Faster Startup For Windows 2000?

[Dave-H]

This is fascinating stuff, and it looks from Meados' findings that it's well worth doing.

I still can't resolve the problem with my system though.

JacobMax suggested earlier that it may be because my Windows 2000 drive is not on a primary disk partition.

I have only ever used fdisk to partition my drives, which will not allow more than one primary partition on a physical drive.

I realise that there are many other partition management programs out there, so could someone recommend one (ideally free!) that will allow me to make my D: drive into a primary partition, instead of a logical volume within a secondary partition as it is now.

At least then I can eliminate that as being the possible problem why the Windows XP and 2003 boot files won't work on my system.

I can boot into Windows 98 and backup my Windows 2000 (D:\WIN-NT) system files folder onto another drive, so if the original gets lost by changing the status of the D: partition it won't matter.

The critical thing is that the new second primary partition must still be drive D:, and even more vital, the operation must on no account jeopardise the data which is on drive C:, or I will be deep in the brown stuff!

Any suggestions gratefully received.

Dave.

[Ninho]

This is fascinating stuff, and it looks from Meados' findings that it's well worth doing.

I still can't resolve the problem with my system though.

I realise that there are many other partition management programs out there, so could someone recommend one (ideally free!) that will allow me to make my D: drive into a primary partition, instead of a logical volume within a secondary partition as it is now.

Hi again, Dave! Sorry I didn't come back to you again earlier, have been away.

Reading the whole thread again, concurr with James that source of your trouble maybe the NT loaders from XP and 2003 no longer booting from a secondary, while 2k had no problem with it. It would be a strange regression, but quite possible with Microsoft software.

My recommendation of partition mgmt software : Ranish. You'll need to learn and practice some however before you touch your disk. In any event backup, backup, backup ! Ranish partition manager has an active and helpful support group hosted at Yahoo groups. Oh, did I tell you it's free ?

[James_A]

I think I know why this:

...

Windows XP

W/ 2000

Didn't boot

...

has happened.

It's because the Windows 2000 version of NTLDR needs two additional files:

arcldr.exe and arcsetup.exe.

I now have a second theory why Dave's system won't work. Sometimes the boot sector in a logical partition has an incorrect value for the "hidden sectors". This value should be the number of sectors from the start of the disk to the boot sector, but is often only 63, which is the number of sectors to the last partition table.

Again, to use Ninho's phrase, this would point to a regression from the Windows 2000 NTLDR to the Windows XP NTLDR. As with my last theory, I don't know for sure.

The good news is that if D: is changed from a logical partition to a primary primary then Windows 2000 should still keep the same drive letters. The reason it is D: to start with, is that there are NO primary partitions on any other drives (see the screenshot posted above).

What I don't know is whether Windows 98 will recognize a second primary partition at all, or maybe ignore it. Information around the Internet seems a bit vague about this and my old, old PartitionMagic manual has conflicting information on different pages.

[Ninho]

What I don't know is whether Windows 98 will recognize a second primary partition at all, or maybe ignore it. Information around the Internet seems a bit vague about this and my old, old PartitionMagic manual has conflicting information on different pages.

I can answer this last point : Win 98 will recognise several primaries and assign them letters, as long as they are partition types that it knows, i.e. any flavour of FAT. It won't touch an NTFS (of course), but it is smart enough to "skip over" one and look for other DOS/Win partitions. There are certain bugs in DOS 7's IO.SYS partition enumeration code and letter assignment, only in certain cases where there exist also non-MS partitions, which is not a concern for the OP, I think.

[Dave-H]

Sorry for the delay in replying everyone, I've been away.

Interesting the two files that James_A mentions.

Neither of those two files are on my system except in the WIN-NT\ServicePackFiles\i386 folder.

I tried copying them to C:\ to see if that was in fact the cause of my problem, but it made no difference.

It would have been great if it had been that simple!

I will have to bite the bullet and experiment with disk partition managers, to see if I can convert that D: drive to a primary partition, preferably without losing everything.

I will be doing backups first of course!

