Desktop Switched between two hard drives

[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!

 

[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. www.bootitng.com

--
Gary S. Terhune
MS-MVP Shell/User
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!

 

[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. www.bootitng.com
>
> --
> Gary S. Terhune
> MS-MVP Shell/User
> 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!
>
>
>

 

[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 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)

 

[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 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)
>
>
>
>

 

[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?

 

[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.