Retoring Dual-boot: MSDOS and W2K

[Warren C. E. Austin]

My Server/Clients have been set-up to dual-boot to either MSDOS or W2K; the former being used primarily for "disaster" recovery, with MSDOS level Diagnostic/Network and other Utilities, including a hardware Modem and MSDOS-based Web-browser and e-Mail applications.

Yesterday noon-time, upon daily reboot to flush the W2K-generated RAMDrive (used by all Users for Internet-related Cache, Cookie and History, and application specific Temporary files) the system failed, with it shortly thereafter being determined the boot-drive's (Drive C FAT1 was missing entirely and FAT2 partially destroyed. Recovery of essential files was attempted, and thankfully somewhat effective, with the hard-disk subsequently being re-formatted, and the contents of the entire drive being restored from a recent archival tape-backup. Mercifully, this entire process took just a shade less than 5-hours

Unfortunately, this did not restore the dual-boot. I am able to access the drive in MSDOS-mode so this is not critical; if I boot to MSDOS using a boot-disk, it is possible, if I choose to enable the MSDOS standalone boot; but my doing so disables any subsequent ability to then boot to W2K without resorting to the Repair Console and electing the "FIXBOOT" command; which in turn then disables the ability to boot to MSDOS.

How do I fix this?

There has to be a simple, easy and effective, solution without my resorting to a "Dummy" install of W2K, with MSDOS-boot active, and my then having, from MSDOS to remove the "Dummy" install, restoring the original Registry Configuration from the backup; and the attendant nonsense of deleting all the superfluous folders created by that dummy install.

Warren C. E. Austin
Toronto, Canada

 

[George Hester]

First I am surprised that you are using MS-DOS for "disaster recovery." I suppose if you are not planning to do anything in the Windows installation (being NTFS I hope) then I suppose there is some recovery in there some where.

So it sounds like you have lost the information in the boot sector. What I would do is install Power Quest's Boot Magic version 5 is the best in MS-DOS. Then rum that and let it find the Windows 2000 installation. This assumes the boot.ini is NOT in the MS-DOS partition. The boot partition will be MSDOS Boot Magic picks it up and then sends control to the partition where your boot.ini is.

In my experience the best thing for disaster recovery besides of course backups is a different harddrive (partitioned) on the system with Windows 2000 that is rarely used at all. That way if something goes wrong with the main op sys (the server in this case not registry related) you can boot into the spare op sys you have and make changes on the Server's NTFS without issue.

 

[Walter Donavan]

I dunno if this will help you or hurt you, but I recently learned how to do
this with Windows ME and Windows 2000. Perhaps the technique would work for
DOS and Windows 2000 as well. You would not need all of it, because neither
OS is blown.

I assume MS-DOS is on partition C: and the dual boot stuff (boot.ini, etc.)
is also on C:.

Here is what I did, edited slightly for my guesses as to what you should do.
The key is in steps 7-12.

Reinstalling Windows ME on a Windows 2000 Dual Boot System



Materials

a.. bootpart, http://www.winimage.com/bootpart.htm (26 kb ZIP file)
b.. Windows ME boot disk
c.. NT boot disk
d.. Functional Windows 2000 installation


Here is one way to do it, but I think there are easier ways.

1.. Boot to Windows ME DOS boot disk (minimal boot OK)
2.. Format C:
3.. Reinstall Windows ME
4.. Boot to Windows 2000 with NT boot disk (NT boot disk contents:
boot.ini, ntloader, and ntdetect.com)
5.. Use Windows 2000 to copy NT boot disk files to C:\. This can't be
done in Windows ME because the NT boot disk is NTFS.
6.. Boot back to the Windows ME DOS boot disk (minimal boot OK)
7.. At the command prompt, enter "Bootpart winnt boot:c:" (no quotes)
8.. Still at the command prompt, enter "Bootpart win95 c:winME.sys
"Windows ME NEW"" (without the outer quotes). You would change "win95" to
whatever the MS-DOS equivalent is; see the bootpart readme.
9.. Now the "Windows ME NEW" boot path works, but the old Windows ME
boot path is still there and it doesn't work. This is because bootpart
creates a different dual boot setup from Windows 2000 dual boot
installation.
10.. Boot to Windows ME
11.. Edit the old "Windows ME (Legacy Games)" path out of boot.ini in C:
12.. Change the "Windows ME NEW" boot path caption to "Windows ME
(Legacy Games)"
13.. Back up the new boot.ini
14.. Test boot to both systems, Windows ME and Windows 2000.
Good luck. Other, smarter people may be of more help that I can be.

 

[RayO]

Recently I had a similar problem after restoring from backup.
I had to remake the BootSect.DOS file, using Debug
commands, to restore dual-booting of 2k and 98.
I booted with the 98 diskette, renamed the bootsect.dos
file and then in Debug ran:

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


and then booted from the 2k CD and
ran Fixboot C: from the 2k recovery console.

