[Fluxburn]

I normally have my is7 to auto for the sata drives, and I boot of master3 on the sata. If I remove the drive master4 the other sata, windows will not boot. What is up with this?

[redduc900]

Try bootng to the Recovery Console, and type... BootCfg /Rebuild. The following MSKB article describes the installation and use of the Recovery Console, although in your case you don't need to be concerned with the "installation" of the RC...

HOW TO: Install and Use the Recovery Console in Windows XP (Q307654)

A 'Missing Hal.dll' indicates that the partition where Windows is has moved its physical location, so it doesn't appear on the same physical drive (in the sense of where it's connected to) or same partition number as before. So the boot is looking in the wrong place, to load Windows components, and Hal happens to be the first one it looks for.

[Fluxburn]

I remember one time loading the cd, and typing, fixboot. I think that did essentially the same thing you are talking about here.

[redduc900]

One thing you may want to try is deleting the Boot.ini completely, and starting clean w/ a fresh file...

From the RC, type the following commands hitting ENTER after each...

ATTRIB -R -H -S C:\bootini
DEL C:\boot.ini
Bootcfg / Rebuild

... the /Rebuild switch will overwrite the existing Boot.ini, instead of creating a new file after the old one is deleted (using the commands above). Using the fixboot command without any parameters will write a new partition boot sector to the system partition you're logged on to at the RC.

[Fluxburn]

So are the win.ini, boot.ini stored in the boot sector? What is stored in the windows boot sector?

I know they reside in the windows/system32, at least win.ini. boot.ini used to be under C:\windows but I think they moved it to the system folder from 95/98.

btw thanks for the help so far

[redduc900]

The Boot.ini file is located under the root of C:, and the Win.ini file is located both in the %systemroot% and %systemroot%\System32 directories. Just to be clear, I should probably specify what the ATTRIB -R -H -S C:\bootini command actually does...

The ATTRIB command displays or changes the attributes of a file, and in this case the file of which attributes are being changed is the Boot.ini. The -R switch removes the Read-only file attribute, the -H switch removes the Hidden file attribute, and the -S switch removes the System file attribute. We need to change the attributes of the file from the RC in order that it can be deleted.

The boot sector (which is what the fixboot command rewrites), and the Master Boot Record (MBR) are both explaned in detail in the following article...

The Master Boot Record (MBR) and Why it is Necessary?
http://www.dewassoc.com/kbase/hard_d...oot_record.htm

[Fluxburn]

[QUOTE=redduc900]One thing you may want to try is deleting the Boot.ini completely, and starting clean w/ a fresh file...

From the RC, type the following commands hitting ENTER after each...

ATTRIB -R -H -S C:\bootini
DEL C:\boot.ini
Bootcfg / Rebuild

./QUOTE]

I did this, had to type each attrib command one at a time, but I did it. Attrib -R boot.ini, etc.

I get Disk Boot Failure, Insert System Disk and Press Enter.... odd

[shadowdr]

Isn't master four really slave two even if it is on it's own channel and doesn't Windows look to master as a boot drive?