🚀 go-pugleaf

The more I'm researching, the worse it looks.
it seems like the onboard IDE drive boot path is
multi(0),(0),(0),(w)\windows
and the Promise card is also (0),(0),(0),(w)\windows, so how to have them
both co-exist ? Not looking good. I've tried lots of  other combos with no
luck.
Changed the 'multi' to 'scsi' for the Promise and died. Had to move drive to
another box to edit boot.ini so that I could get back to my original
problem.
Do I have to give up on the mirroring and put both (the 98 + XP ) drives
either onboard or on the Promise to select the same prefix with the last
digit being the difference ?


"Bobb" <RjSchmoe_nospam@netscape.net> wrote in message
news:rX6c9.67613$kp.723760@rwcrnsc52.ops.asp.att.net...
> I volunteered to get this thing going and I can use some help with " the
big
> picture" on these Promise disk controller boards.  ( I reread this and
know
> I ramble on here, but put it all here in case any specific details matter
> When I say 'the IDE drive" I mean the disk using the onboard IDE channel)
>
> I'd like a boot menu to appear:
> Win98 from onboard IDE primary channel - master - primary partition
> Win2000  this same drive - second partition
> XP from a mirror set on a Promise TX2 card.
>
> The PC  has 2 XP drives mirrored - works fine. But now  the PC needs to
> multiboot with Win98/2000. I have Win98/2000 on a second disk and it boots
> fine standalone also. So I could make either of these the 'boot drive'
with
> a proper boot.ini file on either. I enabled debugging at bootime on XP and
I
> can see it boots from (0),(0),(0),(2) (Partition #1 has diags on it.)
while
> on the Promise card. I'd like to leave these 2 drives alone. So that's it
> for the Promise card - my other boot disk will be on the motherboard
primary
> IDE channel.
> .
> Here's where I'm stuck: - with the (x),(y),(z),(w)\dir      designation
and
> which drive contains the boot.ini file.
> Also for the Promise card , should the boot string read  MULTI x,y,z,w  or
> SCSI x,y,z,w
>
> If it matters:
> From the top, in the Dell Bios I have to choose the boot adapter (IDE or
> Promise)
> If I use the Promise controller ,  then IT sees its path as  0,0,0,2 -
boots
> fine
> I then add the 98/2000 drive to the motherboard and .... then I have to
> change the BIOS setup ?
> Either way , what should that boot path be ?? I thought 1,0,0,2 (since
> windows would consider wherever it just booted from to be (0) - the
PRomise
> card ), but I read at MS support:
> "X is the ordinal number of the adapter and should always be 0 if IDE."
> OK so then I tried the onboard IDE as controller 0 - BUT in the BIOS it
> looks for the Promise card first !
> If I change the boot order of the cards, it just fails when I try XP and
> 2000.  Is this a problem due to the Dell BIOS setup , or should it work
> either way ? I can make the IDE drive drive C and change the bios boot to
> onboard and it boots fine. But trying either 2000 or XP no worky. 2000
gives
> me a "can't find ntoskernel" and XP reports " Win2000 error..." (Since it
> says Win2000 , I'm assuming it's NOT going to the Promise card at all.)
Lots
> of permutations like this that I've tried.
>
> The users of the PC are not computer wizards (like me !!) . They just need
> to boot diff OS'es to support diff apps for 6 months, so I need this boot
> menu selection to work. I'll rename the onscreen strings to show as their
> apps. Someone out there must have been here before ( I hope) A little help
> on the Dell BIOS selection (if I choose onboard and then via the menu
select
> Promise drive to boot ... ) and the IDE setup .
>
> On MY clone (ASUS)pc I have a ABIT / Hotrod disk controller, it seems
> "smarter" to figure out that there are drives on the motherboard as well
as
> its own card.  On my Hotrod card it uses MULTI x,y,z,w syntax even though
> when booted the controller appears as scsi.
>
>
>
>