How to make harddisk with windows 2000 installed bootable

[Guest]

Hi,

I had a computer with one harddisk with win98 installed. Last year I
put an other harddisk into the machine and installed win2000 on it. The
win98 harddisk was the primary and the win2000 one the secondary.

Win2000 installed its bootloader into the primary harddisk (the win98
one) and made the system dualbootable automatically, so I could choose
between booting win98 and win2k.

Now I want to remove the primary win98 harddisk from the machine
leaving only the win2k one, but the problem is win2k doesn't boot this
way. I assume all the win2k boot stuff is written on the primary
harddisk (the win98 one) and that's why the machine doesn't boot if
it's removed.

How can I make the win2k harddisk bootable, so that it can boot on its
own? If it is done won't be the drive letter change a problem (win2k
was installed the secondary D: harddisk and now it will be the C: one,
since there won't be an other harddisk in the computer anymore).

Thanks in advance.

 

[John John]

Making the disk bootable is no big deal, booting the installation on the
disk and maintaining the integrity of the installation is the problem.
You have pretty well answered your question with the last paragraph in
your post. If you want to rid yourself of the current system
partition/disk you will have to reinstall Windows 2000. It isn't
possible to do what you want unless you want to try to go through a
convoluted partition rearrangement that may end up nowheres anyhow.

John

 

[Andy]

Hi,

I had a computer with one harddisk with win98 installed. Last year I
put an other harddisk into the machine and installed win2000 on it. The
win98 harddisk was the primary and the win2000 one the secondary.

Win2000 installed its bootloader into the primary harddisk (the win98
one) and made the system dualbootable automatically, so I could choose
between booting win98 and win2k.

Now I want to remove the primary win98 harddisk from the machine
leaving only the win2k one, but the problem is win2k doesn't boot this
way. I assume all the win2k boot stuff is written on the primary
harddisk (the win98 one) and that's why the machine doesn't boot if
it's removed.

How can I make the win2k harddisk bootable, so that it can boot on its
own? If it is done won't be the drive letter change a problem (win2k
was installed the secondary D: harddisk and now it will be the C: one,
since there won't be an other harddisk in the computer anymore).

Thanks in advance.

Booting from the W2K drive won't result in a drive letter change.
1. Verify that the partition on the W2K drive is an active primary
partition.
2. Copy files ntldr, ntdetect.com and boot.ini from the Win98 drive to
the W2K drive.
3. Change all occurrences of rdisk(1) in boot.ini to rdisk(0).
4. Copy boot sector from Win98 disk to boot sector on W2K drive.

 

[John John]

Booting from the W2K drive won't result in a drive letter change.
1. Verify that the partition on the W2K drive is an active primary
partition.
2. Copy files ntldr, ntdetect.com and boot.ini from the Win98 drive to
the W2K drive.
3. Change all occurrences of rdisk(1) in boot.ini to rdisk(0).
4. Copy boot sector from Win98 disk to boot sector on W2K drive.

What makes you think that the Windows 2000 disk is active and that it
contains the necessary MBR code to boot with ntldr? I can't be 100%
sure but I'll bet my neighbour's house that if the OP removes the
Windows 98 (System disk) and tries to make the other disk the Active
System disk the drive letter will change. Have you actually ever done
this? I have never tried it but now you have roused my curiosity, I
might just give it a try to satisfy my inquisitive nature. Maybe the OP
can try it and report his findings back to the group. Maybe that would
work if the disk was previously a Windows 2000 system disk, otherwise I
have my doubts... (but it's not my house at stake! ;-) )

John

 

[Guest]

John John írta:

Maybe the OP
can try it and report his findings back to the group.

Nope, I'm not trying anything until I know what will happen.

Maybe that would
work if the disk was previously a Windows 2000 system disk, otherwise I
have my doubts...

The second harddisk was completely new when I added it to the system
back then. The only W2K install on it was the one I did in the
dual-disk configuration as the slave disk.