Dual boot restore problem

[Ravi]

Hi,

I have windows 98 and windows XP installed on my system in C and D drive
respectively. Now, I want to format C drive and install windows 98 again on
C drive, but then I don't want to loose my dual boot options. I want to keep
windows XP intact and use it with again like before.

Kindly suggest.

Regards,

 

[John John]

Hi,

I have windows 98 and windows XP installed on my system in C and D drive
respectively. Now, I want to format C drive and install windows 98 again on
C drive, but then I don't want to loose my dual boot options. I want to keep
windows XP intact and use it with again like before.

Kindly suggest.

There are several different ways of doing this. The first thing to do
will be to create a boot floppy diskette for the XP installation, this
diskette will ensure that regardless of what happens with the current C:
drive you will still be able to boot the XP installation on D:\, you
will also copy the files back from the floppy to the root of the C:\
drive after you install Windows 98.

To create the boot diskette format a floppy with your XP installation
and copy the files Boot.ini, NTDETECT.COM and ntldr from the root of the
current C: to the floppy. You *MUST* format the diskette with the XP
installation, if you format it with the Windows 98 installation the
diskette will not contain an NT boot sector and it will fail to boot the
XP installation. After you create the diskette go in the BIOS and set
the computer to boot to the diskette first and test the diskette to see
if you can boot the XP installation. If the diskette works you can
proceed to format the drive and install Windows 98 on the Active (C:\)
Partition.

To restore the ntldr boot loader after you install Windows 98 and to
ensure that it will boot Windows 98 you will first have to create a
BOOTSECT.DOS file for the Windows 98 installation. While booted to the
Windows 98 installation you can use the ancient debug command to create
the BOOTSECT.DOS file.

To create the file using the DEBUG command, from Windows 98 start an
MS-DOS Prompt and navigate to the root of the System drive (C:\) and
issue the following commands, pressing enter after each:

debug
L 100 2 0 1
N C:\BOOTSECT.DOS
R BX
0
R CX
200
W
Q

That will create the file. Exit Windows 98 and reboot to make sure
all is ok with Windows 98 and that the file C:\bootsect.dos is present.

Now (while still in Windows 98) copy the files boot.ini, ntldr and
NTDETECT.COM (that you saved on your floppy diskette earlier) to the
root of the C:\ drive. Keep the floppy intact, in case you still need
it to boot XP if things go wrong!

Exit the Windows 98 installation and using your Windows XP CD boot to
the Recovery Console and issue the FIXBOOT command on the active
partition (the drive hosting the Windows 98 installation, C:\), that
will write an NT boot sector to the partition and you should now be able
to boot to either of your operating systems when you boot the computer
from the hard drive. If you find that it doesn't boot then boot to the
Recovery Console again and issue FIXMBR and FIXBOOT.

John

 

[Ravi]

Thanks very much John, its been really helpful article by you. I would just
like to know one more thing, is there any process to do this without using a
floppy disk?

Thanks,

 

[John John]

Option 1:

Burn the files on a cd. You can then copy them to the root of the
active partition (C:\) after you install W98. You won't be able to boot
the XP installation with this cd but it will save you from having to
extract the files and rebuild the boot.ini file.

Option 2:

After you install Windows 98 extract the files NTDETECT.COM & ntldr from
the Windows XP cd to the root of the active partition then manuually
build the Boot.ini file, or boot to the Recovery Console and use the
Bootcfg command to rebuild the Boot.ini file.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/291980

After you rebuild the boot.ini file with bootcfg you will then be able
to boot to the XP installation and you will then need , or may need to,
then add the line required to boot Windows 98 to the boot.ini file, I do
not believe that bootcfg scans for or adds entries for non NT
installations. The line would be something like:

C:\="Previous MS-DOS OS"

The stuff between the quotation marks is just descriptive text for human
eyes, the boot options that you see when you boot the computer. It
doesn't really matter what is between the quotation marks, the following
will do the same thing as above:

C:\="Windows 98"

The line instructs ntldr to boot the bootsect.dos file in C:\.

Look in your current boot.ini file and you will see.

John