Hard drive boot order change.

Hi,is it possible to change the boot order of hard drives using this director suite?
I`ve got two 250gb sata hard drives on my pc and i can`t figure how to change the boot order without physically switching the data cables inside the case.I`ve been into the bios and it won`t let me switch the order there.
Thanks in advance.

 

The drive marked Primary Active is the one the system will boot from. Obviously the boot files must be on this drive.


Colin

 

Both drives are listed as "primary active".I cloned the "c" drive to the "f" drive using true image 9.0,so they are both identical.I just want an easy way to change the boot order without having to get into the case everytime.Thanks.

 

Can you cut and paste your current boot.ini file?

You probably only need to change the contents from disk 1 to disk 2 or vice verca

Colin

 

How do you cut and paste a boot.ini file? I appreciate your help.

 

Press the Windows + PAUSE/BREAK button - System Properties box will pop up. Click on the Advanced tab, click on 3rd Setting button down (the last settings button counting from the top).

From the panel that pops up - click on Edit this will display your current boot.ini file in Notepad. Press Ctrl + A on your keyboard, that will select all the text. Next press Crtl + C this will copy the highlighted text to the clipboard.

Come to the forum (without performing any other copy or paste actions in the meantime), click on quick reply, then click on the quote tags option (the icon that looks like a piece of paper with a speechmark at the bottom) and click where the cursor is flashing (which will be between the words QUOTE /QUOTE press the shift and insert button and you'll have posted your boot.ini file to the forum.

Colin

 

Thanks for trying to help,bodgy,but honestly what you have suggested is above my current level of pc knowledge.

In my other 2 year old pc,i simply went into bios and changed the hard drive boot order--these drives are PATA DRIVES.
In my new pc with SATA hard drives--i go into bios and do the same thing but the order won`t change--for some reason bios won`t change the boot order.The only way is to physically switch the data cables on both drives.
I wish there were some software program available that could change SATA hard drive boot order,but i have seen none yet.
Again,thanks.

 

OK, it really sounds more complicated than it is. I'm only trying to get you to be able to paste the contents of the file here - the alteration that needs to be made is really really minor.

Just try the first two paragraphs - if you prefer rather than pasting it here, you could just retype it.

All other methods, of which there are 3, are more complicated.

Have you installed OSS ? You don't need to as you only have 1 operating system - but that will present another way of seeing what is in your boot.ini file. Don't install it if you haven't already.

The contents of my boot.ini file. The number in red is the one that we'll need to change, and then your system will boot from the right drive.

Colin

 

How do you install OSS? I notice is blacked out under the "TOOLS" heading.I ask because i will be installing windows vista rc2 in the near future.Perhaps OSS is blacked out to prevent installation with just 1 operating system installed.
I can get to my boot.ini file from "msconfig".Here it is:

boot loader
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)windows
operating systems
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)windows=microsoft winodws xp professional/noexecute=optinfastdetct

 

Hi,i changed the "rdisk value from 0 to 1" and windows booted from the second hard drive! I am one happy dude right now! I really thought i would always have to manually change data cables to change the boot order---now it can be done right from the desktop.Thank you very much for the excellent information.

Now i have to figure out why OSS is blacked out.

 

OK double check - you have two hardrrive both on S-ata one is on channel 1 the other on channel 2.

XP is on only 1 drive.

The drive with XP on has only one partition. If you only have a C: drive that is one partition - all drives have a minimum of 1 partition.

Change default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)windows

to

default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(1)windows

If this fails to work, just reboot the computer and select from the boot menu option #1 then alter boot.ini back and we'll have another rethink.

Colin

 

Hi,i solved the problem----detailed in post #10.Both drives are clones of each other.I `ve different desktop backgrounds on each drive so i can tell that i`m really booting from the selected drive.
Thank you very much again for your excellent information.

 

The Specify Boot Order Manually in OSS Selector would have worked and it's much simpler.