XP not booting after Win2000 install

  • Thread starter Thread starter MikeyJay
  • Start date Start date
M

MikeyJay

I have two hard drives, the C: drive being the primary
master and the D: drive being the primary slave.

The operating system on the C: drive is Windows XP Home.
Yesterday I decided to install Windows 2000 Professional
onto the D: drive. Everything seemed to have worked
fine...now when I start up my computer, I get a screen
that asks which OS to boot to (Windows 2000 or Windows
XP).

When I choose Windows 2000, it boots up normally, and
everything appears relatively normal. However, if I
choose Windows XP, I now run into a roadblock...which
isn't normal...

At first, Windows would appear to begin to load, only to
stop and say it cant find the
file "windows/system32/config/systemd". I then booted to
my Windows XP CD and chose to repair my windows xp
installation (since it is the loading of the XP operating
system that gives me problems). I then did the following
sequence after choosing to repair my C: drive with the
Windows XP recovery console:

- cd system32\config
- ren system system.old
- cd ..
- cd ..
- cd repair
- copy system c:\windows\system32\config

It then said it replaced 1 file. Now when I choose to
start up Windows XP, I no longer get the missing
file "systemd" error, but now something else goes wrong.

It looks like it's starting to load XP completely, only
before it would go to the black screen with the XP logo
when loading, it instead simply restarts the computer, and
I'm back to square one. Everytime. I choose to load XP,
it starts to load, and then my computer just restarts on
it's own.

So now I'm confused. Is there a way I can get my computer
to boot to Windows XP like normal again? I would prefer
it not come to wiping out my entire hard drive and re-
installing XP, as I would hate to loose a bunch of my
files in the process.

Thank you for your help.

~ Mike
 
What you are experiencing IS normal.

If you had researched what you wanted to do, before you did it, you would
have found out that Windows XP must be installed "last", after the other
operating system.

There are ways around this fact, if you want to go to the extremes. For now,
you will have to perform a repair install of Windows XP to correct the
problems you, inadvertently, caused. Then you will have to reapply SP1 and
then go to the windows update site and re-download any updates it says you
don't have. A reinstall will have killed many/all of them!

Cheers!
 
This is an age-old problem that hopefully Microsoft will
fix the next time around...

What happened is that Windows 2000, not knowing about
what XP's boot loader is, overwrote the boot loader with
its own (older) version.

Hence you can boot Win2K, but not XP.
Boot back into the recovery console as you did before,
and use the "fixboot" command...this should restore XP's
boot loader.
 
'scuse me, phearsome...I guess I was pretty ignorant in
thinking if I installed a different OS on a completely
seperate hard drive, things would work fine...I know you
cant install previous OS's over the latest ones, but I
wasnt doing it on the same drive...thus my confusion...
 
thanks a bunch! you've been a big help!
-----Original Message-----
This is an age-old problem that hopefully Microsoft will
fix the next time around...

What happened is that Windows 2000, not knowing about
what XP's boot loader is, overwrote the boot loader with
its own (older) version.

Hence you can boot Win2K, but not XP.
Boot back into the recovery console as you did before,
and use the "fixboot" command...this should restore XP's
boot loader.

.
Click to expand...
 
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