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Dual Booting

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by michael34

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I have a simple question. I have a hard drive that is setup as 2 drives (C and D). D has windows 98 SE on it and C Has Windows 2000 Pro. The problem I am having is today I had some problems with Windows 2000 and had to reload it. Now when I reload it, it just goes directly and boots to 2000 instead of bringing up my menu to boot from 2000 or 98. Is there any way without formatting to get it where I will have the choice once more?

13 replies

by valis

yes.

you have to edit the "boot.ini" file, the one in the windows 2000 pro directory.

search for "boot.ini", and open it with notepad, i have a somewhat similar setup as you, and this is what my boot.ini looks like:

[boot loader]
timeout=10
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(1)\WINNT
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(1)\WINNT="Windows 2000 Professional It Really Whips the Llama's ass" /fastdetect
C:\="Microsoft Windows 98"

the portion under [operating systems] tells teh computer it's a dual boot, the default is my win2k boot, (the text that it shows after the /winnt is displayed in the os choices screen before the computer boots anything.

i would try adding that last line to your boot.ini
"C:\="Microsoft Windows 98" "

but be careful...

valis

by michael34

I added that and got some error with the partition and the PC just restarted, so what I am going to do is skip dual booting and merge the partitions. Besides I need the space now. Thanks for the help though.

by sgt_shultz

boot.ini is a hidden, system, read-only file located at the root level of the win2k installation partition. once you remove those attributes you can copy it, edit it. if you futze it up (you won't) you can get into no-boot off hard drive situation so best thing is to have tested boot disk handy with backup copy of boot.ini, stuff for editing (edit, attrib...)

by vernsin

Recommended settings for dual boot:
C drive - Windows 98
D drive - Windows 2000
All settings files and system files are placed in C drive.

This type of configuration more easy to recover.
If Win 2000 corrupted you just need to reload Win2000 and you still have dual boot.
If Win98 corrupted, you just format and reload Win98. After finish, use the Win2000 CD to repair the boot sector. You will get back the dual boot again.

by michael34

I use to have it setup like that, but I had problems with 2000 being on D:\ and I don't know why.

by oprj372

insert cd in cd room. after auto start select install win2000.then select repair option after this u will be able to use both os

by michael34

I ran both the repair utilities as well as fixboot.exe but still it did not do anything.

by darry

Suggest the following steps:
1. In W2K, open the explorer & select Un-hide OS files from the Tools=>Options.
2. Open the file c:\boot.ini, increase the timeout to 30 (seconds).
3. If not, then Insert a line at the end of the file i.e. C:\="Microsoft Windows 98"
4. Save & close the file.

Now restart ur PC, at startup the options will re-appear.

by lcampbell

What options did you select when you re-loaded W2K??
Is it possible you formatted the entire drive and lost the 98 partition?

by michael34

I selected Clean install > C:\ > Format using FAT 32. I had two partitions listed the other being D: where Win98 was.

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