I've worked around my issue, but am still fascinated with the problem and would like to learn about the cause for the sake of learning.... if you're interested as well, here goes :
My system consisted of 2 hard drives, and 2 CD drives, one writer and one reader - all IDE. I had partitioned my first HD 4 times (Don't ask me why), with Win98 on one, Win2k on another, and 2 data segments made up the other two. I had also partitioned my other hard drive a few times, but it isn't so important (I feel). My C: drive included my Win98 partition which I hadn't used since roughly '98, but my Win2k partition resided on G: D: was a data portion of HD1, E: was my CD-ROM, & F: was my CD-RW. My 2nd HD became h:, i:, and j:. Anyway, all was fine for years, until I installed my brand new DVD-RW+-(many symbols) Memorex Dual drive. In fact, I got the drive up and running without worry or problem... re-booted the machine at least 6-7 times... could always see the drive and all my others without issue. Then, I installed the software packaged with the drive. Easy CD/DVD Creator, I think, got me. After I installed it, and rebooted, I gto a blue screen with INACCESSIBLE_BOOT_DEVICE error from Win2k. This surprised me greatly. Thankfully, I had Win98 installed, so I could at least boot to it, and work a bit. I have no NT boot disks or ghost images, but will from now on (I've been telling myself that for years, but no matter)... So, I start installing Win2k again, just to get to the 'recovery' portion of the install. When I chose "R" for Emergency Recovery, it told me it couldn't find an existing Win2k partition to recover. This worried me slightly, but I pressed on. When I went into the Recovery Console, which I now love, and entered the <b>map</b> command, it returned :
? 0MB multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)par
tition(0)
C: FAT16 2039MB multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)par
tition(1)
F: NTFS 7692MB multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)par
tition(2)
? 9774MB multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)par
tition(0)
G: NTFS 8848MB multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)par
tition(3)
D: FAT32 9774MB multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)par
tition(4)
A: \Device\Floppy0
G: \Device\CdRom0
J: \Device\CdRom1
When I cd'ed to G:, I got my DVD drive, but when I went to the format(fdisk-style) utility, it returned the info about my G: partition. I was confused, but remembered having a problem like this years ago on a client's machine who had basically system-tested a condition the manufacturer never had concerning drive partitions, so I thought I was in the same boat (who needs G: for a hard drive???). So, I first tried to remove my DVD drive and reboot. Didn't work... still INACCESSIBLE_BOOT_DEVICE. I then removed the D drive partition from my machine, hoping that would move my G: drive up and allow the DVD to stay @ G:. After I did so, the about MAP output was the same except the D: line was gone, my G: moved to F: and so did the DVD drive. This is my real question... where is that data stored? On the boot record? how did the DVD drive letter assignment change after I removed the HD partition? Finally, I re-installed Win2k on my deleted D-drive partition, which allowed me to boot, and see my NTFS partitions. I ran CHKDSK /f on my old G: partition (now F:). It took roughly 20 minutes, but finished, and I was then able to boot that drive. When I restarted, though, apparently, the DVD writer software or something had re-established it as the same drive letter, and I got INACCESSIBLE_BOOT_DEVICE yet again. Finally, I've assigned my DVD to Y:, and everything seems to be good.... for now.
Any information anyone would have to offer on this issue would interest me greatly. As it's not a pressing issue for me, I'm not offering any points, but a discussion would be great....
Thanks...
