hard drive boot order

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Archived from groups: alt.sys.pc-clone.dell,comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage (More info?)

BIOS gurus: My Dell Dimension manual says that the BIOS looks down
its boot order list of hard drives until it finds one with an operating system.
Then it passes control to the ntldr there that loads the operating system.
So I put my usual system hard drive 2nd in the list, and I put a partitioned
(but unformatted) new hard drive at the head of the list. The boot time error
code says "No operating system found." OK, so I formatted the new hard
drive so as to give it a boot sector and tried again. Same error code.
OK, so I set the new partition active with Disk Management and tried again.
Now it says "No ntldr found".

The question is: Why didn't the BIOS just move on to the 2nd hard drive
where it would have found the operating system?


Miles2Go

 

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Archived from groups: alt.sys.pc-clone.dell,comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage (More info?)

>BIOS gurus: My Dell Dimension manual says that the BIOS looks down
>its boot order list of hard drives until it finds one with an operating system.
>Then it passes control to the ntldr there that loads the operating system.
>So I put my usual system hard drive 2nd in the list, and I put a partitioned
>(but unformatted) new hard drive at the head of the list. The boot time error
>code says "No operating system found." OK, so I formatted the new hard
>drive so as to give it a boot sector and tried again. Same error code.
>OK, so I set the new partition active with Disk Management and tried again.
> Now it says "No ntldr found".
>
>The question is: Why didn't the BIOS just move on to the 2nd hard drive
>where it would have found the operating system?
>
I am far from a Guru, but it is likely that the Bios only searches
until it finds a disk structure like a MBR (master boot record) or
such. There might be other shortcomings or problems with the Bios as
well. Perhaps a new version would improve the situation.

If you want to test this I have included a link to a Gateway compuetr
HDD testing & zeroing utility Gwscan. It works with any brand of HDD.
Not sure about scsi or serial ATa HDDs.
http://support.gateway.com/support/drivers/getFile.asp?id=19707&uid=69753249

I have found it much, much faster than similar programs from HDD
manufacturers. Of course you would only need to do the "quick" zeroing
which only writes zeros to the very start of the drive. Although it is
so fast that it would only take an hour to zero the whole drive.

Whenever I use a tool like this I ALWAYS unplug the other HDDs. Its
too easy too say oops!

 

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"Miles Promo" <Miles@LongLines.com> wrote in message news:5bzLd.2863$Nn1.2742@newsread1.news.pas.earthlink.net...
> BIOS gurus: My Dell Dimension manual says that the BIOS looks down
> its boot order list of hard drives until it finds one with an operating system.

Until it finds one 'capable of having an operating system'.
So if you have it partitioned with a primary partition, it qualifies.

> Then it passes control to the ntldr there that loads the operating system.
> So I put my usual system hard drive 2nd in the list, and I put a partitioned
> (but unformatted) new hard drive at the head of the list. The boot time error
> code says "No operating system found."

And it was probably correct.

> OK, so I formatted the new hard drive so as to give it a boot sector and tried again.
> Same error code.

Of course.

> OK, so I set the new partition active with Disk Management and tried again.
> Now it says "No ntldr found".

And again it was right, obviously as you didn't put the OS (which includes ntldr)
on it too.

>
> The question is: Why didn't the BIOS just move on to the 2nd hard drive
> where it would have found the operating system?

Because it found a primary partition on the drive it was supposed to boot from. So it tried and it couldn't

>
>
> Miles2Go

 

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"Folkert Rienstra" <see_reply-to@myweb.nl> wrote:
> "Miles Promo" <Miles@LongLines.com> wrote:
>> BIOS gurus: My Dell Dimension manual says that the BIOS looks down
>> its boot order list of hard drives until it finds one with an operating system.
>
> Until it finds one 'capable of having an operating system'.
> So if you have it partitioned with a primary partition, it qualifies.
>
>> Then it passes control to the ntldr there that loads the operating system.
>> So I put my usual system hard drive 2nd in the list, and I put a partitioned
>> (but unformatted) new hard drive at the head of the list. The boot time error
>> code says "No operating system found."
>
> And it was probably correct.
>
>> OK, so I formatted the new hard drive so as to give it a boot sector and tried again.
>> Same error code.
>
> Of course.
>
>> OK, so I set the new partition active with Disk Management and tried again.
>> Now it says "No ntldr found".
>
> And again it was right, obviously as you didn't put the OS (which includes ntldr)
> on it too.
>
>>
>> The question is: Why didn't the BIOS just move on to the 2nd hard drive
>> where it would have found the operating system?
>
> Because it found a primary partition on the drive it was supposed to boot from.
> So it tried and it couldn't


How could a hard drive NOT have a primary partition (and still be useable for
something)? Aren't extended partitions just appendages to primary partitions?
That is, can just extended partitions exist on a hard drive without there being
any primary partitions?


