Desktop Switched between two hard drives

[Guest SteveG]

A friend has an old eMachines 480i in his office, with two phyiscal hard

drives; a C: drive (named "Server") and a D: drive named "Presario." The "D"

drive came from a former computer and contains his office management

software. Until Friday, when the computer would boot, it would finish up on

the "D" drive's desktop. But Friday, we saw that it booted to the "C" drive's

desktop.

He swears he didn't change anything and using the DOS window, I can still

see the "D" drive and all of its files. We have an upgrade coming up on

Tuesday of the office management software.

As background, the only reason we stayed on Windows 98, was that we had been

told, until this past week, that the management software would not work

through the DOS shell of XP (that has changed) AND because until recently, we

could not add an XP computer to our old network, successfully.

Any ideas as to how to return to where we were for the past 6 six years?

 

--

Thank you for advice & ideas!

[Guest Gary S. Terhune]

Re: Desktop Switched between two hard drives

 

From your description, you have what's called a dual- or multi-boot

system -- it can boot to one or another partition. Most such systems have a

boot manager that let's you choose which system to boot to, but yours sounds

like it has none. If that's the case, it's the BIOS boot order that

determines which system to boot. The first hard drive in the boot order is

the one that boots. If that's the case, you need to go into BIOS and

rearrange the boot order. Then again, I've not seen a BIOS that included two

hard drives in the boot order, just the Primary Maser drive, which leads me

to...

 

When the D: drive was installed, you may have needed to change Master/Slave

jumpers and didn't. The BIOS is confused about which drive is the first on

the list. I've never heard of such a thing, but it's something I'd look at.

And get a boot manager if you want to regularly switch between systems. I

recommend BootIt NG. http://www.bootitng.com

 

--

Gary S. Terhune

MS-MVP Shell/User

http://www.grystmill.com

 

"SteveG" <SteveG@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message

news:BB22C1B2-B359-4ECC-BB57-B7166D103507@microsoft.com...

>A friend has an old eMachines 480i in his office, with two phyiscal hard

> drives; a C: drive (named "Server") and a D: drive named "Presario." The

> "D"

> drive came from a former computer and contains his office management

> software. Until Friday, when the computer would boot, it would finish up

> on

> the "D" drive's desktop. But Friday, we saw that it booted to the "C"

> drive's

> desktop.

> He swears he didn't change anything and using the DOS window, I can still

> see the "D" drive and all of its files. We have an upgrade coming up on

> Tuesday of the office management software.

> As background, the only reason we stayed on Windows 98, was that we had

> been

> told, until this past week, that the management software would not work

> through the DOS shell of XP (that has changed) AND because until recently,

> we

> could not add an XP computer to our old network, successfully.

> Any ideas as to how to return to where we were for the past 6 six years?

>

> --

> Thank you for advice & ideas!

[Guest SteveG]

Re: Desktop Switched between two hard drives

 

Gary,

Thanks for the expeditious reply! Here's what I forgot to add to the tale of

woe:

The first thing I thought of was that somehow the BIOS got messed up. When

the machine booted (and still, boots) up, after the Windows 98 splash screen,

it drops to a DOS screen with lots of "REM-" lines. Years ago, when our first

machine crashed and I moved the drive over, I did set the new "D" drive as a

slave to the "C" drive in that computer.

So yesterday, I finally found out how to access this ancient machine's BIOS

(hit the "DEL" key at the eMachine splash screen) and re-directed the boot

order to the "D" drive, then re-booted the machine. The result? A "disk boot

failure."

So I accessed DOS and compared the "win*.exe" files in both the C & D

drives. Although in a different order, they both contained the same six

files. I also tried, using the DOS access, to start Windows from the

D:\Windows directory, but I received a message that I already had Windows

running. So with that, I decided to post here for advice. Thanks again and I

hope this post bring more hints to light.

--

Thank you for advice & ideas!

 

SteveG

 

"Gary S. Terhune" wrote:

> From your description, you have what's called a dual- or multi-boot

> system -- it can boot to one or another partition. Most such systems have a

> boot manager that let's you choose which system to boot to, but yours sounds

> like it has none. If that's the case, it's the BIOS boot order that

> determines which system to boot. The first hard drive in the boot order is

> the one that boots. If that's the case, you need to go into BIOS and

> rearrange the boot order. Then again, I've not seen a BIOS that included two

> hard drives in the boot order, just the Primary Maser drive, which leads me

> to...

>

> When the D: drive was installed, you may have needed to change Master/Slave

> jumpers and didn't. The BIOS is confused about which drive is the first on

> the list. I've never heard of such a thing, but it's something I'd look at.

> And get a boot manager if you want to regularly switch between systems. I

> recommend BootIt NG. http://www.bootitng.com

>

> --

> Gary S. Terhune

> MS-MVP Shell/User

> http://www.grystmill.com

>

> "SteveG" <SteveG@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message

> news:BB22C1B2-B359-4ECC-BB57-B7166D103507@microsoft.com...

