Boot menu is missing

[Brian]

My computer was dual boot, W2000 on drive D and Wme on drive C. I had to
reinstall Wme on drive C and now I don't get a menu allowing me to choose
W2000 or Wme when I reboot. How can I get it back?

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

My computer was dual boot, W2000 on drive D and Wme on drive C. I had to
reinstall Wme on drive C and now I don't get a menu allowing me to choose
W2000 or Wme when I reboot. How can I get it back?

Is your drive C: a FAT32 or an NTFS partition?

 

[Brian]

Drive C is FAT32, D is NTFS.

Is your drive C: a FAT32 or an NTFS partition?

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

Drive C is FAT32, D is NTFS.

Try this:
1. Boot the machine with a Win98 boot disk from www.bootdisk.com.
2. Type this command:
sys c:
This will restore your WinME boot environment.
3. Boot into WinME.
4. Start a DOS Prompt and type this command:
notepad c:\boot.ini
5. Add this line to the end of boot.ini:
C:\="Microsoft Windows ME"
This will give add the WinME item to your boot selector.
6. Boot the machine with your Win2000 CD.
7. Get into the Command Console and type this command:
fixboot
This will restore your Win2000 boot capability.

You should now be able to boot into Win98 and into Win2000.

 

[Brian]

My computer already boots automatically into WinMe without any problems.
Just no boot menu. Do I still need to follow step 2? I have not done any of
these steps yet and I noticed that there is not a c:\boot.ini file.

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

My computer was dual boot, W2000 on drive D and Wme on drive C. I had to
reinstall Wme on drive C and now I don't get a menu allowing me to choose
W2000 or Wme when I reboot. How can I get it back?

You did not reveal this before . . .

Create a file c:\boot.ini like so:
[Boot Loader]
Timeout=3
Default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINNT
[Operating Systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINNT="Microsoft Windows 2000
Professional" /fastdetect
C:\="Microsoft Windows ME"

Now boot into the Command Console and run the fixboot command.

 

[Brian]

After following these instructions, when I reboot the computer, I get the
message 'NTLDR is missing' and I can't get any further. What did I do
wrong?

My computer was dual boot, W2000 on drive D and Wme on drive C. I had to
reinstall Wme on drive C and now I don't get a menu allowing me to choose
W2000 or Wme when I reboot. How can I get it back?

You did not reveal this before . . .

Create a file c:\boot.ini like so:
[Boot Loader]
Timeout=3
Default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINNT
[Operating Systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINNT="Microsoft Windows 2000
Professional" /fastdetect
C:\="Microsoft Windows ME"

Now boot into the Command Console and run the fixboot command.

 

[Ricardo M. Urbano - W2K/NT4 MVP]

After following these instructions, when I reboot the computer, I get the
message 'NTLDR is missing' and I can't get any further. What did I do
wrong?

My computer was dual boot, W2000 on drive D and Wme on drive C. I had to
reinstall Wme on drive C and now I don't get a menu allowing me to choose
W2000 or Wme when I reboot. How can I get it back?

You did not reveal this before . . .

Create a file c:\boot.ini like so:
[Boot Loader]
Timeout=3
Default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINNT
[Operating Systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINNT="Microsoft Windows 2000
Professional" /fastdetect
C:\="Microsoft Windows ME"

Now boot into the Command Console and run the fixboot command.

Brian, did you ever create an Emergency Repair Disk (ERD) in W2K? If
so, this is trivial to recover from. If not, you will need a W2K
install CD or access to a machine w/ W2K on it.

If you have the CD, boot from it and choose the repair option and have
it repair your Windows 2000 installation. If you have access to another
W2K machine, you can just copy the ntldr file from the root of the
system partition on that machine and copy it to the root of C: on your
busted machine. I believe you will also need ntdetect.com.

hth