Mirror Boot Drive (add entry to boot.ini)

[zoldy]

I have mirrored the boot on my windows 2000 print server. After doing so I received a message that says I will not be able to boot from the drive until I add the appropriate entry to the boot.ini file. However I am unable to find any information regarding the required change.

Does anyone know what entry I need to add?

Thank You

 

[PHead2]

The boot.ini file is located in the root of your system drive. You need to add an entry at the end which points to the boot partition on your other drive:

multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(1)\WINNT="abc"

You can write whatever you like in the quotes where I wrote "abc" to identify the entry. This will show up in the boot menu when you start up the machine.

The above is most likely the entry you need to make, it may different depending on how you're disks are setup. The partition will definitely be called WINNT (it's WINDOWS for Win XP or 2003). This assumes your mirrored drive is IDE and on the same controller. Basically you need to determine the correct arcname style path to the mirror drive.

There should also be an entry on the line after '[boot loader] that has timeout=x where x is how long you want the boot menu to stay on before the default choice is loaded. The default choice is whichever boot partition is listed first.

 

[zoldy]

Thank you for the response. They are SCSI drives on the same controller. Therefore would the entry be different?

 

[surfk4t]

Zoldy

With mirrored drives. You better off creating a NT Boot disk.

There is no point in creating a new boot.ini file on the on the boot sector on the first disk. If it knackered- it will not beable to read the boot sector.

Best bet would be to create a boot disk, by copying the Boot files NTDetect.com and Boot.ini from the original disk and copy them onto a floppy disk.

Just edit the boot.ini file so it point to the secondary scsi drive.

See article 301680 on MS\Technet. It tells you what to do.

 

[zoldy]

Why and how would I point to the secondary drive?

Thanks for the reply

 

[zoldy]

Oh Nevermind I think the light just went on. the message that I am getting just means that I can not boot from the secondary drive in the event of a failure. I thought it meant I could not boot at all. So what you are saying is create this boot disk to use it if the primary fails.

Is that right?

 

[Omnicef]

That is exactly right. The boot disk Boot.ini file will point to the second disk.

Thnks in advance to all users out there who continually answer all of our questions. Although I try to answer some questions, I usually am asking.

 

[surfk4t]

Zoldy

Omnicef is right. Hope you understand? Sorry for not being clearer.

Cheers

 

[PHead2]

For SCSI drives the format is:

scsi(X)disk(Y)risk(Z)partition(W)\WINNT="name"

X is the ordinal number of the adapter as identified by the NTBOOTDD.SYS driver (SCSI drivers).

Y is the SCSI ID of the target disk.

Z is the SCSI logical unit number (LUN) of the target disk.

W is the partition number.

name is whatever you want to call this boot option.

 

[AJP69]

Phead's answer is right for older SCSI cards but most modern controllers support the Multi() option.

The layout of the BOOT.INI file is as follows:

[boot loader]
timeout=1
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT="P1 Windows 2k Server"
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINNT="P2 Windows 2k Server BACKUP"

The timeout setting is set to just 1 second, this allows the system to boot quickly and enables it to be caught if the backup operating system is required. The default setting is set to the operating system to be loaded if a selection has not been made within the timeout of 1 second. The [Operating Systems] section lists the operating systems configured on the PC. In this case the user will be given a menu of "P1 Windows 2k Server" located on Partition 1 or "P2 Windows 2k Server BACKUP" located on Partition 2.

Your will need to make sure that both partitions have the updated BOOT.INI

It is a very good idea to create a NTx Emergency Boot floppy, format a diskette under Windows NT so that the NT boot sector is copied to the diskette, then copy the following files to the floppy from your NT hard disk.

1.BOOT.INI
2.NTLDR
3.NTDETECT.COM
4.NTBOOTDD.SYS.SCSI
5.KERNEL32.DLL

You only need 1,2 & 3 to boot an IDE PC, Number 4 is your specific SCSI driver and number 5 is useful to have to hand as it is a target for people wishing to cripple your server.

You will need to edit the BOOT.INI file on the floppy disk so that it can boot from any partition, here is an example of a BOOT.INI that waits 10 seconds for you to make a choice, it then defaults to partition 1, if that fails the you can reboot and choose each partition in succession. If none boot, check that there are actual NT partitions and that none of them are hidden.

[boot loader]
timeout=10
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT="P1 Emergency boot on Partition1"
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINNT="P2 Emergency boot on Partition2"
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(3)\WINNT="P3 Emergency boot on Partition3"
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(4)\WINNT="P4 Emergency boot on Partition4"
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(5)\WINNT="P5 Emergency boot on Partition5"
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(6)\WINNT="P6 Emergency boot on Partition6"

The multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition options allow for the selection of disks on different hard disk controllers, but most modern controllers work with the above settings.

Hope this helps

AJ