B
Bob D
WINXP Pro was installed from a WIN98SE installation as a Dual Boot.
Worked fine for a few years. Then suddenly, the WIN98SE choice
displayed "non system disk" when selected. So I booted to a WIN98 Boot
disk and did a SYS C:. That fixed the WIN98 problem but wiped out the
dual boot menu or any ability access XP. I tried making the XP
partition, which is now hidden, Active w/ Partition Magic 8. But XP
wouldn't boot. Thankfully, I was able to undo that with a floppy boot.
The steps in the Post below look like an excellent solution for me
except that the Recovery Console wants the Administrator's Password
which I can not, for the life of me, remember from 4 years ago.
Any ideas would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks,
Bob D
Let's take this in steps. Your first three steps must be
a) to make the WinXP partition active
b) to create a proper MBR (Master Boot Record)
c) to create a proper Windows boot sector
a) Boot the machine with a Win98 boot disk
(www.bootdisk.com), then run fdisk. Use it
to set the WinXP partition to "active".
b) Boot the machine with your WinXP CD, select
"Repair" when prompted, then select "Recovery Console"
when prompted. Now type fixmbr
c) While still in Recovery Console mode, type fixboot
You should now be able to boot up WinXP. However,
I suspect you won't be able to log on. WinXP keeps
returning you to the logon screen. We can resolve this
in the next post.
I case WinXP won't boot, boot from a floppy disk as a temporary measure:
- Format a floppy disk on some other WinXP/2000 PC.
Don't do it on a Win9x PC - it won't work.
- Copy these files from the \i386 folder of your WinXP 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(x)\WINDOWS
[Operating Systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(x)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP
Professional" /fastdetect
- Boot the machine with this floppy
Select 2 where it says "x". If 2 does not work, try 1 or 3.