[James_A]

I have read your post twice to make sure, but:

... Neither of those two files are on my system except in the WIN-NT\ServicePackFiles\i386 folder. ...

really surprises me.

Are you able to acquire an old version of PartitionMagic? This program, written by PowerQuest some years ago could do this partition conversion with ease without data loss. I used to use version 6.0 which handled Windows 2000 NTFS partitions as well, but not those created by Windows XP.

I now use a free LiveCD with GParted on it, but must warn you that I once lost all the data on a FAT32 partition because of an error. Maybe the error was part GParted and partly my misunderstanding of an on-screen message, but I still hesitate in recommending it.

PartitionMagic, incidentally, seems to be one of a long list of programs which Symantec have effectively killed-off by acquisition.

Edited September 17, 2008 by James_A

[Ninho]

... because the Windows 2000 version of NTLDR needs two additional files:

arcldr.exe and arcsetup.exe.

Hmmm... those 2 are used for SCSI disks I believe. Definately not used for booting from IDE !

--

Ninho

[Ascii2]

... because the Windows 2000 version of NTLDR needs two additional files:

arcldr.exe and arcsetup.exe.

Hmmm... those 2 are used for SCSI disks I believe. Definately not used for booting from IDE !

--

Ninho

arcsetup.exe and arcldr.exe do appear to be required. I would attach the archive with all ntldr, NTDETECT.COM, arcsetup.exe, and arcldr.exe; but MSFN.org forums seems to limit attachment size to 200K (attachment would be like 303 KB).

I think arcsetup.exe and arcldr.exe have something to do with ARC paths.

EDIT: For SCSI, Ntbootdd.sys is often used. By default, Ntbootdd.sys is not installed when not necessary.

Edited September 19, 2008 by Ascii2

[Meados]

arcsetup.exe and arcldr.exe do appear to be required. I would attach the archive with all ntldr, NTDETECT.COM, arcsetup.exe, and arcldr.exe; but MSFN.org forums seems to limit attachment size to 200K (attachment would be like 303 KB).

I think arcsetup.exe and arcldr.exe have something to do with ARC paths.

For SCSI, Ntbootdd.sys is used. By default, Ntbootdd.sys is not installed when not necessary.

I have that files, I can do the test of windows xp with windows 2000 boot files if you want.

[Ascii2]

I have that files, I can do the test of windows xp with windows 2000 boot files if you want.

I would like the test performed. The change in boot time should be interesting.

[Dave-H]

... because the Windows 2000 version of NTLDR needs two additional files:

arcldr.exe and arcsetup.exe.

Hmmm... those 2 are used for SCSI disks I believe. Definately not used for booting from IDE !

--

Ninho

arcsetup.exe and arcldr.exe do appear to be required. I would attach the archive with all ntldr, NTDETECT.COM, arcsetup.exe, and arcldr.exe; but MSFN.org forums seems to limit attachment size to 200K (attachment would be like 303 KB).

I think arcsetup.exe and arcldr.exe have something to do with ARC paths.

For SCSI, Ntbootdd.sys is used. By default, Ntbootdd.sys is not installed when not necessary.

Curiouser and curiouser!

Both my C:/D: drive and my E: drive are SCSI drives.

Not only does arcsetup.exe and arcldr.exe only exist on my system in the ServicePackFiles folder, Ntbootdd.sys does not appear to be present on my system at all!

So what does that mean?

I have looked at PartitionMagic BTW, and it looks very good.

Unfortunately it's not free!

I'll have another look at the Ranish program, and at GParted too.

Thanks all.

[Ascii2]

... because the Windows 2000 version of NTLDR needs two additional files:

arcldr.exe and arcsetup.exe.

Hmmm... those 2 are used for SCSI disks I believe. Definately not used for booting from IDE !

--

Ninho

arcsetup.exe and arcldr.exe do appear to be required. I would attach the archive with all ntldr, NTDETECT.COM, arcsetup.exe, and arcldr.exe; but MSFN.org forums seems to limit attachment size to 200K (attachment would be like 303 KB).

I think arcsetup.exe and arcldr.exe have something to do with ARC paths.

For SCSI, Ntbootdd.sys is used. By default, Ntbootdd.sys is not installed when not necessary.

