Dual boot 98/XP problem - requesting "key"

  • Thread starter Thread starter Piyadaroon Kalayanamit
  • Start date Start date
P

Piyadaroon Kalayanamit

I had used the Win 98/XP dual boot system without problems for a while
now. But recently, the system refused to boot to the 98.


System configurations:
Windows 98 installed first on C: as FAT 32 format. Then XP was
installed on E: drive (of the same physical drive as C: but different
partition). The XP is on NTFS, BTW. The boot sequence was set to
default to XP (set from XP's Control Panel). I only chose to boot Win
98 when I had time to play games. This set up worked fine for months
until...


Problem described:
one day (about two (2) weeks ago), when I chose to boot Win 98 (during
the boot.ini sequence), the system just show the word "key" at the top
left corner of the screen and a blinking cursor at a line below. At
this point if I pressed Enter, the system would loop back to the
boot.ini sequence (where as it asked whether I'd like to boot the XP
or the 98).

If I place a Win 98 bootable diskette into drive A, the system would
boot to this drive.

Please note that all the file, on C: (including the Win 98's ones seem
to be intact when observed from XP).


Questions:
1) should I do the SYS C: to solve this problem?

2) if I do no.1, will the XP boot info disappear? If so, what do I do
to fix it?

My last option is to try formating the C: drive - in which case I
would need to know how to recover the XP as well.


Thanks,

PK
 
Piyadaroon said:
Problem described:
one day (about two (2) weeks ago), when I chose to boot Win 98 (during
the boot.ini sequence), the system just show the word "key" at the top
left corner of the screen and a blinking cursor at a line below. At
this point if I pressed Enter, the system would loop back to the
boot.ini sequence (where as it asked whether I'd like to boot the XP
or the 98).

If I place a Win 98 bootable diskette into drive A, the system would
boot to this drive.

Please note that all the file, on C: (including the Win 98's ones seem
to be intact when observed from XP).


Questions:
1) should I do the SYS C: to solve this problem?
Click to expand...

No. That would lose access to the XP.

Go to Doug Knox's page
http://www.dougknox.com/xp/tips/xp_repair_9x.htm

and use the methods there to rebuild the bootsec.dos file, which is
probably the source of the problem
 
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