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Faster Way to fix Win2k boot sector *if*

By Carol ·
Hi all. I support several multi-boot computers in a learning environment, and I'm expecting to have to repair Win2k boot sectors, after 31 portable harddisks, install win98 (remove the disk after installation and the boot sector on permanent drive needs fixed.)

So while it can be done with the recovery disk, after sys'ing the FAT 16 partition with a Dos 6.0 boot disk.. my question is, since I have an NT boot disk which allows me to access the NT install... isn't there a way to repair the boot partition, from within NT???

I practised today, installing Win98 on a portable drive, then removed the portable drive from it's slot (portable drive connects to the IDE#0 controller and the permanent drives are installed to the IDE#1 controller, both having first partitions as "active". So once you've done your install to the portable, after removing the drive, the permanent drive no longer boots (disk error)...

I sys'ed it with Dos 6 (Dos 6 is installed on C, as will another copy ofWin9 and Win2k will be installed on other partitions within on that interior drive. I then loaded the recovery console and did fixboot c:.

It all worked fine *but*.. as I do have boot disks for the current (only 1 copy of WinNT pro is installed so far - for a couple weeks), can't I fix that boot sector on the C drive from within 2K?.... I would naturally like to avoid loading recovery console, since booting "in" is so quick, in comparison.

Or.. are there other solutions I should consider?

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Faster Way to fix Win2k boot sector *if*

by QB In reply to Faster Way to fix Win2k b ...

Wouldn't it be easier to get removable drive cases for your "permanent" drives? Since they will then be using the same IDE and will never be connected at the same time there will not be any boot sector problems this why. This is the way that I havealways set it up. And it works great. All you would have to do is pull the 98 HD out and slap the w2kp back in, no problems.

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Faster Way to fix Win2k boot sector *if*

by Carol In reply to Faster Way to fix Win2k b ...

Hi :-) I appreciate the advice. Unfortuantely I'm not in a position to make those decisions, and right now we don't have the hardware. I just need to deal with what we have now, as best as I can, and perhaps next quarter, or another quarter when this is relevant we can use that.

We've had a limited number of portables, and we're using the two sets, for two classes which it is necessary to keep them seperate.

So far I haven't found anything more expedient for fixing the MBR, than the recover console, which is a bummer since it means waiting for all 4 disks to load. From what I've read, a similar situation with NT4, would be quicker, provided you had a boot disk (which as I said I do have). Now that all those repair tools have been moved over to the recovery console... it's just a longer process to load them, in order to run the fixboot.exe program.

Thank you for your suggestion.. I would agree, that could be a simpler task in the future.

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Faster Way to fix Win2k boot sector *if*

by Carol In reply to Faster Way to fix Win2k b ...

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