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Message: [QUOTE="legg, post: 11780501"] This business about formatting floppies on a W2K system rings a bell. I followed your instructions, but was a little dubious about requirements for the source of the NTLDR and NTDETECT.COM files or loading advice (other W2K or accessible W98 of dual boot. I note also there is no request/requirement for a BOOTSECT.DOS file. In a first series of boot trials I used a floppy formatted on the "other W2K" OS machine, with NTLDR and NTDETECT.COM from the "other W2K" OS root, date-stamped 040804 (yymmdd). I created the BOOT.INI file with no indenting or text wrapping from the copied news server message, but maintained carriage returns at: [ Timeout Default [ multi multi multi multi. This produced four alternatives for Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional in the boot menu. 1st- 'missing or corrupt <windows root>\system32\hal.dll' 2nd- 'Windows could not start because of a computer disk hardware configuration (error?). Could not read from the selected boot disk. Check boot path and disk hardware.' 3rd- booted up the W2K OS. 4th- same as 1st Using another floppy formatted on the "other W2K" OS machine, I transferred the NTLDR, NTDETECT.COM, from the W98 root, date-stamped 030619. As well, I used the BOOT.INI and BOOTSECT.DOS files from the previously working crutch disc. (either the NTLDR or NTDETECT.COM files on this disk were not readable, but hadthe same size and datestamp as those in W98 root). The BOOT.INI file is one I edited myself in '05 and '06. It reads: [boot loader] timeout=30 default=C:\ [operating systems] C:\="Windows 98 2Ed" multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(1)\WINNT="Windows 2000 Professional SP4" /fastdetect C:\CMDCONS\BOOTSECT.DAT="Microsoft Windows 2000 Recovery Console" /cmdcons This offers three boot options 1 - Windows 98 2Ed 2 - Windows 2000 Professional SP4 3 - Microsoft Windows 2000 Recovery Console Boot results were as per previous working crutch floppy: 1st- Invalid System Disk. Replace disk and press any key. 2nd- booted up the W2K OS 3rd- W2k could not start because the following file was missig or corrupt. <windows 2000 root>\system32\ntoskrnl.exe If BOOTSECT.DOS was removed, the result of first boot option was 1st- I/O error accessing boot sector file multi(0)disk(0)fdisk(0)\BOOTSECT.DOS So my crutch is restored............... yay. Any ideas on restoring normal dual boot? There are two hard drives: 1 - single 80G partition W98 fat32 (C: in both OS) 2 - three (primary) basic partitions/volumes D - bootable W2K NTFS 20G (not visible W98) L - logical FAT32 data 30G ( D: in W98 ) M - logical FAT32 data 30G ( E in W98 ) The CD/DVD R/W drive is E: in W2k and F: in W98 A SCSI controller is present but hardware or hard drives are only mounted as-needed, temporarily. The W98 installation dates from '98 and has never been reinstalled, despite installation of newer system motherboard in '03, HD migration/rotation and other hardware changes. It is used to maintain legacy hardware and SW - is actually still the most used OS, despite it's excentricities. The W2K installation disk dates from '99 (actually still NT5 at the time) so a re-install involves more than 75 updates to achieve SP4. My "other W2K" system is a W2K/WXP dual boot machine in its infancy (<6 months). Am gradually migrating applications as required, or proven safe, but seldom use it except as a test bed. I haven't tried rotating either OS/Drive to date on this baby machine. The HD rotation back-up method was one adopted in the days when hard drives were where you placed your data until it 'went away'in a HD crash or an OS hiccup. Although it doesn't seem to have resulted in longer hard drive life, it seems to have avoided system re-installs rather successfully. I understand that certain 'restore' features of WXP are introduced to avoid this frequent tendency of Windows operating systems in general. The ternary back-up method doesn't appear to be one that is even physically viable with WXP, and is problematic in W2K, as my current situation seems to illustrate. I appreciate the assistance. It seems that I have to re-learn this procedure each time I go through it. RL [/QUOTE]

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