Hi everyone, I have dual boot systems of ME & XP. I had to reinstall ME & have lost that operating system choice window for booting ME or XP, & now ME boots up as a single operating system... I thought that one day this may happen, so I did back-up my BOOT.INI file prior to the reinstall... ***Is there a way to use the backed-up BOOT.INI file to repair the dual-boot? (tried putting it back under C:/BOOT.INI, but didn't work...) thanks for any advice!

Make sure the file is not read-only. Go to C:\ and in folder options check "Show hidden files and folders" and uncheck "Hide Protected OS files". Then right-click on boot.ini and go to properties. Make sure the read-only box is unchecked. Restore boot.ini to its previous state. If it still doesn't work, you may have to reinstall XP. Someone else may know an easier method however...

When you reinstalled ME you rewrote the Master Boot Record. Now your system only recognizes that ME is installed. To get your dual boot system back you will need to boot to the XP cd and enter the recovery console (you will need the administrator password to do this). When you get to a command prompt in the Recovery Console type: fixboot c: and hit enter. This should rewrite the bootloader and your system will recognize the XP partition. The MSKB is being "revamped" and "upgraded" right now... but I did find this article about the Recovery console that may be of use to you if you are not familiar with it: http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=KB;en-us;q307654

Hi again, & thank you both for responding, I did try the "fixboot" in the XP recovery console before I ever posted here...it only led to an error screen (don't remember what it said, now) & I could not even boot ME. I then had to reinstall ME again, & then I came here. By the way, my backup of BOOT.INI is checked as an archive file, & I never let Windows hide any files.

If you tried fixboot c: from the Recovery Console... and it didn't help... I would try the repair install of Windows XP. It's not that the boot.ini is not on the root of c:.. or that the computer doesn't see it. It's that the Boot record has no instructions in it to use it. You must get XP to rewrite the MBR or you will not see the boot.ini file. I'd be interested in seeing the error you were getting... oh well.:) Good luck!