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Name: Patrick
Hi, I have a dual boot system with 2 harddisks. Win98 (c:/) is on the master and win2k (D:/) is on the slave. I want to go back to a single boot system with win2k on the master (C:/). How do I do that? If I just take out the win98 disk and turn the win2k disk into master, win2k won't boot!? How do I tell win2k where to boot from. Also I will need a way to change all references to D:/ to C:/
I found somethings here that come close, but I couldn't find the exact answer...
You can't do that because C drive is your boot partition. I would think you would have to reformat your C drive and then install win2K as your priamry OS. All your registry references are on C, so if you format that disk, you'll loose your win2K also. Why don't you just make Win2K the Primary OS by selecting it as the Boot OS, and let 98 in the background. It's nice to have a second OS in case of a failure with one system.
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Hi Grasshopper,
The Problem is that the win98 drive is almost dead, so I need to replace it! I found some possibilities like copying some files from my win98 disk to the disk that's gonna replace it, but that didn't work for me. Maybe someone knows another solution, apart from "repairing" win2k bootsector, which I also saw as an option?
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If the W2k disk is going to be mounted as the 1st IDE primary master drive, then you could just copy the ntldr, ntdetect.com and boot.ini files from the W98 drive to the W2k drive. Change the boot.ini to
[boot loader]
timeout=10
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT="W2k Pro" /fastdetect
Your system should come up on the D: drive letter. You could see "Error loading operating system" or "Missing operating system. These are the messages in the DOS type MBR, so you would have to run the fixmbr command from the W2k console (off of the W2k CD). You wouldn't be able to get the "missing ntldr" message as that comes from a NT type MBR.
As to changing the drive letters (from D: to C:) in the registry - have fun, there are a lot of them. It has worked for me in the past when I wanted a NT type OS on a particular drive letter. Just reboot right afterwards. Remember also that your program links will also have to be changed - and the location of you pagefile.
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Damn, that also doesn't work for me :(
I did everything you said (win2k as master on the Primary IDE, copying those 3 files, and the changes to the boot.ini file) but I get an boot error message...
Why doesn't it work?
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Was that a BIOS boot error or a Boot Loader error?
I know this procedure works, I just did it last night. Per XP forum post #77308, I just copied the W2k partition back to a drive and put it back in my AMD machine. Just booted it, W2k came up fine.
My bad. I just checked the partition boot sector, that is where the "NTLDR is missing" message comes from. Unforunately, W2k doesn't have the fixboot command.
Try the Repair, Manual Repair procedure for the boot sector (hit enter to remove the first 2 X's, leaving just the "Inspect boot sector" selected with the X).
Or do a temp W2k install to a junk folder (not Winnt). After the first reboot (be quick) boot to your regular W2k - should be one arrow down key. Delete the junk folder and edit the boot.ini file again so that it looks like the above (assumes that W2k is installed on the first partition).
I'll check back later tonight to see how its going.
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I got an "invalid system disk error"
I don't know if this is a Bios error or bootloader error...
About the repair function; I don't know how that works? do I have to boot from Win2k CD-rom? and then choose repair option?
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I tried more options, I tried changes to my bios (I tried booting from IDE 0, 1 and 2, nothing worked) I tried different settings in the boot.ini ( partition(0) and Partition(1)). also did not help...
I have no Idea why it doesn't want to boot
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Sounds like you have run into the samething I do, the disk doesn't have an ACTIVE partition. The easiest way for you to resolve that is to put the drives back to normal (W98 and W2k) and boot to W2k. Then go into Disk Management and make the W2k partition ACTIVE. Right click My Computer, choose Manage. Choose Disk Management in the left pane. In the lower right hand pane, right click the drive (letter not the Disk 1) and choose "Mark partition as Active".
You could try a W98 boot floppy to do the samething, unless your W2k partition is NTFS - not sure if that would work. For some reason, I always forget this step when I'm messing around with my disks.
The Repair Procedure is run off of the W2k CD. It is menu driven and fairly easy to follow. The first question it askes you is if you want to Install, Repair or Quit. You'd want to Repair. Then it will ask you if you want to do Recovery Console repair or just repair. Then Automatic or Manual Repair, you'd want manual. The next screen is where you get 3 things X'd to repair. Take out the X's from the 1st two, leaving just the "Inspect boot sector" X'd. Then continue and it will fix the boot sector.
You won't be able to boot from any other IDE HDD device that doesn't have a disk on it. Especially for this disk, until it has an ACTIVE partition. Nor would partition(0) work as the ARC naming convention doesn't start at 0 for the partitions, but does for everything else.
Another alternative is to format a floppy via W2k and copy the NTLDR, NTDETECT.COM and BOOT.INI files to it. This would give you a boot disk that would boot you to the GUI logon screen for your W2k. I haven't tried it on a disk that doesn't have an active partition so I don't know if that would work (another thing I'm going to have to try).
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Hi Michael, thanks for all your info!!
unfortunately I encountered another problem;
in the disk management when I right click my Win2k partition the option "make partition active" is grey, I can't select that option :(
Maybe I'll try the repair option tomorrow, but I'm afraid to end up with an unbootable sytem if the repair function f---s up...Because now at least I have a bootable system when I use the old config (win98, win2k) Oh, do I choose recovery console repair or just repair in the second step, I don't know the difference?
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oh, what I forgot to tell; I looked in the help of win2k about that greyed out option. I did everything they said; logged in as administrator and just to be sure i disabled all network stuff, but it still did not work...
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No to the Recovery Console. It doesn't have an option to repair the boot sector.
Yes to the Repair option. Then choose the manual repair and deselect the options I mentioned previously.
Now that you have a bootable system again, try formatting a floppy (under W2k) and copying the boot file to it. Change the rdisk(1) to rdisk(0) in the floppy's boot.ini file. Then put the W2k HDD in as the master drive (by itself) and try booting from the floppy.
I find it strange that your "Mark partition active" is grayed out. I wonder if that disk only has an extended partition? Is it NTFS format? How had you originally installed W2k to that HDD?
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No, I'm sure it's a primary partition with FAT32. If I look in Partition Magic 8 then it shows that the partition is already marked as active...maybe that's why the option in disk management is grayed out? If so, I guess there is something else wrong that's prohibiting win2k from booting.
maybe the repair procedure you told me is going to work...otherwise I'll have to do a fresh install of win2k :( (gonna be a lot of work to reinstall all my program files again :()
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Yup, that partition should already be active then. That looks like the reason for it having the grayed out "Mark paritition active" in Disk Manager.
The repair procedure should then resolve any boot sector issues.
I'd still try the floppy boot method I mentioned before going for a complete re-install.
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Michael, thank you very much for all your help!!
I tried the repair method and it worked! however I had nothing to do this saturday so I decide to do a fresh install of win2k on my new HDD anyways. Some reasons for that are that the disk is faster than my old win2k disk. Also I had some problems with Xvid and some other minor problems in win2k. So now I'm typing this from my newly installed speedy win2k machine :)
Thanks again!
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