[Recovery Console]

Wouldn't it be easier starting from what has already been done?

It sure would and I have already d/l the Rec Con cd from the vlaurie site - thank you. Now all I have to do is understand the logic behind it so that I might be able to boot into XP on the hdd's as well.

Thanks again.

[Recovery Console]

I couldn't get either idea to perform so have more work to do there. I will also burn all relevant files to a cd to try booting to C: and E:(slave) and Recovery Console from that. Will let you know later how things went.

Thank you all for your interest and the Happiest of New Years to everyone for 2008.

RP..

[Recovery Console]

Thank you - booting problem resolved.

Re: Recovery Console.

My boot.ini options are:

(1) boot from C:

(2) boot from E: (slave drive) and

(3) boot to Recovery Console

all of which perform as expected when booting normally.

I have made a simple boot floppy by copying Boot.ini, NTLDR and NTDETECT.Com and it also works as expected for (1) and (2) but trying to boot to the Recovery Console halts with the error message

Windows could not start because the followiing file is missing or corrupt:

<Windows Root>\System32\hal.dll

Please re-install a copy of the above file

Hal.dll is obviously NOT missing as (1) and (2) can boot and the file is located in the System32 folder.

I've tried setting the system environment variable Windows Root=C:\Windows with no success.

Any fixes please?

[Recovery Console]

Thank you guys, some very interesting reading in the links.

Just a thought (haven't tried, may not work).

You should have a Service Pack folder on your HDD (somewhere) containing the I386 SP2 files in it (from an Update). Copy the I386 folder from the CD (ALL of it) to your HDD (a new folder preferably) then copy the Service Pack I386 folder (ALL of it) over top of the first overlaying older (original) files ("dirty slipstream"). Then try running WINNT32 from that folder.

If this works, it'll be faster than Slipstream and a Learning Curve constructing a hand-made CMDCONS.

Between posting and reading your replies I have been trying to slipstream XP/SP2, all seemed to go well but resulting cd is not bootable, more work to be done there with Roxio. Submix8c's response (quoted) got me wondering about the already overlayed XP file which I was attempting to burn so ran WINNT32 from there and hit the jackpot, the Recovery Console is now an option in my Boot.ini file. Not only available but gives me the option of booting into the OS on C: or the backup OS which I had already cloned to a separate physical hard drive.

With regard to Gosh's response

What you need is to slipstream your source to the same version you have installed. Microsoft does this because mismatched versions can cause issues such as your password not being accepted in recovery console.

and with respect to the password not being accepted, I came across this Regedit some time ago, no doubt you all know about it but I'll post it for others who may encounter the problem:

On many XP installations you can't start the Recovery Console because it won't recognize your password or if you simply hit Enter should a password not have been set. This registry edit causes the Recovery Console not to ask for a password. This works for both XP Home and XP Professional.

Start | Run | Regedit

Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\WindowsNT\CurrentVersion\Setup\RecoveryConsole

Set the DWORD SecurityLevel value to 1

Exit Registry and Reboot

Once again - thanks to all.

[Recovery Console]

Am attempting to install the Recovery Console on my hard disk.

Command used G:\I386\WINNT32.exe /CMDCONS using Start>Run and from the Command Prompt etc. The attached window pops up every time.

The cd being used is the original genuine XP Home cd not slipstreamed with SP.2

I can only surmise that the "updated" version installed is the result of updates etc...

Is there a workaround or must I slipstream?

Thanks

[Boot-time drive letter assignment...]

as I see it this is not correct:

once NTLDR has selected from which active Primary partition to load the OS

OK, I probably misinterpreted the following extract:

Partition Table The partition loader (or Boot Loader) examines the partition table for a partition marked as active. The partition loader then searches the very first sector of that partition for a Boot Record.

Seems like only a Boot Record has to be on an active partition.

Thanks for your interest.

[Boot-time drive letter assignment...]

Win XP Home SP2

I'm trying to establish at what point in the boot sequence drive letters are assigned.

I understand that once NTLDR has selected from which active Primary partition to load the OS, and provided F8 has not been depressed, NTDETECT.COM is loaded and hardware detection occurs.

Following hardware detection, and provided a Hardware Profile does not have to be selected, NTLDR begins the loading of the OS kernel (Ntoskrnl.exe).

