new drive C but as time goes by I wish I could
get the D drive running again.

The boot.ini file has :

[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT="Win2 K on C: Drive" /fastdetect
multi(0)disk(1)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT="Win2 K on D: Drive" /fastdetect

There are only two installations.

When I try to boot to D I get

"Win2000 could not start because of computer disk hardware configuration.
Could not read from selected boot disk. Check boot path and disk hardware. "

Suggestions please.


I presume you had the C: drive position formatted and
installed to Win2k first? If so, did you leave that drive
connected when you installed Windows to D:?

I don't remember the particulars, but in some cases it is
possible that installing to D: will result in some critical
files being placed on C:

Otherwise, Mike is probably right that you need to have
disc(0) and rdisk(1).

If that alone does not work it is possible you have the
drives on different controllers? See the following page,
the section titled "Explanations for each part of BOOT.INI"
to help if you need a more advanced configuration than that.

http://www.geocities.com/thestarman3...br/bootini.htm

philo wrote:
RFR wrote:
I had a box with two Win2K SP4 installations on different HDs. The C
drive
developed a fault that left it just about useless and I had to replace
it.
The second drive will not boot up now. Using its (ERD) repair disk
does not
work.

I have been rebuilding the new drive C but as time goes by I wish I could
get the D drive running again.

The boot.ini file has :

[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT="Win2K on C: Drive" /fastdetect
multi(0)disk(1)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT="Win2K on D: Drive" /fastdetect

There are only two installations.

When I try to boot to D I get

"Win2000 could not start because of computer disk hardware configuration.
Could not read from selected boot disk. Check boot path and disk
hardware. "

Suggestions please.




boot from your cd and go to the repair console

then try issuing the command fixboot

might as well try fixmbr while you are at it

Thanks Philo. I did many things like you suggest
here but I got nowhere.
Mike hit the situation very close to the "sweet spot."

You do have a stroke of genius Mike :-)

The D drive OS rose from the dead but with a few
hiccups. At one point the installation stopped
with that dreadful blue screen and a message:
"SystemRoot\System32\Drivers\dxapi.sys device
driver could not locate the entry point
KeyIsAttachedProcess in driver ntoskernel.exe" At
that point I had a sinking feeling but soon
afterwards the login screen arrived. I input my
pwd and it all opened up again. Phew! It had
several other stops, some with messages. However,
getting it running again is a huge relief.

Now after all that excitement, I'll spend much
more time with this little box. I'll just keep it
running and I'll sleep beside it at night to
protect it :-)

What is the simplest way to keep a copy of this
system so that, if it ever went belly up again, I
could write it back over the mess - or clean up
the mess and restore a precise copy of the
installation?

It has been years since I had anything to do with
Disc( ) and Rdisk( ) and I had forgotton which
referred to the physical drive. Great work on your
part Mike.

Thanks again.


Mike Walsh wrote:
Try this syntax:

multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(1)\WINNT="Win2K
on D: Drive" /fastdetect

RFR wrote:
I had a box with two Win2K SP4 installations
on different HDs. The C drive
developed a fault that left it just about
useless and I had to replace it.
The second drive will not boot up now. Using
its (ERD) repair disk does not
work.

I have been rebuilding the new drive C but as
time goes by I wish I could
get the D drive running again.

The boot.ini file has :

[operating systems]

multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT="Win2K
on C: Drive" /fastdetect

multi(0)disk(1)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT="Win2K
on D: Drive" /fastdetect

There are only two installations.

When I try to boot to D I get

"Win2000 could not start because of computer
disk hardware configuration.
Could not read from selected boot disk. Check
boot path and disk hardware. "

kony wrote:
On Sun, 31 May 2009 12:30:19 -0800, "RFR" wrote:

I had a box with two Win2K SP4 installations on different HDs. The C drive
developed a fault that left it just about useless and I had to replace it.
The second drive will not boot up now. Using its (ERD) repair disk does not
work.

I have been rebuilding the new drive C but as time goes by I wish I could
get the D drive running again.

The boot.ini file has :

[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT="Win2K on C: Drive" /fastdetect
multi(0)disk(1)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT="Win2K on D: Drive" /fastdetect

There are only two installations.

When I try to boot to D I get

"Win2000 could not start because of computer disk hardware configuration.
Could not read from selected boot disk. Check boot path and disk hardware. "

Suggestions please.


I presume you had the C: drive position formatted and
installed to Win2k first? If so, did you leave that drive
connected when you installed Windows to D:?

I don't remember the particulars, but in some cases it is
possible that installing to D: will result in some critical
files being placed on C:

Otherwise, Mike is probably right that you need to have
disc(0) and rdisk(1).

If that alone does not work it is possible you have the
drives on different controllers? See the following page,
the section titled "Explanations for each part of BOOT.INI"
to help if you need a more advanced configuration than that.

http://www.geocities.com/thestarman3...br/bootini.htm

I took the D drive out while I was preparing the
new C drive. Then after the OS was installed on C,
I added back the D drive.

Touch wood but it looks like things are looking up
now. As I mentioned to Mike, I had forgotton that
Rdisk refers to the actual physical disks - think
of it as R for Real.

You are correct that some files are placed on the
C drive and not on the D. For example boot.ini.

If you have Windows installed on two drives you can backup one of the Windows installations while running the other. (This won't work with Vista because it restricts access to Windows files even if they are on a Windows installation that is not running.) It is best to have both drives bootable, and be able to boot with either drive and load Windows either from the boot drive or the other drive. (This is a bit paranoid, but you could have a condition where a drive won't boot but is still readable.) You might have to do a dummy Windows installation to install the MBR and boot files on the second drive, then edit Boot.ini. I have Windows on partitions by itself so I can e.g. boot from the first drive and backup the Windows partition on the second drive to the first drive.

RFR wrote:
What is the simplest way to keep a copy of this
system so that, if it ever went belly up again, I
could write it back over the mess - or clean up
the mess and restore a precise copy of the
installation?

--
Mike Walsh