Also check out this link:
http://thpc.info/dual/bootsectdos.html

RayO

My Server/Clients have been set-up to dual-boot to either MSDOS or W2K; the

former being used primarily for "disaster" recovery, with MSDOS level
Diagnostic/Network and other Utilities, including a hardware Modem and
MSDOS-based Web-browser and e-Mail applications.

Yesterday noon-time, upon daily reboot to flush the W2K-generated RAMDrive

(used by all Users for Internet-related Cache, Cookie and History, and
application specific Temporary files) the system failed, with it shortly
thereafter being determined the boot-drive's (Drive C FAT1 was missing
entirely and FAT2 partially destroyed. Recovery of essential files was
attempted, and thankfully somewhat effective, with the hard-disk subsequently
being re-formatted, and the contents of the entire drive being restored from a
recent archival tape-backup. Mercifully, this entire process took just a shade
less than 5-hours

Unfortunately, this did not restore the dual-boot. I am able to access the

drive in MSDOS-mode so this is not critical; if I boot to MSDOS using a
boot-disk, it is possible, if I choose to enable the MSDOS standalone boot; but
my doing so disables any subsequent ability to then boot to W2K without
resorting to the Repair Console and electing the "FIXBOOT" command; which in
turn then disables the ability to boot to MSDOS.

How do I fix this?

There has to be a simple, easy and effective, solution without my resorting

to a "Dummy" install of W2K, with MSDOS-boot active, and my then having, from
MSDOS to remove the "Dummy" install, restoring the original Registry
Configuration from the backup; and the attendant nonsense of deleting all the
superfluous folders created by that dummy install.

 

[Warren C. E. Austin]

My Server/Clients have been set-up to dual-boot to either MSDOS or W2K;
the former being used primarily for "disaster" recovery, with MSDOS
level Diagnostic/Network and other Utilities, including a hardware Modem
and MSDOS-based Web-browser and e-Mail applications.

Yesterday noon-time, upon daily reboot to flush the W2K-generated
RAMDrive (used by all Users for Internet-related Cache, Cookie and
History, and application specific Temporary files) the system failed,
with it shortly thereafter being determined the boot-drive's (Drive C
FAT1 was missing entirely and FAT2 partially destroyed. Recovery of
essential files was attempted, and thankfully somewhat effective, with
the hard-disk subsequently being re-formatted, and the contents of the
entire drive being restored from a recent archival tape-backup.
Mercifully, this entire process took just a shade less than 5-hours

Unfortunately, this did not restore the dual-boot. I am able to access
the drive in MSDOS-mode so this is not critical; if I boot to MSDOS
using a boot-disk, it is possible, if I choose to enable the MSDOS
standalone boot; but my doing so disables any subsequent ability to then
boot to W2K without resorting to the Repair Console and electing the
"FIXBOOT" command; which in turn then disables the ability to boot to
MSDOS.

How do I fix this?

There has to be a simple, easy and effective, solution without my
resorting to a "Dummy" install of W2K, with MSDOS-boot active, and my
then having, from MSDOS to remove the "Dummy" install, restoring the
original Registry Configuration from the backup; and the attendant
nonsense of deleting all the superfluous folders created by that dummy
install.

Warren C. E. Austin
Toronto, Canada

 

[Warren C. E. Austin]

Recently I had a similar problem after restoring from backup.
I had to remake the BootSect.DOS file, using Debug
commands, to restore dual-booting of 2k and 98.
I booted with the 98 diskette, renamed the bootsect.dos
file and then in Debug ran:

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


and then booted from the 2k CD and
ran Fixboot C: from the 2k recovery console.

Also check out this link:
http://thpc.info/dual/bootsectdos.html

RayO



former being used primarily for "disaster" recovery, with MSDOS level
Diagnostic/Network and other Utilities, including a hardware Modem and
MSDOS-based Web-browser and e-Mail applications.


(used by all Users for Internet-related Cache, Cookie and History, and
application specific Temporary files) the system failed, with it shortly
thereafter being determined the boot-drive's (Drive C FAT1 was missing
entirely and FAT2 partially destroyed. Recovery of essential files was
attempted, and thankfully somewhat effective, with the hard-disk subsequently
being re-formatted, and the contents of the entire drive being restored from a
recent archival tape-backup. Mercifully, this entire process took just a shade
less than 5-hours


drive in MSDOS-mode so this is not critical; if I boot to MSDOS using a
boot-disk, it is possible, if I choose to enable the MSDOS standalone boot; but
my doing so disables any subsequent ability to then boot to W2K without
resorting to the Repair Console and electing the "FIXBOOT" command; which in
turn then disables the ability to boot to MSDOS.


to a "Dummy" install of W2K, with MSDOS-boot active, and my then having, from
MSDOS to remove the "Dummy" install, restoring the original Registry
Configuration from the backup; and the attendant nonsense of deleting all the
superfluous folders created by that dummy install.

RayO

Your suggestion provided to be the ticket I was looking for!

I simply knew there had to be a sweet, easy, efficient and uncomplicated way to achieve what I wanted ... you'd provided that in spades dude!

Warren C. E. Austin
Toronto, Canada