Win2K/NT4 Dual Boot - Cannot find Bootfile

[James]

Don't know if this is the correct forum or not. A friend
asked me to take a look at her PC, it would not boot up
correctly. It is a Silicon Graphics 600Mhz Intel
Workstation.

The machine appears to be loaded with both Win2k and
WinNT4 OS's. Win2K is loaded on the C: (partition 2)
drive and NT4 is located on the E: (partition 1) drive
(zip drive is D.

When I try to boot up with the Win2K partition, I get an
error message "cannot find bootfile" (or it may
say "missing bootfile"). I can boot up to the NT4
partition fine.

However, looking at several of the program shortcuts for
the NT4 partion, they are pointed to a D: drive instead of
the E: drive. This leads me to think the drive lettering
may have changed.

I looked at the C: drive and it appears that all of the
original programs are still on that drive, I just can't
get it to boot up with Win2K. I did notice that Partition
Majic was loaded on the C: drive, and wonder if she may
have screwed up the partions.

Any ideas of what the missing bootfile is refering to? If
so, should I just be able to copy it out there or what.

I saw she does have the NT4.0 workstation CD, but I don't
know if she has a Win2K CD. However, my notebook for work
is configured the same way (dual boot 2K/NT4 partitions).

Thanks in advance.

 

[James]

-----Original Message-----



There is no error message such as "cannot find bootfile" or
"missing bootfile". Please quote the error message verbatim,
to facilitate an accurate diagnosis. Also: What partition types
does your friend have - FAT or NTFS?


.

The bootfile error message is coming from the
SiliconGraphics BIOS GUI. When the machine boots, it
goes to this SI GUI where you can select start methods
(ie. which OS/partition you want to boot with). I have
tried to boot to command prompt with no avail.

I did look at the two partitions. One is NTFS and the
other was FAT. I am pretty sure the C: drive was the
NTFS partition.

TIA

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

The bootfile error message is coming from the
SiliconGraphics BIOS GUI. When the machine boots, it
goes to this SI GUI where you can select start methods
(ie. which OS/partition you want to boot with). I have
tried to boot to command prompt with no avail.

I did look at the two partitions. One is NTFS and the
other was FAT. I am pretty sure the C: drive was the
NTFS partition.

TIA

The boot sequence on PCs goes like this:
- The BIOS goes through it hardware detection routine
- It passes control to the code located in the Master
Boot Record (MBR)
- The MBR invokes c:\ntldr
- ntldr looks at c:\boot.ini and runs ntdetect.com
- ntdetect.com fires up various things in the system32 folder

Your short problem description suggests that the code
in the MBR does not run. To confirm this, I recommend
that you do this:
- Format a floppy disk on some other Win2000 PC.
Don't do it on a Win9x PC - it won't work.
- Copy these files from the \i386 folder of your Win2000 CD
to A:\
ntldr
ntdetect.com
- Create a file a:\boot.ini with these lines
[Boot Loader]
Timeout=3
Default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT
[Operating Systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT="Microsoft Windows 2000
Professional" /fastdetect
- Boot the machine with this floppy

What do you get?