Unable to boot from XP and/or Win 2000 after new installation of Win 98

[j_a_rasheed 0]

Initially I had Win98 on my C: drive, Win2000 on D: drive and XP on F: drive.

I reformatted the C: drive and installed anew Win 98 on it.

Win 98 is booted automatically without any option to select the other OS.

What should be done so that I have the option of either boot for Win98 or Win 2000 or Win XP without loosing the data on the partition D: and F: . Thanks

[Relic 0]

'98 doesn't recognize NTFS file systems, so it can't see them. XP/2000 have to be installed after '98.

 

You can try getting rid of '98, then backing up your XP/2000 drives, or just start fresh.

 

I'm not sure if doing a repair install on XP would get all your files back, maybe someone else has a clue, personally, I think yur pooched.

[Wilhelmus 1]

When you formatted C:, you removed NT(2000/XP) boot loader.

Do following in your own risk, BACKUP before if you do this.

 

Method 1 (easiest?):

Do repair install for 2000.

Then do repair install for XP.

 

Method 2 (hard):

 

You need diskette for this.

 

Get Windows 98 SE boot image from http://www.bootdisk.com/ and create diskette from it.

Create a Notepad file with the following entries, exactly as shown:

 

L 100 2 0 1

N C:\BOOTSECT.DOS

R BX

0

R CX

200

W

Q

 

Save this as READ.SRC to diskette.

Plug the diskette out for now.

 

Boot from XP CD.

Enter recovery console.

Execute these commands. (change CDROM with XP CD drive letter)

 

copy CDROM:\i386\ntldr c:\

copy CDROM:\i386\ntdetect.com c:\

fixmbr

fixboot C:

bootcfg /rebuild

 

First we copy NT boot loader files to C:

Then we fix MBR and boot sector.

Lastly we rebuild boot.ini file.

When you rebuild the boot.ini, it should ask 1) load identifier and 2)OS load options. For 1) enter name of OS, for example if it is adding 2000 enter "Windows 2000" or "Windows XP" for XP. 2)

This is /fastdetect for 2000 and XP.

 

Now insert diskette.

Execute:

A:\DEBUG <READ.SCR

 

Now, take CD and diskette out and type exit to reboot and cross your fingers...

[j_a_rasheed 0]

Thanks to all.

Since there were no lost of data, I reinstalled anew Win2000 and WinXp.