Identifying Partion numbers

[selkov]

I have 4 drives.
I am running windows 2000 Pro on four partitions on one drive.
I have installed OSS.

After some months of running without issues I defraged all my drives.
Oss flaked out.
Won't boot to ANY partition.
So I uninstalled it.
I was then getting MBR error1.
I ran a FIX MBR disk.
I was able to boot to one partition and tried to reinstall OSS.
Now it wont work and I can not boot to any partition.
I uninstalled it again but still could not boot.
I am sure that with all my playing around I have tangled the partitions.
I have a Acronis Rescue Media disc and can load DD10 to edit the boot.ini files.
I Was able to boot by setting what i think is partition 3 to active and pointing its boot.ini to partition 2.

What i want to know is :
1] How can I use DD10 to Identify wich partition label is what partition # ?

and

2] How do I point the individual boot.ini to the correct locations so as to ISOLATE them frome ach other.

[Brian K]

{QUOTE->
I was then getting MBR error1.
<-QUOTE}
I hope someone knows the answer. I did a Google search and this error seems to only occur with Acronis products.

[MudCrab]

{QUOTE-> What i want to know is :
1] How can I use DD10 to Identify wich partition label is what partition # ? <-QUOTE}
If the four partitions on the drive are all Primary Partitions then you can use Disk Director's Disk Editor to find the order.

Reference the picture below. (I've combined several so they overlap. Hopefully, it will be clear.)

Start DD. Make sure you're in Manual Mode (not Automatic Mode). Right-click on the Disk # you want ( 1 in picture ) and select Advanced and then Edit. This will start the Disk Editor (you may want to maximize the screen so you don't have to scroll).

Click the View Menu and select the As Partition Table option ( 2 in picture).

This will display the partition table for the hard drive ( 3 in picture).

The Relative Sectors section ( 4 in picture ) shows the physical order of the partitions. This number is low for the first partition and increases for each partition added. As you can see in the sample the partitions are in order.

The partition table shows the partitions as entered into the partition table. They are not necessarily in the physical order the partitions exist on the hard drive.

By looking at the Relative Sectors column you can tell the physical order of the partitions (this is how DD displays them in the graphic display). The numbers in order from lowest to highest gives the physical order of the partitions.

The boot.ini entries have to match the partition table entries, not the physical order. So, if table entry 2 is the first physical partition, then the boot.ini file for that partition would have to be partition(2) since it's 2nd in the partition table.

192764

{QUOTE-> 2] How do I point the individual boot.ini to the correct locations so as to ISOLATE them frome ach other. <-QUOTE}
This is more difficult. Windows 2000 is very good had "seeing" partitions. When you use OSS (and other boot managers) you have to "Force Hiding" of other partitions if you don't want them seen by Windows 2000.

It's possible (if you used this feature) that some of the partitions are still in this state. Take a look at the partition table and the Partition Type column (just under the 3 arrow --- it shows 07h for these) and see if they're standard.

Posting a screenshot of your Partition Table screen might also be helpful.

Another option is to leave the partitions standard and just use Windows Disk Management to "unassign" a drive letter to the other partitions. That way they won't show up in My Computer.

[selkov]

I deleted the two partitions that i do not nead for the moment.
So if i understand you correctly in teh PICs below.
The third line is actually partition #1 which corresponds to EDS in the second pic.
The Second line is partition #2 which corresponds to AME in the second pic.
Right?
So the boot.ini in eds is set to (1) while in ame it is set to (2).

[MudCrab]

Your Partition Table #1 entry is empty. In my test, Windows doesn't count it because it's empty. So... EDS would be partition(2) and AME would be partition(1).

If you create another partition and it ends up in the Partition Table #1 slot, then you'll have to change EDS to partition(3) and AME to partition(2).

[Brian K]

{QUOTE-> Your Partition Table #1 entry is empty. In my test, Windows doesn't count it because it's empty. So... EDS would be partition(2) and AME would be partition(1).
<-QUOTE}
I agree.

Selkov,

Did you say

{QUOTE-> boot.ini in eds is set to (1) <-QUOTE}

You checked this?

[selkov]

No it is not set at all..No boot.ini.

Was just checking my understanding of how to read these files.


Thanks

[Brian K]

To see your boot.ini......

http://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=176064#10

[selkov]

Brian. That does not work.
What this does is show you what partition the BOOT.INI file is loading.
It does not tell you WHAT partiton # and slot is assigned to that SPECIFIC partition.


For example... I recently made an os Installation on a clean drive, then copied that partion onto 2 new partions. All three partions share the same name and all three BOOT.INI files load from partiton 1.

So in order to correct that I need to edit the boot.ini file to reflect #'s 2 and 3.

But How do I know that I am not taking partiton 1 and pointing it to load from partition 3?

This HAS happened. So later when I deleted partition 3 partion 1 would not load!

OSS has lots of stupid issues!
Wish I knew a better loader

[MudCrab]

When you copied the 2 new partitions, did you use the partition copy funciton in DD or use a TI image to restore to the other partitions?

I explained in Post #3 how to tell the order in the partition table. Also DD shows the "physical" order of the partitions on the disk in the graphic (not the order in the partition table).

I forgot you had OSS installed, sorry. If you're using OSS, you have to boot to the OSS menu and right-click on the properties for the OS entry and then select properties. In the Files sections you'll see the "boot.ini" file listed. Click on the boot.ini file in the list and then click the Edit button. You need to edit the boot.ini file FROM OSS to actually change it. You can't edit the one on the partition and have it work.

You also need to check the Partitions section and make sure the each Windows is booting from the correct partition (it will be marked with the checkered flag). If you've labeled your partitions with names, then you'll see the names in the list and it's easier to tell them apart.