Norman
Sun May 21 19:39:23 CDT 2006
"Pavel A." <pavel_a@NOwritemeNO.com> wrote in message
news:uGfOBG6eGHA.4976@TK2MSFTNGP02.phx.gbl...
> "Garet Cammer" <gcammer@NOSPAM.com> wrote in message
> news:%23oFNGp4eGHA.3692@TK2MSFTNGP03.phx.gbl...
>> Hello All,
>>
>> I develop hardware and software products that provide backup services for
>> files and hard drives.
>> Currently we are trying to solve a problem when running a system with two
>> internal hard drives that are bootable. Our tests have shown that even
>> though a specific hard drive is set up through the BIOS to boot first,
>> Windows may boot off the other drive.
>
> Is this the situation when (say) partition 1 (C:) is active and boots, but
> the OS is installed on partition 2 (D:)?
That describes a situation that I've seen frequently, but the original
poster seems to be describing a different situation. In their situation the
BIOS can be set either to boot physical drive 1 (which might be C but not
necessarily) or physical drive 2 (which might be D but not necessarily).
> This is possible and is not a bug in Windows, so nothing to work around.
I agree. But let's continue.
>> When it boots off the correct drive, it will often place the Page File on
>> the other drive, which causes serious problems when the backup drive is
>> removed.
When I searched Microsoft's Knowledge Base more than a year ago, the only
suggestion that Microsoft had was to install Intel Application Accelerator.
Intel makes an IAA for a chipset called ICH5R (I think) but not for ICH5
without the R. Intel doesn't make an IAA for the Crusoe CPU with ALi
chipset. So Microsoft's suggestion didn't help two of the machines where I
saw this problem.
Though, I didn't see this problem with two separate hard drives, I only saw
it with two partitions on one drive. Every time I told Windows to stop
putting a miniature pagefile on the tiny C partition that didn't have enough
space for a real pagefile, Windows faithfully stored the setting, and
Windows obeyed until two more reboots after that. Afterwards Windows still
stored the setting but no longer obeyed.
>> We have observed this problem both with Windows 2000 and XP and appears
>> almost to be a bug in Windows.
No kidding.
>> Does anyone have any suggestions for a work around?
Maybe Microsoft's suggestion might work for you? Odds are it probably
worked for at least one person, who knows where. Is there a version of
Intel Application Accelerator for your machine?