Miles2Go

 

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"Miles Promo" <Miles@LongLines.com> wrote in message
news:1UJLd.3664$cl1.1831@newsread3.news.pas.earthlink.net...
>
> "Folkert Rienstra" <see_reply-to@myweb.nl> wrote:
>> "Miles Promo" <Miles@LongLines.com> wrote:
>>> BIOS gurus: My Dell Dimension manual says that the BIOS looks down
>>> its boot order list of hard drives until it finds one with an operating
>>> system.
>>
>> Until it finds one 'capable of having an operating system'.
>> So if you have it partitioned with a primary partition, it qualifies.
>>
>>> Then it passes control to the ntldr there that loads the operating
>>> system.
>>> So I put my usual system hard drive 2nd in the list, and I put a
>>> partitioned
>>> (but unformatted) new hard drive at the head of the list. The boot time
>>> error
>>> code says "No operating system found."
>>
>> And it was probably correct.
>>
>>> OK, so I formatted the new hard drive so as to give it a boot sector and
>>> tried again. Same error code.
>>
>> Of course.
>>
>>> OK, so I set the new partition active with Disk Management and tried
>>> again.
>>> Now it says "No ntldr found".
>>
>> And again it was right, obviously as you didn't put the OS (which
>> includes ntldr) on it too.
>>
>>>
>>> The question is: Why didn't the BIOS just move on to the 2nd hard drive
>>> where it would have found the operating system?
>>
>> Because it found a primary partition on the drive it was supposed to boot
>> from.
>> So it tried and it couldn't
>
>
> How could a hard drive NOT have a primary partition (and still be useable
> for
> something)? Aren't extended partitions just appendages to primary
> partitions?
> That is, can just extended partitions exist on a hard drive without there
> being
> any primary partitions?
>
>
> Miles2Go

A hard drive can happily have only an extended partition.

 

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Miles Promo wrote:
> "Folkert Rienstra" <see_reply-to@myweb.nl> wrote:
> > "Miles Promo" <Miles@LongLines.com> wrote:
> > > BIOS gurus: My Dell Dimension manual says that the BIOS looks down
> > > its boot order list of hard drives until it finds one with an operating system.
> >
> > Until it finds one 'capable of having an operating system'.
> > So if you have it partitioned with a primary partition, it qualifies.
> >
> > > Then it passes control to the ntldr there that loads the operating system.
> > > So I put my usual system hard drive 2nd in the list, and I put a partitioned
> > > (but unformatted) new hard drive at the head of the list. The boot time error
> > > code says "No operating system found."
> >
> > And it was probably correct.
> >
> > > OK, so I formatted the new hard drive so as to give it a boot sector and tried again.
> > > Same error code.
> >
> > Of course.
> >
> > > OK, so I set the new partition active with Disk Management and tried again.
> > > Now it says "No ntldr found".
> >
> > And again it was right, obviously as you didn't put the OS (which includes ntldr)
> > on it too.
> >
> > >
> > > The question is: Why didn't the BIOS just move on to the 2nd hard drive
> > > where it would have found the operating system?
> >
> > Because it found a primary partition on the drive it was supposed to boot from.
> > So it tried and it couldn't
>
>
> How could a hard drive NOT have a primary partition (and still be useable for
> something)? Aren't extended partitions just appendages to primary partitions?
> That is, can just extended partitions exist on a hard drive without there being
> any primary partitions?

Plonk!

>
>
> Miles2Go

 

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Archived from groups: alt.sys.pc-clone.dell,comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage (More info?)

>
>
> How could a hard drive NOT have a primary partition (and still be useable
> for
> something)? Aren't extended partitions just appendages to primary
> partitions?
> That is, can just extended partitions exist on a hard drive without there
> being
> any primary partitions?
>
>
> Miles2Go



An Extended Partition is a primary partition and counts as one of the four
allowed on a hard drive.

Brian

 

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Archived from groups: alt.sys.pc-clone.dell,comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage (More info?)

"Brian K" <iibntgyea4 REMOVE_THIS@hotmail.com> wrote in message news:IrTLd.144321$K7.115653@news-server.bigpond.net.au...
>
>>
>>
>> How could a hard drive NOT have a primary partition (and still be useable
>> for
>> something)? Aren't extended partitions just appendages to primary
>> partitions?
>> That is, can just extended partitions exist on a hard drive without there
>> being
>> any primary partitions?
>>
>
> An Extended Partition is a primary partition and counts as one of the four
> allowed on a hard drive.


OK. I also found these words intoned by the automated MS guru:
"A hard disk can contain four primary partitions, one of which can be
an extended partition that can contain an unlimited number of logical drives."

I guess my concept of "extended partition" was corrupted.


Miles2Go