I have 2 bootable HD's on my system....I had to format and reinstall XP on one of the drives....When everything was working...I would turn my PC on..it get an option to which drive I wanted to boot into....now....I dont get that option...and it says I have a invalid Boot.ini on C

But....I can disconnect drive D...and get the option to boot into either drive...but of course I cant...since D isnt connected.....

Any ideas??

hopefully I explained all of this correctly

Forgot to add....with drive D disconnected..I everything works fine...

Thanks

What OS have you got installed on the other Hard Drive?

If it is win98 then you have overwritten your bootfiles and you need to reconstruct them.

Visit my website (HOMEPAGE link) and look up the Repair Dual Boot / Triple Boot section for more details.

___________________________________________
☺ When everything else fails, read the instructions.

I have XP Pro on both drives....

I just printed out the instructions on your site mosaddique...Thanks!

I cant believe this....I got to the part to enter my administrator password....and have forgot it!!!

Antway to find out what it is???

You are welcome.

Did you set a password when you installed XP?

If not then just enter return and it should work.

If you have then I have not had to use it but you could try this (I do not know if it will work or not):

I Forgot My Administrator Password!

Or this one from Microsoft:
How to log on to Windows XP if you forget your password or your password expires

___________________________________________
☺ When everything else fails, read the instructions.

Another option is you could contruct a boot.ini manually yourself.

There is some information on my website regarding it and you could always google for it.

Another question (that may be important) is which one is the boot drive in your BIOS? The boot.ini of the boot drive is the one that must be correct.

Which version of XP did you re-install (C: or D: drive)?

___________________________________________
☺ When everything else fails, read the instructions.

I folloed the directions at your site mosaddique.....it still isnt working...
I did do it manually..this is what it looks like....

[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(1)\WINDOWS="XP Pro 2" /fastdetect
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="XP Pro 1" /fastdetect

Does it look like it should work?

C is my master in the bios

I re-installed xp pro...there is xp pro on both drives

thanks for the help

You still have not indicated which drive you re-installed XP Pro on. Is there a boot.ini on the other drive?

The boot.ini you have listed looks correct.

You have XP Pro on partition 1 of disk 0.
and
You have XP Pro on partition 1 of disk 1.

The default is the XP Pro on disk 0.

Please be aware that WinXP drive lettering works differently and so drive C: may NOT be the first drive.

There is a section titled "Windows Drive Letter Assignments" on my website if you want to learn more about it.

You could use bootcfg /rebuild to rebuild your boot.ini. However, this also involves using the recovery console which requires the admin password.

Here are some more URLs on that subject:

"Invalid Boot.ini" or "Windows could not start" error messages when you start your computer

One Installed Operating System Is Missing from the Startup Menu in a Multiple-Boot Computer

You could also try this suggestion:
invalid boot.ini loading from c:\windows

___________________________________________
☺ When everything else fails, read the instructions.

something else that is weird....I can do the msconfig thing...

click the boot.ini tab...

check to see if the paths are right...

and it says on both of them that there doesnt seem to be a valid operating system..and asks if I want to remove it...

What a mess...

I got it!!

I checked the jumpers 3 or 4 times....

Thought I would try one last time....

that was it....had the jumpers wrong...

sorry for the trouble...

and thanks for the help...!!

You are welcome. Glad you have it sorted.

___________________________________________
☺ When everything else fails, read the instructions.