> >A friend has an old eMachines 480i in his office, with two phyiscal hard

> > drives; a C: drive (named "Server") and a D: drive named "Presario." The

> > "D"

> > drive came from a former computer and contains his office management

> > software. Until Friday, when the computer would boot, it would finish up

> > on

> > the "D" drive's desktop. But Friday, we saw that it booted to the "C"

> > drive's

> > desktop.

> > He swears he didn't change anything and using the DOS window, I can still

> > see the "D" drive and all of its files. We have an upgrade coming up on

> > Tuesday of the office management software.

> > As background, the only reason we stayed on Windows 98, was that we had

> > been

> > told, until this past week, that the management software would not work

> > through the DOS shell of XP (that has changed) AND because until recently,

> > we

> > could not add an XP computer to our old network, successfully.

> > Any ideas as to how to return to where we were for the past 6 six years?

> >

> > --

> > Thank you for advice & ideas!

>

>

>

[Guest Don Phillipson]

Re: Desktop Switched between two hard drives

 

"SteveG" <SteveG@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message

news:E9CA81AC-1610-493E-9BF3-9CB68C84731B@microsoft.com...

> Here's what I forgot to add . . .

>

> The first thing I thought of was that somehow the BIOS got messed up. When

> the machine booted (and still, boots) up, after the Windows 98 splash

screen,

> it drops to a DOS screen with lots of "REM-" lines. Years ago, when our

first

> machine crashed and I moved the drive over, I did set the new "D" drive as

a

> slave to the "C" drive in that computer.

> So yesterday, I finally found out how to access this ancient machine's

BIOS

> (hit the "DEL" key at the eMachine splash screen) and re-directed the boot

> order to the "D" drive, then re-booted the machine. The result? A "disk

boot

> failure."

 

This is normal whenever a hard drive lacks "system code"

-- cured by

1. DOS boot from floppy

2. command A:SYS D:

which ought to write system code to the hard drive you

use as D.

 

This may create other problems: because bootable drives

must be set by FDISK as "Primary DOS" partitions and

Windows or DOS machines expect to find only one of

these. The booting drive becomes C: and any other Primary

DOS partition found becomes D. So when you boot from

the master drive its partition becomes C: and when you

boot from the slave or IDE2 drive it becomes C: and the

master drive becomes D (and vice versa.)

 

There seems no advantage in multi-boot options if both

options are the same operating system (unlike say

Windows/DOS and Linux.) Multiple differing desktop

are configured by Windows via / Control Panel / Users

as custom configurations for different users (selected

by login name and password.)

 

You may find it simpler to boot always from your master

drive as C, and configure multiple users if needed. You

do not need multiple sets of a solid OS that does everything

you want (although a backup clone of C:/Windows may

be useful -- see documentation at http://www.xxcopy.com.)

 

(You also probably do not need AUTOEXEC.BAT and

CONFIG.SYS, integral to Win95 but not used by Win98.

Try renaming these so they do not run and see whether

you reboot correctly and a bit faster.)

 

--

Don Phillipson

Carlsbad Springs

(Ottawa, Canada)

[Guest SteveG]

Re: Desktop Switched between two hard drives

 

Don,

Thanks for the reply. We've never had a need for dual-boot. We've always

booted from the C: drive, and allowed the D: drive to hold our management

software and data. All machines in the office are running Windows 98SE. They

all saw the server as the "S:\" drive and could all access the server and

software with only an occasional "burp" that I easily fixed.

 

Last Saturday, 8/18, the server froze up as I was using our management

software on the D: drive; even Task Manager wouldn't appear. So, I manually

powered down. When I re-booted, it booted normally to its regular desktop,

but when I attempted to access my software again, I received a "conmode.dll"

error message. I went to the web site of the compiler and downloaded their

update for the conmode.dll file; re-booted. Again, we arrived at the proper

desktop, but this time, when attempting to run the program, I received a

"DFRUN caused a stack problem in Conmode.dll at........." error message. That

occured all week, but we always maintained the correct desktop.

It was this past Friday, when working with our vendor to start a massive

upgrade to our software, that we noticed a different desktop, with games and

icons from my friend's kids about five years ago. That's where the mystery

lies. We don't want to boot from the D: drive, we just want to get back to

where we used to be on Thursday and every day before that. I can access all

the files on the D: drive, both through Windows Explorer and DOS. The

management software will be repaired tomorrow with Part 1 of the upgrade, but

where did an old desktop appear from?

 

--

Thank you for advice & ideas!

 

SteveG

"Don Phillipson" wrote:

> "SteveG" <SteveG@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message

> news:E9CA81AC-1610-493E-9BF3-9CB68C84731B@microsoft.com...

>

> > Here's what I forgot to add . . .

> >

> > The first thing I thought of was that somehow the BIOS got messed up. When

> > the machine booted (and still, boots) up, after the Windows 98 splash

> screen,

> > it drops to a DOS screen with lots of "REM-" lines. Years ago, when our

> first

> > machine crashed and I moved the drive over, I did set the new "D" drive as

> a

> > slave to the "C" drive in that computer.

