DescentBB

O.K. so I have one HD (curious, but in my scooter forum HD would = Harley D ) set in fat32 with win 98se. Second HD is set to NFTS with win xp. So far so good. I set up xp first and when I'd boot I would get a choice of 98 or xp to start. Win 98 was locking up on boot so I formatted and re-installe 98. Got everything working peachy...except(and now it is a BIG except) that when I now boot it doesn't give me a choice and goes directly to 98.

O.K. so I install boot magic and set the 2nd HD partion with xp as a second choice. Boot magic does not recognise win xp and lists it as unknown (prolly because I'm reading from a fat32 drive?).
Anyway on boot it lists "unknown drive" and I select it...but then the boot sequence hangs on "trying to initialise unknown HD".

Alrighty so I uninstall boot magic and go to bios and make win xp drive as first bootable drive and exit out to boot. Computor goes straight to win 98.

Now I'm pissed so I reverse physical hook-ups and make win xp drive primary and make win 98 slave. Boot up and I still go directly to win 98. ARRRGG!!!
What gives?

I'll buy you all milk and cookies later for all the help given so far. Maybe even throw in a big fat hooker for Stingray

Make the WinXP partition bootable and the Win98 partition not. Then reinstall WinXP. The bootloader got fried.

Win98se is real picky who it sleeps with. Its best to install Win98se first on the primary drive, then install XP on the other drive.

MUST ..... RESIST ...... THE ......URGE .... TO ... POST!

<font size=7 color=white face=tahoma>AAAARGH!</font>

Dcrazy, I can't make winxp bootable as I have to go through win98 for partition magic to see it, but since win98 is on fat32 pm cannot read it to make it bootable. I also tried through bios to make the winxp hd the only bootable drive and that succored also.

Gods, I don't want to have to instal win xp all over again (sigh).

Can't you repair the MBR from the XP recovery console?

Jeff if I hit f8 I get the old safemode screen, so no help there. I guess I'll try sticking the win xp disk in and boot...pray for me guys

Ok, heres what you have to do, put the XP CD in, and boot from it, start up a normal install, then when it gives you the option run a repair install. It will replace the boot loader that 98 fried and then you will have to reinstall all the windows updates but the configuration will be preserved.

-Krom

grub would be ideal for this situation.

Too bad I've yet see someone come out with a stand-alone installer for it.

And its a bastard to install.

the other option, if your motherboard supports it, is to use its boot device selector, and not have to bother with this non-sense at all.

In my experience, Win98 will overwrite any bootloader present on the disk when it is installed. This is always why dual-boot guides (at least from Microsoft, I think) tell you to install Win98 first, and then install the other OS afterwards.

Krom, this winxp is a upgrade and will not boot from start-up. I used a start-up disk and the winxp upgrade says "can't load from dos.

So what if I unplug the win98 hd, boot into the winxp hd...any possibilities there for correcting the problem?

Flip, I did go into bios and under boot sequence I set all choices to the winxp hd. Didn't do a thing...still got win98.

Woodchip, no dice as far as unplugging the Win98 drive. The bootloader is gone.

You don't have to have a startup disk to run WinXP setup. It should boot from the CD. In BIOS make sure the CD drive is set before any hard drives in boot order, stick the CD in the drive (and remove any floppies), and reset the machine. You should be able to repair the installation from there.

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Arial">quote:</font><HR><font face="Arial" size="3">Originally posted by woodchip:
I set up xp first and when I'd boot I would get a choice of 98 or xp to start.</font><HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

That was your mistake right there. If you're dual-booting, install any OS older than the new one FIRST. Doesn't matter if its 2k or 98. What you need to do is boot off the XP CD and go into the recovery console. Run FIXMBR. That should restore the bootloader. Then just reboot and see if it works.

Thanks guys...just goes to show ya, you're never too old to learn something new.

Well I tried the FIXMBR, said all went well...and here I am back on the Win98 drive. Should I maybe try the bootfix command?

Or should I just try and reinstall win xp? Dang this is getting to be a pain.

FDISK /MBR the C drive. Then make sure both NTLDR and Boot.ini are present. If neither of these files are present, then it will boot to 98 everytime.

Well, fixed it. Had to format winxp partition and re-install. MD2389 was correct. Old O.S. first, then the newer one second.
Thanks everyone for your input.

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Arial">quote:</font><HR><font face="Arial" size="3">Originally posted by Tyranny: posted 02-03-2004 06:59 PM
Win98se is real picky who it sleeps with. Its best to install Win98se first on the primary drive, then install XP on the other drive.</font><HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

hrm....

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Arial">quote:</font><HR><font face="Arial" size="3">Originally posted by MD-2389: posted 02-04-2004 10:24 AM
That was your mistake right there. If you're dual-booting, install any OS older than the new one FIRST. Doesn't matter if its 2k or 98.</font><HR></BLOCKQUOTE>


hrmx2.....I guess the only difference was he actually gave a suggestion on how to fix it

Best rule after you have done this a few times and stopped enjoying it is to install your OSs on each drive and change boot order in the bios as previously mentioned.
If you are sticking with the windows boot loader you can change the OS boot order by reversing the OS order in boot.ini
Sooner or later you'll be back to fixing it so forget it and use the BIOS.
You could have fixed your problem without reinstall but each time I fix it there is some difference so it's not valuable to write a single method for repair.

Sorry Tyranny, I was guilty of not scrolling up far enough. Thank you too (hands Tyranny a glass of milk and some oreo cookies to make amends )

mmmmmm, Milk 'N Cookies!

You perhaps remember the old Andy Williams show where the bear comes out and says "Milk and Cookies!"

hehe naw, was before my time, but it felt like the appropriate response to make