So, are letters assigned by NTDETECT.Com or the OS kernel or later in the process. Or does NTDETECT.COM prepare a priority list of drives with C: allocated to the first active Primary partition which it encounters and hand the list to the boot sequence?

TIA.

[Boot from Slave.. (Resolved)]

Thank you for clarifying 'properly set' Jaclaz, I'd never come across that term before.

RP.

[Power Down Hard Drive?]

Win XP Home SP.2

Is it possible to selectively power down/up a slave hard drive which is not being used without disconnecting any cable? The drive in question is used for backup only.

Thanks

[Boot from Slave.. (Resolved)]

Update...

In order to know from which hdd I had booted I deleted/added items displayed on the desktop then cloned the drive. After cloning I reinstated/deleted the items on the Master drive desktop only.

After running on the Master drive for a couple of days I amended the boot.ini file to the first Code shown by Geek in his post of 9 Dec, no change was made to bios, or the mbr of either drive. The dual-boot option was displayed on startup and the Slave drive selected. The displayed desktop was that before items on the Master desktop were reinstated/deleted and several user data files were out of date indicating that booting from the Slave had been successful. Almost immediately after booting a popup indicated that my Anti-Virus definitions were out of date and that MS updates were available for downloading. The relevant files on the Master drive had been fully updated prior to cloning.

With respect to Jaclaz's post of 10 Dec I checked the drive letter assignments.

The original configuration was:

C: = first partition on Master drive

D: = second partition on Master drive

E: = first partition on Slave drive

F: = second partition on Slave drive

After booting from the Slave drive the configuration is:

C: = first partition on Slave drive

D: = second partition on Slave drive

E: = first partition on Master drive

F: = second partition on Master drive

The changes are confirmed by checking disk labels and partition serial numbers.

My conclusion - booting from the slave drive has been successful with only the change to boot.ini being needed. This post is added whilst boot is from the Slave drive.

Thank you Geek and Jaclaz for your interest.

[Boot from Slave.. (Resolved)]

Win XP Home SP.2

I have cloned my Master drive (partitioned C: and D:) to my Slave drive (partitioned E: and F:) for backup. I can boot from what was the Slave drive by making it the Master (changed the jumper setup and IDE ribbon cable) so that I know the cloning went without problem.

Now want to know if/how I can boot from the cloned Slave drive without making the hardware changes above. Is it possible to change the Boot.ini file to achieve this, sort of like a dual boot system? This is just to test the backup to ensure that the cloning process was error-free.

My current boot.ini file is:

[boot loader]

timeout=5

default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS

[operating systems]

multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Win XP Normal" /fastdetect /NoExecute=OptIn

Thanks

[Batch loop?]

Thank you, all is clear now.

Your help is much appreciated.

[Batch loop?]

Thank you again, things are a bit clearer now.

I stated that the output I'm getting is Day mm/dd/yyyy so the 12th November would show as

"Mon 11/12/2007" without the double quotes. Could it be that %? is being set to "Mon 11" ?

[Batch loop?]

With regard to the error message I found this on another site.

You're using "set /a" which will mean any time you try to set a value of "08", or "09" then an error will be thrown, such as this:

Invalid number.  Numeric constants are either decimal (17),
hexadecimal (0x11), or octal (021).

This is because "set /a" will treat any number with a leading 0 as octal, which it will attempt to store as decimal.  Obviously "08" and "09" are not value numbers in octal, hence the above error.

Hope it's some help.

[Batch loop?]

Thank you for your speedy response.

Abject apologies for posting in the wrong forum.

I cannot get your coding to run, the first line gives me the error "Invalid number. Number constants are either decimal (17) hexadecimal (0x11) or octal (021)."

At my knowledge level I can't figure out what the problem is or, obviously, how to correct it. However I have been able to slightly modify your second line in order to get the file to run. Regrettably I function on the KISS principle.

[Batch loop?]

Using the Command Prompt (CMD.EXE) in Win XP Home SP2. Date format is Day mm/dd/yyyy

I want to be able to display the name of the current month using a batch file. The relevant part of the file is:

@echo off

cls

set datemonth=%date:~4,2%

if %datemonth%==11 set datename=Nov

echo %datemonth% %datename%

But do I need 12 'if' statements to handle each of the 12 months or is there a better way with a loop or some kind of array?

Thanks