choise of OS after formatting?!

HacksawEddie

hi
i reinstalled win xp pro using the cd and formatting the c drive using the format option choice shown during the process. (full format)
i then continued with the process and fully installed xp pro
but now everytime i boot up, before i get to windows, (at the same stage it might ask you if u wanna boot in safe mode etc) it is giving me the option of running one of 2 windows xp pro's.
how/why did this happen, and can i get rid of it and just automaically load up as usual?

cheers
¬hacksaw

dahamsta

Are the options identical?

adam

tman

sounds very strange... if you formatted the hard drive, there shouldn't be duplicate entries in boot.ini (the file you need to change)

searching microsoft.com for tweakui for windows xp, installing that, going to the 'boot' tab and changing the boot timeout to 0 seconds is one of the handiest ways of getting rid of this, if you don't want to manually edit boot.ini

HacksawEddie

yeah, thanks it was too identical xp pro's so i got rid of one of them from the boot.ini file however there is still little delay when booting t around about the time where i would have go tthat option, the screen just goes blck for about 5-7 seconds, dont think thats supposed to happen, any thoughts?

HacksawEddie

just checked it again, my screen goes black and the hdd light doesnt seem to flash all for about 9 seconds then the xp pro logo pops up... could anything in particular be causing this?

cheers

ColmOT [MSFT]

That 5-9 second delay is normal.

The kernel is initialising itself before it loads any other services & drivers.

You'll notice that your monitor flashes/flickers and the keyboard lights flash immeditaly after this 'apparent' pause.

This is normal for initialisation.

HacksawEddie

relly? ok thanks.
i could have sworn that when i first installed xp on the machine it was about 5-10 seconds faster booting up, maybe i just had the quick boot setting ticked or something.

cheers

The Real B-man

i don think you can format a harddisk on xp can you? the same happend to me and had to send my pc in for repair? if you cant install norton antivirus install it before you install drivers

tman

you get the choice of formatting the hard drive during the windows xp installation.
you must be thinking that formatting is limited to 'format.exe'

HacksawEddie;
no xp computers i've used have a period of no hard drive activity before booting (unless you mean the timespan from pressing the power button & windows starting to load)
make double sure that the "timeout=x" line in boot.ini is set to 1

HacksawEddie

yes, had it set to 0, so changed the timeout to 1,
but i just timed my boot and its still v. slow:
from pressing power button to end of writing on screen(ram/drives etc.) = 14sec
creen goes blanck and seemingly no activity to win xp logo = 21sec
windows xp logo to desktop screen = 15sec
total = 50-51sec... so whats wrong?

any ideas?
here's a copy of my boot.ini file

HacksawEddie

...and heres a pic of my startup and recover box

jor el

Mine takes about 5-7secs from O/S selection (Windows/Linux on mine) to when the WinXP logo appears. This is about the same on the box here in work too. There's plenty of harddisk activity in this time though.
I've never seen a boot.ini like that though:
signature(22d422d3)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /fastdetect
mine has always been:
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /fastdetect
at work and home, installed at home many times
I don't know if signature means anything in particular. Is this a raid drive by any chance, or just a standard ATA.

HacksawEddie

er, i think its normal ata, how would i know if its raid?
or would me not knowing that simply mean its therefore not a raid?
i'll try changing the boot.ini to the same as yours and get back to ya
cheers

ressem

Well, you can save a second+ by unclicking that
"Time to display list of operating systems" checkbox.

I suggest that you don't remove the drive signature from the boot.ini file, not till you're sure whether it's down to software raid, dynamic disks what, but removing it might have nasty repercussions.

-- Edit --
Yeah, removing the sig ca stop windows from booting.

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=http://support.microsoft.com:80/support/kb/articles/Q227/7/04.ASP&NoWebContent=1



After you install Windows, you may notice that the Advanced RISC Computing (ARC) path entry in the Boot.ini file starts with "signature()" syntax. For example:

signature(8b467c12)disk(1)rdisk(0)partition(2)\winnt="description"
Signature() syntax is used only if one of the following conditions exists:

* The System BIOS or controller hosting the boot partition on which Windows is installed, does not support INT-13 EXTENSIONS, or has the INT-13 Extensions option disabled, and the partition on which you installed Windows is either larger than ~7.8 gigabytes (GB) in size, or the ending cylinder number for that partition is higher than 1024.
* The drive on which you installed Windows is connected to a SCSI controller whose BIOS is disabled, so INT13 BIOS calls cannot be used during the boot process.

For additional information, click the article number below to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

242518 Long Pause During Windows 2000 Startup Process
MORE INFORMATION
The signature() syntax is equivalent to the scsi() syntax, but is used instead to support the Plug and Play architecture in Windows. Because Windows is a Plug and Play operating system, the SCSI controller number instance may vary each time you start Windows, especially if you add new SCSI controller hardware after Setup is finished.

Using the signature() syntax instructs Ntldr to locate the drive whose disk signature matches the value in the parentheses, no matter which SCSI controller number the drive is connected to.
...

NOTE: If the disk signature in the MBR gets overwritten (for example, by a virus) or changed (corrupted) so that it no longer matches the signature() value in the Boot.ini file, you may receive the following error messages when you start the computer:
Windows 2000 could not start because of a computer disk hardware configuration problem. Could not read from selected boot disk. Check boot path and disk hardware. Please check the Windows documentation about hardware disk configuration and your hardware disk configuration and your hardware reference manuals for additional information.

HacksawEddie

yeah, the partition is 10gig
i did have that box unchecked but tmn said to set it to 1sec so i did, but eirther way, makes not a noticable difference considering its a 20 sec pause
!

ressem

Looks like it should be Ok to swap
signature(8b467c12)
with multi(0)
and that it might be the reason for the delay
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;242518


How about altering the boot.ini to have both

ReCheck the "display for time" box

Put in boot.ini
signature(8b467c12)disk(1)rdisk(0)partition(2)\winnt="description"
multi(0)disk(1)rdisk(0)partition(2)\winnt="description multi"


Just make a record of the boot.ini on paper in case you need to restore it,
And a boot floppy would be a good idea. Procedure for Xp here
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;305595

If it works with multi, set it as default and uncheck the timeout box mentioned before.

HacksawEddie

EURIKA! i mean RESSEM!!
you did it!!
nice one mate, now booting takes a total of about 25sec, so shaved of the 25 sec crap bit!

thanks a mill mate
¬hacksaw:D