Vista boot manager removal from Win98 disk

[Guest]

I installed Vista on a 2nd drive as a clean install (instead of custom).
Unfortunately it wrote the boot manager to my 1st drive so now I can only
boot Vista up. All I want is to remove the boot manager from the Win98 disk
so I can select which OS to boot using the BIOS. That way if I remove either
drive from the system I can still have a bootable system.

Is there a simple and safe way to remove the boot manager from the Win98
disk#1 without harming the Vista install on Disk #2 ?

 

[John Barnett MVP]

If you remove the Vista boot loader from the Windows 98 disk then the system
will not boot. For that matter neither will your Win 98 disk because the
original boot ini file has been overwritten.

If you are pl;planning on dual booting Win 98 and Vista why use the BIOS.
You can easily get a dual boot menu to allow you to choose which operating
system to use. With this in mind the best option is to download the freeware
application VistaBootPro (www.vistabootpro.org) Once you have downloaded it,
install it on windows Vista then visit this link on my website:

http://vistasupport.mvps.org/install_windows_xp_on_machine_running_vista.htm

All of the information isn't relevant to you but the information that is is
under the heading Vista Boot Pro. Read the instructions from this section to
add Windows 98 to the dual boot menu of Vista.


--
John Barnett MVP
Associate Expert
Windows - Shell/User

Web: http://xphelpandsupport.mvps.org
Web: http://vistasupport.mvps.org

The information in this mail/post is supplied "as is". No warranty of any
kind, either expressed or implied, is made in relation to the accuracy,
reliability or content of this mail/post. The Author shall not be liable for
any direct, indirect, incidental or consequential damages arising out of the
use of, or inability to use, information or opinions expressed in this
mail/post..

 

[thecreator]

Hi csanii,

You can boot to Win 98 by selecting "Earlier Windows operating system"
from the Vista Boot Manager.

If you had or have a Partition image of Win 98, you can restore Win 98
Disk without a complete reinstall.

Or, you can stop using BIOS to select which operating system to use, by
just using the Vista Boot Manager, which comes up automatically, anyway.

But you made the mistake, if just wanting completely seperate operating
systems from each other, by not changing the Hard Drive order in Computer
BIOS, before installing Vista.

 

[Guest]

My Vista Boot Manager only lists Vista even though I have Win98 on the 1st
diskintact (other than the Vista bootmgr on it) Is there a simple way of
getting Win98 to appear on the Vista Boot Manager list?

 

[Guest]

I replaced the MBR and track0 on disk 1 from a backup I had but that did not
allow Win98 to boot either. What I want to be able to have is the disks be
totally independent of each other so that if I yank 1 out I still have a
bootable machine for the remaining OS, even if I have to BIOS select the disk
to boot.

Do you know what other files the Vista bootmgr may have
installed/deleted/changed on the Win98 disk? In theory I should be able to
just replace those from backup and be ok again since if I select disk 2 from
BIOS my Vista boots without issue.

 

[John Barnett MVP]

The simple way is using Vista Boot pro as I indicated in my earlier post.

--
John Barnett MVP
Associate Expert
Windows - Shell/User

Web: http://xphelpandsupport.mvps.org
Web: http://vistasupport.mvps.org

The information in this mail/post is supplied "as is". No warranty of any
kind, either expressed or implied, is made in relation to the accuracy,
reliability or content of this mail/post. The Author shall not be liable for
any direct, indirect, incidental or consequential damages arising out of the
use of, or inability to use, information or opinions expressed in this
mail/post..

 

[John Barnett MVP]

Csanii, you aren't going to be able to simply 'yank' one drive out and get
things to work on the other drive. I have two drives, one had XP installed
on it and the other Vista. Initially this wasn't a problem (other than the
usual one of losing restore points when booting to xp). I then decided to
reformat my C: drive and install Vista on it. To my amazement Vista put the
boot loader on my 'second' hard drive - something I didn't want. To
counteract this I removed my second hard drive and did a 'startup repair'
from the Vista DVD. This then put the boot loader files onto my C: drive
(exactly where I wanted them). After finally solving the problem I
re-inserted my second hard drive and rebooted. I simply got a 'no operating
system found' message. Again I did a startup repair and Vista, again, loaded
the boot loader onto my 'second' hard drive. While I could access both
operating system now this wasn't the setup I wanted. Apparently it is a BIOS
problem, but, as my machine is over 2 years old there were no BIOS updates
to rectify the problem. If I remember correctly, I finally remedied the
problem by copying an image of Vista to the C: drive (it was a backup image
I had created when I first installed Vista) and, strangely, that solved the
problem of Vista putting the boot loader on the second hard drive. I'm still
not sure how it managed to rectify the problem simply by using an image.
Nowadays, of course, I no longer dual boot in the normal way, instead I use
virtual machine software and have installed XP via the virtual machine
software onto Vista.

--
John Barnett MVP
Associate Expert
Windows - Shell/User

Web: http://xphelpandsupport.mvps.org
Web: http://vistasupport.mvps.org

The information in this mail/post is supplied "as is". No warranty of any
kind, either expressed or implied, is made in relation to the accuracy,
reliability or content of this mail/post. The Author shall not be liable for
any direct, indirect, incidental or consequential damages arising out of the
use of, or inability to use, information or opinions expressed in this
mail/post..

 

[thecreator]

Hi csanii,

In Windows Vista, click on Start. Right-click Computer and left-click on
Properties. Click Advanced Setup and then click on Contine, if you use User
Controls. Click on Startup and Recovery. At the very top, you can edit the
Boot Loader.

However, you made changes to the MBR of the hard drive. You may need to
reinstall Windows 98 SE.

 

[Ruud Uphoff]

Hi,

- First open your computers case and temporay disconnect the Win98 dtrive.
Then temporay connect the Vista drive to the primary IDE channel.
- Boot from the VISTA-DVD, get on the systemprompt and execute BOOTREC
/FIXMBR
- Next, yo may have to boot from the DVD up to 3 times
1. Search Vista installation and store BCD data
2. Store bootmgr
3. write a correct bootsector

Now restore original cable connections en see if you can start Vista from
the second drive using the BIOS. When OK:

- From a Win98 diskette, first execute FDISK /MBR and execute SYS C: (Make
sure you have a disektte with both programs on it)

Does this work?