I have w2k and XP installed on two different partitions on the same physical
disk.
Then w2k stopped loading (after accepting the password it produced a blank
blue screen which would not react to anything other than Main Switch)
I re-installed w2k on that partition, first formatting it.
Now XP would not start (on sellecting XP from boot.ini options a picture
flushed as if w2k is being booted, and then a blue blank screen freezes.
In a safety mode it says that windows 2000 (???) cannot be started for file
windows/system32/config/system is missing or corrupt

How come installation of w2k in one partition can corrupt files in another
partition and how do I get round it?

"aa" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:eQSSET%(E-Mail Removed)...
> I have w2k and XP installed on two different partitions on the same
physical
> disk.
> Then w2k stopped loading (after accepting the password it produced a blank
> blue screen which would not react to anything other than Main Switch)
> I re-installed w2k on that partition, first formatting it.
> Now XP would not start (on sellecting XP from boot.ini options a picture
> flushed as if w2k is being booted, and then a blue blank screen freezes.
> In a safety mode it says that windows 2000 (???) cannot be started for
file
> windows/system32/config/system is missing or corrupt
>
> How come installation of w2k in one partition can corrupt files in another
> partition and how do I get round it?
>
>

This is because you used the native Windows boot loader,
which is shared by the two OSs. You must now restore the
two hidden files c:\ntldr and c:\ntdetect.com from the i386
folder of your WinXP CD.

Thanks a lot - this worked