Curiouser and curiouser!

Both my C:/D: drive and my E: drive are SCSI drives.

Not only does arcsetup.exe and arcldr.exe only exist on my system in the ServicePackFiles folder, Ntbootdd.sys does not appear to be present on my system at all!

So what does that mean?

A typo existed in my previous post "For SCSI, Ntbootdd.sys is used." should have been "For SCSI, Ntbootdd.sys is often used.". Using Ntbootdd.sys is normal for SCSI disks. However, it may be optional if the system BIOS is capable of loading the system files from the SCSI disk. If you are using server boards with onboard SCSI controllers (with support in BIOS) or simply have the BIOS support for handling of additional SCSI contollers, the Multi method (usual for IDE drives) may be used to load the operating system. Examining your signiture, I speculate this to be the case.

Posting the contents of your "boot.ini" file may be helpful.

Posting the contents of your "boot.ini" file should be helpful to determine the answer.

EDIT: I think it should also be mentioned that the Ntbootdd.sys file is not same file for all SCSI controllers.

Edited September 19, 2008 by Ascii2

[Dave-H]

Ah right, that explains why I dont have the Ntbootdd.sys file.

My motherboard is a server board (Supermicro X5DAE if anyone's interested!)

It has no on-board SCSI controllers, but uses an Adaptec PCI card which is actually a legacy from my previous system.

I posted my boot.ini file contents earlier in the thread.

Edited September 20, 2008 by Dave-H

[Dave-H]

OK, I finally "bit the bullet" and tried changing my disk partitions.

I used the Ranish partition editor, which I was very impressed with, thanks Ninho!

Well, after lots of agonising and head scratching, I'm now back as I was before!

It soon came back to me exactly why I had the drives partitioned as they were.

I converted the D: partition to a primary partition with no problem.

Unfortunately, when I rebooted I discovered that it was no longer drive D:!

It had become drive F:, and the old E: had become D:, and the old F: had become E:.

This is no good, because although I can redefine the drive letters using Windows 2000's disk manager, this does not change what DOS and Windows 98 sees.

The whole Windows 2000 system configuration depends on Windows 2000 being on the D: drive, and I certainly don't want the drive letters being different on the two operating systems!

No matter what I did, I couldn't resolve this.

If I disconnected the other two drives, the Windows 2000 partition became D: again.

However as soon as I reconnected the other SCSI (E:) drive, it became D: and shunted the Windows 2000 drive down to E:.

Even deleting the partition and reformatting the other SCSI drive didn't make any difference, it always became drive D:, whether it was a primary partition or a logical drive within an extended partition.

(Many hours I spent verifying and formatting drives yesterday!)

To add insult to injury, this didn't even do what it was supposed to do!

I had the system with just one physical disk connected, partitioned into C: and D: drives, both primary DOS partitions.

Windows 98 on C: and Windows 2000 on D:.

All worked fine, even though I couldn't leave it like that as I obviously need the other drives.

I then put the Windows 2003 NTLDR file into C:\ and rebooted to Windows 2000.

Exactly the same result as before -

"\WIN-NT\SYSTEM32\CONFIG\SYSTEM is missing or corrupt".

So the whole exercise was a complete waste of time!

The 2003 NTLDR still doesn't work on my system even if Windows 2000 is on a primary partition.

In fact the only way I could get the drive letters to be what I wanted again was to reformat D: as a logical drive within an extended partition, as it was before.

Then adding the other drives (also logical drives within extended partitions) didn't change the drive letters.

So, a large number of hours spent, terrified of losing my data, all for nothing!

Anyway, I am now back to normal, and haven't lost anything, apart from a day of my life.........

What I'm now considering is whether to try changing over the two OSs, and having Windows 2000 on C: and Windows 98 on D:.

That would put Windows 2000 on the active primary first partition on the drive, which would more closely match the configuration of a single boot system.

Anyone thinks that's worth a try (it won't be easy, as I don't want to reinstall both OSs from scratch)?

[Ambassador]

You may also want to try Fred Vorck's tutorial tomake a faster 2000 install.