dual boot woes

[ClintE]

OK, this works on many other systems...

A8N32 bios 1103, 4800+ (x2 core, maybe ok to post this here at good 'ol 2cpu?), 7800GTX, SB Audigy 2ZS

Set up 2 Hitachi 80G in raid1 on sata 1&2 ports, installed xp 32bit, no problem.

Unhooked above 2 drives, set up 2 Hitachi 80G in raid1 on sata 3&4 ports, installed xp 64bit, no problem.

Plugged in first 2 drives, told bios to boot from first raid set, blue screen and reboot.

Same thing choosing second raid set as boot device.

Unplug either raid1 set, other set boots perfectly.

Bought 2port SiI3132 PCIe x1 card, updated bios to raid, installed driver in each xp set with nothing plugged into new card (separately booting 32bit and 64bit without other plugged in), everything working fine.

Ghosted xp 64bit, wiped second raid1 set, created new raid1 set on new card, ghosted image back onto new raid1. 64bit xp boots flawlessly WITHOUT 32bit raid1 set plugged in.

If both sets plugged in to separate controllers, now getting text message:

Couldn't open drive multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)
NTLDR: Couldn't open drive multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)

without bluescreen.

I have done this type of thing many times with different systems, including an A8N-SLI with both raid1 sets on the 4 motherboard ports.

Starting to think it's in the A8N32 bios....

*pounds head on table*

[The_Ghost]

your problem is that one os can't see the other and they are both fighting over which one has control over the boot sector (boot.ini)

maybe some one hear will be able to tell you how to exactly rewrite your boot.ini , this isn't a motherboard problem but a operating system problem

[ClintE]

I have this type of setup running on the system I'm typing on now. I've set up the same thing the same way on many other systems without problems.

Woke up last night with the solution to this one (hate it when that happens).

Deleted the array connected to the SiI 3132 card. Connected drives back to nvidia sata ports 3&4. Created raid1 array, enabled both arrays in bios, ghosted second raid1 back from image on other array (in dos ghost). Back in bios, completely disabled sata ports 3&4, booted from first array perfectly into win 32bit. Rebooted, disabled ports 1&2, re-enabled ports 3&4, booted into win 64bit with no problems.

All the other systems I've set up this way have worked fine with all arrays enabled. Only downside to this one is that current OS can't see other array, but not a big deal.

Thanks for reply. Hope this helps anyone trying to do this type of thing on their A8N32's.

[Ytsejamer1]

Well, when I was doing a dual boot thing with my A64 machine, I had a bunch of issues due to multiple drives on multiple controllers and so on. I had a PATA storage drive, 120gb SATA WinXP 32bit, and 74gb Raptor SATA WinXP64. I left all drives enabled during installation. Install went fine...booted to 64 after install was done...looks great. Rebooted went into 32bit XP...looks good. Rebooted to go back into 64bit and it choked. Couldn't find NTLDR. I fought with this for about four days. I realized that when the last OS was installed, it put the bootloader on the PATA drive!!! So...set my bios to boot off of the first drive I had in the system, it gives me the Windows bootloader and both OSes work fine.

I'd say you should keep both sets enabled. Get your 32 bit OS going on 1&2...boot into it, makes sure it works. Then...enable 3&4 and reinstall 64 bit. It will modify the bootloader probably on the first controller which will control what OS boots up. The reason yours is doing what it's doing is that when you installed Windows 64bit on the second drives, it didn't see the first set of drives...so as Ghost indicated, you've got two bootloaders fighting each other.

[Ytsejamer1]

Just an idea to get across...when you install the last version of Windows with other drives in the system, it will boot the bootloader for it on the first drive in the order of controllers...PATA, SATA1, SATA2, etc. So if you were to reinstall Windows XP 64bit with both sets enabled...the 64bit Windows drive would NOT contain a bootloader...the bootloader would be modified on the first set only...which will control the OSes. If you were then to disable the first set, the second set with XP 64 bit wouldn't boot as there would be no bootloader.

[ClintE]

And that's exactly why I don't want any os's to be tied to each other in any way, including boot loaders etc. What if I wanted to remove one of the os's? What if, as you say, I want to reinstall one of them and it happens to be tied into the other one, so that after reinstallation, neither boots?

I've set up many systems with multiple os's like this, and had very few problems. I can physically take one completely out of the computer, and the other os works just as it always has. I can add a drive (or array etc) and install whatever os I want on it. I just make sure that when installing any os, all others are not accessible to the system, either by physically disconnecting the data cable(s), or disabling the ports in the mb setup.

This motherboard is the only one I've come across that doesn't like this type of setup when more than one of the bootable systems is enabled. This isn't a big problem for me, if I want something out of the system I'm working in currently, I can just copy it to a network drive or usb or cd or other media before rebooting into the other os.

I love having my systems set up this way for the simple fact that I can ghost from one to the other and erase an entire os, test something else on the system, then erase and ghost it back just the way it was. Ghost works fine with both systems enabled because it's not running in Windows, which is what has the problem on this particular motherboard.

I don't use the latest version of personal Ghost; either 2003 or (preferably) Ghost Solution Suite. Can boot it from floppy, cd, usb, or hard drive (in dos or pcdos). Don't use usb boot if writing to a usb drive though, because to boot you must disable the ghost proprietary usb routines, and it will be very slow writing images to that usb device.

Thanks for the replies, always enjoy hearing others' thoughts and opinions.

[rerem]

I'd use Acronis Disk director. Partition,put both OS's on one drive array. Let the other 2 be storage (non raid).

I'd FIRST install a VERY minimal OS,XP/W2k in a small partition...on one of the non raid STORAGE discs .and THERE is where I put Acronic Boot manager (or Boot Magic) The System looks THERE first-and the BOOT MGR boots to what you want. This small OS in kept off-network,though you could install some rescue stuff,AV,true image,anti spy. You can let that rather secure partition be home to the loading,and you can later replace an OPS,add another.....you can fix stuff,avoiding the concerns that come with Raids complexity.

[ClintE]

Hmm old topic resurrected.

Just thought I'd share this: If the Silicon Image raid controller is set to [DISABLED] in the bios, dual-booting from the nvidia sata drives works perfectly. Definitely a hardware limitation. I've seen this type of symptom before in other motherboards with SiI controllers.