NT 4.0 Setup ( SCSI Boot Drive )

Thread view:

Enable EMail Alerts

Start New Thread

Thread rating:

John Britton - 30 Oct 2003 15:53 GMT

When installing NT 4.0 Server on an x86 computer with (2)
SCSI HDDs on an Adaptec controller, Setup will install NT
on the drive specified as the Boot Device in the Adaptec
controller BIOS. I know this to be true because I have
done it on more than a dozen computers.

How does NT Setup decide on which drive to install NT on
an x86 computer with (2) IDE HDDs connected to the
motherboard's Primary IDE controller (Master & Slave)?

Reply to this Message

Jiri Tuma - 31 Oct 2003 11:57 GMT

NT setup is using standard BIOS disk services (INT13h) and it will use first
disk in order (ie disk with disk code 80h) as primary one. If you change
this order in BIOS, BIOS will allocate this code to other disk. However, NT
core will use atapi.sys driver or MB manufacturer provided EIDE or ATA
driver and this driver can, in worst case, see disks in physical order,
because NT drivers are not using standard BIOS disk services. They are
manipulating disk controller registry directly or they are using enhanced
(32bit) BIOS disk services. Usually if you change order of disks in BIOS
settings, it will be changed for all three sets of BIOS disk services and NT
driver will accept this order too, but you cannot be 100% sure.

regards

George

John Britton <finsol@citynet.net> p?se v diskusn?m
p??sp?vku:0a3f01c39ef5$869f9f90$a601280a@phx.gbl...

> When installing NT 4.0 Server on an x86 computer with (2)
> SCSI HDDs on an Adaptec controller, Setup will install NT
[quoted text clipped - 5 lines]
> an x86 computer with (2) IDE HDDs connected to the
> motherboard's Primary IDE controller (Master & Slave)?

Reply to this Message