🚀 go-pugleaf

On Sun, 01 Sep 2002 01:35:21 GMT, "Bobb" <rjschmoe_nospam@netscape.net>
wrote:

>"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.
>>
>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 ?
>
>

I haven't got any real spare-time to hold your hand, so to speak, and
I've skimmed over what you've written, so appologies if I stear you in
the wrong direction. But basically it seems you have two confounding
factors here.

The first is that I beleive that Windows 98 must boot from a primary
partition on the first IDE channel, or at least appear to be that way,
in the initial bootstrap stages. 

The second is that the promise RAID card (unless this has changed
recently) is not a real hardware RAID card - it is hardware-assisted,
software RAID. That means that the BIOS (firmware) on the RAID card
knows how to access the RAID volume, and when the host operating loads,
it loads the Promise's OS-native driver which takes over from the
Promise's BIOS. So the question is, does the Promise BIOS "hook"
properly when you set the "boot adapter" to "IDE", in the Dell BIOS
setup ?. 

Obviously, when set to "Promise", it does, but that then means that
Windows 98 won't be on IDE:0. If the Promise doesn't "hook" properly
when set to "IDE", then perhaps moving the Win98 partition over to the
RAID volume might be a way out - obviously not easy, nor perhaps
desirable. 

Win 2K should be fine with "boot adapter" as "Promise", once you fix up
the BOOT.INI (on the RAID volume). So I'd first concentrate on getting
WinXP and Win2K booting, with the "boot adapter" as "Promise". Then play
around setting the "boot adapter" the other way.
___________________________________________
Richard Rudek. MicroDek, Sydney, Australia.
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