>> if NT has to be configured
differently when it resides on a SCSI drive vs an IDE drive the
cloning process may not work.
If NT boots from a SCSI disk the C drive has to have the a
driver for the SCSI disk in its root directory in a file named
NTBOOTDD.SYS. This is the same file that you need to load
in the NT setup when you have a SCSI disk. This driver is
NT-specific and adapter-specific. No got driver, no get
boot. Or so I read--I don't have any SCSI disks myself.
You do not need this driver file to boot from an IDE disk,
and I do not believe its presence will affect booting from
an IDE disk. I'm drawing an inference here, which is always
a little dangerous with NT. But NT's multiboot capability
allows you to boot either from an IDE or a SCSI drive
in the same boot sequence, depending on the selection you
make at boot up from the list in BOOT.INI. This tells
me NT will ignore the SCSI driver if the BOOT.INI
selection points it to an IDE disk.
If my inference is correct, then you should be able to
boot either from an IDE or a SCSI clone, PROVIDED you
have the right NTBOOTDD.SYS file on both clones (though
you'd only actually need it on the SCSI clone). I'm
assuming the NT resident partition gets the right
drive letter when you swap boot drives, probably C
(if it doesn't get the right drive letter, you can't boot
the clone anyhow).
In any case, if the NT partition has a drive letter
other than C, you have to clone all the C partition root
directory files NT needs in addition to the NT partition
itself. (If it is C, the root must be part of the clone.)
Since I happen to know these files, I might as well
list them. They are: NTLDR, NTDETECT.COM, BOOT.INI, and
NTBOOTDD.SYS, the last being required only for SCSI.
BTW, these four (three for IDE) files will allow you to boot
NT from a floppy if the C-root has been corrupted, which
may partially solve your disk-failure scenario. No, you
can't boot NT itself from a floppy, but you CAN boot
an existing NT from a hard drive if the C-root files get
clobbered. This can save you if you stomp NTLDR, for
instance. You have to have formatted the floppy from
NT to get an NT-bootable floppy. You can't format it
from DOS or Win 95/98 -- they won't produce an NT-bootable
floppy. But you CAN edit the boot.ini file from DOS
on an NT-bootable floppy (even DOS booted from a floppy
if you're smart enough to have EDIT.COM on the floppy).
This is off the subject a bit but an interesting point
in its own right and definitely germane to a KOT strategy.
Spots |
