[Lance1]

Here it is. I’m stuck at home for the next month and a half on rehab from an injury at work. I’m bored stiff!! So I’m fart’n around with ghost and thought, hey! If I ghost to a slave, is there a way to make that slave bootable? So I ran my ghost 14.0. Copied my primary with MBR and made it active to the slave. Restarted the computer and low and behold, I’m still at the primary. (See Attachment "1") Note the drive letters! C:\ is system and D:\ is active! I know I can’t but I tried anyway to change the system drive letter. (See Attachment "2") The rule of thumb is; the bootable drive is set as master! I want it to be the slave!! So, do I need a third party boot loader? I thought of it but am undecided as to which one. Is there a change in the boot.ini I can make?

This is all for fun Guys 'n Gals! so let’s make this work! Help keep an old mans mind occupied…

[Megabite]

Try moving the D drive in place of the C drive and leave the C drive out and see if it will start up (check to see what the jumpers on the Hard drive first so it is set to Master)

[Lance1]

Originally Posted by Megabite

Try moving the D drive in place of the C drive and leave the C drive out and see if it will start up (check to see what the jumpers on the Hard drive first so it is set to Master)

That’s just too easy! Like I side, this is for fun folks. I want to find a way to make a slave boot. Rack you’re brains Megabite! What do you think?

[Mighty Mouse]

Originally Posted by Lance1

I want to find a way to make a slave boot.

lol i've gotta have a go at this.......

hop into BIOS, go to Boot Tab, hit enter on HDD, choose the Slave drive, exit/save.

yeah, i know >>> no traditional Boot Manager

[frankjohn]

Clone [change jumpers] You have alot of time yourself to try

[Elvandil]

A bootloader would make it easy. I use GAG most often.

But their is no reason why both drives can't be C:. In fact, if it is a clone, then the second drive is already C:. In the NT family, the drive letters are not intrinsic to the partitions, so the second drive will be D: when looked at from the first drive, but C: when you are running from that drive.

Drive letters are kind of an anachronism and really are not too useful. Vista even has the option to dispense with them altogether and just use drive names if you choose. Drive letters may still be useful under some circumstances, but they are ridden with peril. Many people have destroyed their installations by believing that they were partitioning or formatting the correct partition when drive letters are very changeable. Identification is better done by location or size, or both.

Free boot managers:

GAG Graphical Boot Loader
XOSL (Extended Operating System Loader)
Boot-Us (Graphical or command-line)

[Lance1]

Mighty mouse you dog! That got me booting from the slave! Now for the next dilemma. My D:\ is now system and my C:\ is active. Elvandil stated that; “Drive letters are kind of an anachronism (Leftover) and really are not too useful” If that is so, why is it that I can’t change the drives? How to release C:\ as active? And set D:\ as C:\ and active?

[Lance1]

Well! Here’s what I went and did. I went into regedit and to the following;HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\MountedDevices (See attachment) From here I made the following changes, C: to D: and D: to C: and its complete. BUT! For fun, I deleted the old C:\ which is and was D:\ I received many warnings, but went ahead and did it anyway! So I’m at an impasse. If I restart, I may not get into the OS. On the other hand, I can’t sit here and do nothing as I am now unto the breach… So! I’ll wait for, let say as of now, 9:40pm till 9:50pm and just, as they say… Go For It!

[Elvandil]

You're headed for trouble. If you booted from the slave, then it should see itself as C: already. If it doesn't, then it can't have been a "clone" since a clone is an exact copy and would also be C:.

But changing a drive letter is infinitely more difficult than what you have done, as I'm sure you will discover.

No matter which drive you boot from, that drive should be C: and the other D: when running from that C: drive.

[Lance1]

Originally Posted by Elvandil

You're headed for trouble. If you booted from the slave, then it should see itself as C: already. If it doesn't, then it can't have been a "clone" since a clone is an exact copy and would also be C:.

But changing a drive letter is infinitely more difficult than what you have done, as I'm sure you will discover.

No matter which drive you boot from, that drive should be C: and the other D: when running from that C: drive.

Well Elvandil, as you predicted, the inevitable occurred… On boot up, no access. An easy fix. Boot from the XP CD, recovery consol, Fixboot, and… I’m back in! Well that was fun!! Tomorrow I’ll find something just as fun to do.

Thanks to all for this little jaunt!

[Elvandil]

LOL. You have to think like Hansel and Gretel and always leave a way back from wherever you go. So long as you can recover, you're golden.