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Boot Order MBR Signature - Intel® Server Board S5520UR

idata
Employee
1,647 Views

Hi,

I have been writing some software for initializing/formating new drives, under Windows XP.

I have the code working, but I am finding that any drives that I have Initialized with my software, when they are installed in one of my servers, get a boot priority assigned to them higher than the current OS boot drive.

When I initialize the drives with Windows Disk Management I do not get this issues.

For what I am seeing I think is something to do with how the BIOS is using the MBR Disk Signature, would anyone be able to explain how this works?

Regards,

Zac Shenker

3 Replies
Daniel_O_Intel
Employee
342 Views

The only thing I can think of, if Windows Disk Management gives different results than your software, is to compare the MBR Disk Signature between a drive done by WDM and one done by your software. What are they setting?

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idata
Employee
342 Views

My general situtation is that I have 2x SSD Data Drives & an SSD Boot Drive

The MBR Signature my software is producing are of the format:

00DFC325 - Data 1

005ECD34 - Data 2

00000001(Boot/OS Drive - OCZ Turbo SSD)

Ones that I have seen from Windows Disk Management:

123096F4 - Data 1

153096F6 - Data 2

A3023969 - Data 1

A302396B - Data 2

9EBF9RBF(Boot/OS Drive - Intel X25-E SSD)

D895AE4B- Data 1

D895AE49 - Data 2

DD57DD57(Boot/OS Drive - Intel X25-E SSD)

The major issue that I am having is that when I boot up with drives that I have initialised in my software the boot order will be changed to use them rather than my OS drive. When I use Data disks initialized with Windows Disk Management I do not have this issue.

Zac

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Daniel_O_Intel
Employee
342 Views

Well, clearly the Boot/OS drive data is quite different. I can't tell what role the BIOS would be playing here, though.

I would almost suggest asking for help from people who also code their own drive initialization/formatting software, maybe. It's pretty far beyond the scope of the normal server stuff we see in here.

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