Please Help - Serious Trouble

[Pat Adams]

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

On my other computer, I upgraded the Windows 98 operating system to Windows 2000 Professional about 6 months ago. The upgrade installed into the c:\windows folder.

Yesterday, when I rebooted the computer a message displayed saying that Windows could not start because of a missing or corrupt c:\windows\system32\config\Systemd file. It recommended that I use my Windows 2000 CD to repair it. The repair was not successful, so I tried to re-install Windows 2000.

Unfortunately, I took the typical option on the install and Windows 2000 Professional was installed in the c:\winnt folder. Naturally, when it loaded, none of my regular settings or desktop icons were present, though I can see them when I explore the drive.

I would like to remove the new windows operating system and fix the old one. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Pat

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

You will have to perform a new installation of Win2000.
Here is how you can do it:

- Get a Win98 boot disk from www.bootdisk.com
- Boot with this disk.
- Remove the folder c:\winnt. You will lose all files in this folder.
- Create a folder c:\winnt (this is important!)
- Boot with your Win2000 CD
- When prompted for a destination, select c:\Windows
Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

On my other computer, I upgraded the Windows 98 operating system to Windows 2000 Professional about 6 months ago. The upgrade installed into the c:\windows folder.

Yesterday, when I rebooted the computer a message displayed saying that Windows could not start because of a missing or corrupt c:\windows\system32\config\Systemd file. It recommended that I use my Windows 2000 CD to repair it. The repair was not successful, so I tried to re-install Windows 2000.

Unfortunately, I took the typical option on the install and Windows 2000 Professional was installed in the c:\winnt folder. Naturally, when it loaded, none of my regular settings or desktop icons were present, though I can see them when I explore the drive.

I would like to remove the new windows operating system and fix the old one. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Pat

 

[Pat Adams]

Thanks so much for your response. I forgot to tell you that I had NTFS on this drive, and my Universal boot disk is Win98. I can't see the drive. I'll use my other computer to create a boot disk. Which operating system do you suggest I use for the boot? 98, 2000, or XP. I have 3 hard drives in my other computer to choose from.

TIA
You will have to perform a new installation of Win2000.
Here is how you can do it:

- Get a Win98 boot disk from www.bootdisk.com
- Boot with this disk.
- Remove the folder c:\winnt. You will lose all files in this folder.
- Create a folder c:\winnt (this is important!)
- Boot with your Win2000 CD
- When prompted for a destination, select c:\Windows
Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

On my other computer, I upgraded the Windows 98 operating system to Windows 2000 Professional about 6 months ago. The upgrade installed into the c:\windows folder.

Yesterday, when I rebooted the computer a message displayed saying that Windows could not start because of a missing or corrupt c:\windows\system32\config\Systemd file. It recommended that I use my Windows 2000 CD to repair it. The repair was not successful, so I tried to re-install Windows 2000.

Unfortunately, I took the typical option on the install and Windows 2000 Professional was installed in the c:\winnt folder. Naturally, when it loaded, none of my regular settings or desktop icons were present, though I can see them when I explore the drive.

I would like to remove the new windows operating system and fix the old one. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Pat

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

Here is the issue: Win2000 will always install into the folder \winnt on the chosen drive. In your case you wish to avoid this, because you have an existing installation of Win2000 in c:\windows that you wish to make use of.

You can force the Win2000 installation process to give you a choice of target folders. Since your system drive uses NTFS, you must use one of these methods:
- If c:\winnt already exists, re-install Win2000 and make sure to specify c:\Windows as a target location.
- If c:\winnt does not exist, temporarily install your problem disk as a slave disk in some other Win2000 or WinXP PC, then create an empty folder \winnt on the first partition of that disk.

You can now re-install Win2000 into c:\windows.
Thanks so much for your response. I forgot to tell you that I had NTFS on this drive, and my Universal boot disk is Win98. I can't see the drive. I'll use my other computer to create a boot disk. Which operating system do you suggest I use for the boot? 98, 2000, or XP. I have 3 hard drives in my other computer to choose from.

TIA
You will have to perform a new installation of Win2000.
Here is how you can do it:

- Get a Win98 boot disk from www.bootdisk.com
- Boot with this disk.
- Remove the folder c:\winnt. You will lose all files in this folder.
- Create a folder c:\winnt (this is important!)
- Boot with your Win2000 CD
- When prompted for a destination, select c:\Windows
Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

On my other computer, I upgraded the Windows 98 operating system to Windows 2000 Professional about 6 months ago. The upgrade installed into the c:\windows folder.

Yesterday, when I rebooted the computer a message displayed saying that Windows could not start because of a missing or corrupt c:\windows\system32\config\Systemd file. It recommended that I use my Windows 2000 CD to repair it. The repair was not successful, so I tried to re-install Windows 2000.

Unfortunately, I took the typical option on the install and Windows 2000 Professional was installed in the c:\winnt folder. Naturally, when it loaded, none of my regular settings or desktop icons were present, though I can see them when I explore the drive.

I would like to remove the new windows operating system and fix the old one. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Pat

 

[Pat Adams]

Thanks, Pegasus, for your help. I booted from the Win2k CD and forced the install to go to c:\windows. After the installation process was done I deleted the folder c:\winnt. Of course, it'll take some work to put the system back as I need to reinstall software, but I'm OK with that.

As a historical note - about a week ago I noticed that the sound wasn't working. Then on Thursday I was unable to use WinFaxPro on that machine. Finally, on Friday, when I tried to reboot, I got the message about the missing or corrupt c:\windows\system32\config\Systemd file.

I don't know what to attribute this problem to unless one of those nasty worms found their way into this computer. I do run Norton Internet Security and update it regularly.
Here is the issue: Win2000 will always install into the folder \winnt on the chosen drive. In your case you wish to avoid this, because you have an existing installation of Win2000 in c:\windows that you wish to make use of.

You can force the Win2000 installation process to give you a choice of target folders. Since your system drive uses NTFS, you must use one of these methods:
- If c:\winnt already exists, re-install Win2000 and make sure to specify c:\Windows as a target location.
- If c:\winnt does not exist, temporarily install your problem disk as a slave disk in some other Win2000 or WinXP PC, then create an empty folder \winnt on the first partition of that disk.

You can now re-install Win2000 into c:\windows.
Thanks so much for your response. I forgot to tell you that I had NTFS on this drive, and my Universal boot disk is Win98. I can't see the drive. I'll use my other computer to create a boot disk. Which operating system do you suggest I use for the boot? 98, 2000, or XP. I have 3 hard drives in my other computer to choose from.

TIA
You will have to perform a new installation of Win2000.
Here is how you can do it:

- Get a Win98 boot disk from www.bootdisk.com
- Boot with this disk.
- Remove the folder c:\winnt. You will lose all files in this folder.
- Create a folder c:\winnt (this is important!)
- Boot with your Win2000 CD
- When prompted for a destination, select c:\Windows
Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

On my other computer, I upgraded the Windows 98 operating system to Windows 2000 Professional about 6 months ago. The upgrade installed into the c:\windows folder.

Yesterday, when I rebooted the computer a message displayed saying that Windows could not start because of a missing or corrupt c:\windows\system32\config\Systemd file. It recommended that I use my Windows 2000 CD to repair it. The repair was not successful, so I tried to re-install Windows 2000.

Unfortunately, I took the typical option on the install and Windows 2000 Professional was installed in the c:\winnt folder. Naturally, when it loaded, none of my regular settings or desktop icons were present, though I can see them when I explore the drive.

I would like to remove the new windows operating system and fix the old one. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Pat