> > So yesterday, I finally found out how to access this ancient machine's

> BIOS

> > (hit the "DEL" key at the eMachine splash screen) and re-directed the boot

> > order to the "D" drive, then re-booted the machine. The result? A "disk

> boot

> > failure."

>

> This is normal whenever a hard drive lacks "system code"

> -- cured by

> 1. DOS boot from floppy

> 2. command A:SYS D:

> which ought to write system code to the hard drive you

> use as D.

>

> This may create other problems: because bootable drives

> must be set by FDISK as "Primary DOS" partitions and

> Windows or DOS machines expect to find only one of

> these. The booting drive becomes C: and any other Primary

> DOS partition found becomes D. So when you boot from

> the master drive its partition becomes C: and when you

> boot from the slave or IDE2 drive it becomes C: and the

> master drive becomes D (and vice versa.)

>

> There seems no advantage in multi-boot options if both

> options are the same operating system (unlike say

> Windows/DOS and Linux.) Multiple differing desktop

> are configured by Windows via / Control Panel / Users

> as custom configurations for different users (selected

> by login name and password.)

>

> You may find it simpler to boot always from your master

> drive as C, and configure multiple users if needed. You

> do not need multiple sets of a solid OS that does everything

> you want (although a backup clone of C:/Windows may

> be useful -- see documentation at http://www.xxcopy.com.)

>

> (You also probably do not need AUTOEXEC.BAT and

> CONFIG.SYS, integral to Win95 but not used by Win98.

> Try renaming these so they do not run and see whether

> you reboot correctly and a bit faster.)

>

> --

> Don Phillipson

> Carlsbad Springs

> (Ottawa, Canada)

>

>

>

>

[Guest Jeff Richards]

Re: Desktop Switched between two hard drives

 

The desktop doesn't exist as a separate file. It's a collection of entries

stored in the registry. A possible way you could get a different desktop

loaded is if you are actually booting to a different version of the

operating system, and your description, together with you subject line,

suggests that maybe you are booting a version of Windows that is actually

loading from the D drive instead of the C drive. This can happen if the D

drive is a primary partition on a second hard disk, and if it has been

configured in the past as a bootable drive (for instance, it was previously

installed as boot drive in another machine) and if the boot process cannot

detect valid boot information on the original boot drive.

 

You can test this by going into BIOS setup and configuring the boot process

so that it will not attempt to boot from the second hard disk if the boot to

the first hard disk fails. Then try booting and see if the boot fails.

 

If the above theory might be correct then your primary hard disk drive might

be failing. You should immediately copy everything of value from the C

drive to backup. Then give the C drive a thorough diagnostic test.

--

Jeff Richards

MS MVP (Windows - Shell/User)

"SteveG" <SteveG@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message

news:B50FFD7B-2EE9-43B3-90CE-9C30A02DCC0E@microsoft.com...

> Don,

> Thanks for the reply. We've never had a need for dual-boot. We've always

> booted from the C: drive, and allowed the D: drive to hold our management

> software and data. All machines in the office are running Windows 98SE.

> They

> all saw the server as the "S:\" drive and could all access the server and

> software with only an occasional "burp" that I easily fixed.

>

> Last Saturday, 8/18, the server froze up as I was using our management

> software on the D: drive; even Task Manager wouldn't appear. So, I

> manually

> powered down. When I re-booted, it booted normally to its regular desktop,

> but when I attempted to access my software again, I received a

> "conmode.dll"

> error message. I went to the web site of the compiler and downloaded

> their

> update for the conmode.dll file; re-booted. Again, we arrived at the

> proper

> desktop, but this time, when attempting to run the program, I received a

> "DFRUN caused a stack problem in Conmode.dll at........." error message.

> That

> occured all week, but we always maintained the correct desktop.

> It was this past Friday, when working with our vendor to start a massive

> upgrade to our software, that we noticed a different desktop, with games

> and

> icons from my friend's kids about five years ago. That's where the mystery

> lies. We don't want to boot from the D: drive, we just want to get back to

> where we used to be on Thursday and every day before that. I can access

> all

> the files on the D: drive, both through Windows Explorer and DOS. The

> management software will be repaired tomorrow with Part 1 of the upgrade,

> but

> where did an old desktop appear from?

[Guest Franc Zabkar]

Re: Desktop Switched between two hard drives

 

On Mon, 27 Aug 2007 19:40:25 +1000, "Jeff Richards"

<JRichards@msn.com.au> put finger to keyboard and composed:

>The desktop doesn't exist as a separate file. It's a collection of entries

>stored in the registry.

 

The following registry key appears to hold the locations of various

special folders including the desktop folder:

 

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Shell

Folders

 

My desktop is here:

 

C:\WIN98SE\Desktop

 

- Franc Zabkar

--

Please remove one 'i' from my address when replying by email.