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Conference noted::ibmpc-95

Title:IBM PCs, clones, DOS, etc.
Notice:Intro in 1-11, Windows stuff in NOTED::MSWINDOWS please
Moderator:TARKIN::LINND
Created:Mon Jan 02 1995
Last Modified:Fri Jun 06 1997
Last Successful Update:Fri Jun 06 1997
Number of topics:3023
Total number of notes:28404

2979.0. "Secondary IDE boot ?" by RSNC::BRUIL (If it's broken we'll fix it) Mon Apr 07 1997 02:11

    
        	Gents,
    
    Following question ;
    
    Situation ; Pentium with two EIDE ports, on both port one disk as
    master, disk on primary port with W95 , disk on secondary W95 osr2 for
    test purpose.
    
    Problem ; I want to be able to play around with osr2 without using my
    first disk.
    What I do is go in the system bios and disable the first disk, setting
    it on "not installed" causing the master on the sec. port to become C:
    When I restart the system to boot from the second disk the boot will
    fail after a few seconds ; bleu screen etc..
    If I move this disk to the primary port the system will boot without
    any problems.
    
    Question ; Can't I boot from the second master ???
    
    
    Ton.
T.RTitleUserPersonal
Name		DateLines
2979.1Been there! Done that!ALFSS1::alfdhcp4_54.alf.dec.com::GARABOCyberNeuroSurgeon GeneralMon Apr 07 1997 16:1812
I have successfully booted from a master on the secondary IDE using 
the procedure you describe (i.e., disabling the primary master and 
slave, in my case).

You might look at using FDISK from a floppy to set the primary 
partition on your primary slave drive to ACTIVE. Also, you may need 
to write the Master Boot Record.

On my system, I had disabled the primary IDE drives, then installed 
DOS follwed by WIN95 on the secondary master (I, too, used OSR2). 
Worked like a charm, and no problems booting so long as the primary 
IDE drives were both disabled.
2979.2removed ?RSNC::BRUILIf it's broken we'll fix itTue Apr 08 1997 02:309
    
    
    With primary drives diabled do you mean like I did, disable them in the
    bios and leave them spinning in the system or did you removed the
    drives from the primary bus ??
    
    
    Ton.
2979.3Disable Primary EIDE and leave drive in systemNETCAD::GENOVATue Apr 08 1997 17:595
    
    You can leave the drive in the system, once you disable them in the
    bios.  They won't be seen!
    
    /art
2979.4bios disabling does not alwaysANGST::legoe.zko.dec.com::angst.zko.dec.com::marshallWed Apr 09 1997 09:1012
   > You can leave the drive in the system, once you disable them in the
   > bios.  They won't be seen!

This is not always true.  With my system at home (Award bios, Asus
XP55T2P4 motherboard) I have tried this and both Windows NT and Linux
had no troubles seeing and accessing the drives.  It is true that
the initial bootstrap has to be on a drive that is enabled and seen
by the bios.  With Windows NT the partition with the Windows NT root
does not even have to be on a drive enabled in the bios.  (The partition
with ntloader, boot.ini, etc. does.)

Chris
2979.5ALFSS1::alfdhcp4_54.alf.dec.com::GARABOCyberNeuroSurgeon GeneralThu Apr 10 1997 09:173
I had disabled the primary master and slave in BIOS without removing 
them, and then booted a testbed system (which had the beta of 
OFFICE97) from the secondary master.