98/XP Dual Boot...Can't Get 98 and No Floppy

[koldkane]

Hi All,

I have a Dell PIII 500 with 512 Ram.
I'm dual booting...Win98 off one primary partitioned 14 gig hard drive and XP off another slave partitioned 40 gig HD.
I was working with a music making app in Win98 when I got a blue screen...after rebooting and getting to my dual boot screen to choose my OS, I chose
Win98. I got the "Invalid System Disk" error. Checked to see that there was no floppy in and there wasn't. Same error just kept happening. Tried booting to XP and there was no problem. I checked to see if my A drive was there and it wasn't. Tried swapping the floppy with a good one from an old PC and had the same problem. Reseated the cables, same problem.
When I boot into XP I can open, close and work with files off the other hard drive with Win98 on it. Yet the A drive doesn't show up under XP.
I guess my question is …even if my A drive can’t be accessed why do I get that invalid disk
Error when trying to boot into the Win98 HD and yet have no problem getting into the XP HD?
And what the heck can I do about it? I’m stumped.
I thought about going into CMOS and setting my boot sequence to start with my CD drive
and reinstalling Win98, but I don’t know if that will screw things up altogether. If after that
I may not be able to even get into XP and I’ll be screwed!
Any ideas???

Much thanks!!!! Koldkane

 

[TekTippy4U]

In trying to help with minimal knowledge with dual boots and XP....
It seems the Boot.ini file got screwed up and you may have to edit it, which i think can be done thru MSCONFIG here
(pic)

http://www.winnetmag.com/Files/16/20784/msconfig.gif

and/or use "Recovery Console".....

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;307654

here's some meanings inside the Boot.ini file

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;314081

Take a look at this for editing the Boot.ini;

http://support.microsoft.com/defaul...port/kb/articles/Q289/0/22.asp&NoWebContent=1

And definitely "wait" for more input from others more knowledgeable here concerning XP....i don't want you to lose your data

TT4U

Notification:
These are just "my" thoughts....and should be carefully measured against other opinions....I try very hard to impart correct info at all times.

 

[gounistat]

You would not have problem when you change CMOS to boot to either XP HD or 98 HD. This is the safest setting you can have. I think since you could dualboot your PC before certain time, that your 98 boot sector screwed up for some reason. (afraid of some virus???) It is best to reformat that HD but if you do not want to miss saved data on it, try reinstalling 98 OS on it. Do not forget to update OS from Windows Update. Also check your antivirus program on it and scan the entire HD to be sure. That should work for you.

 

[PAndersen]

Reinstalling Win98 will probably create a XP repair problem.

 

[koldkane]

Thanks guys...I had just finished doing a complete virus scan and defrag on my PC and run Norton System Works, as I do daily, just before this happened. So I'm pretty sure it's not a virus. After the crash I ran virus scan and System works on that hard drive again from XP and found no problems. One thing I've recently found is that there is no boot.ini on my C:Win98 HD...shouldn't there be one?

 

[koldkane]

Ok....I created a boot CD, booted from it and typed SYS C:
Restarted and Win98 booted successfully, yay. And I can see my A: drive now, although it still doesn't work, must have got fried somehow?
So then I booted to WinXP CD to repair the boot loader.
Chooose Repair
Chose 1
Put in my password
My XP is on the 2nd HD in the 1st. partition G:
At the G:/Windows prompt I typed FIXBOOT C:
Confirmed that it was repaired.
Restarted and got my boot screen back with my 98 and XP coices
Chose 98 and dang if it didn't come up with the same error:
Invalid System Disk!!!!???

Any other ideas?

BTW...in setup here is what my boot section looks like:
Boot-time Diagnostic Screen: Disabled
QuikBoot Mode: Disabled
Restore on AC/PowerLoss: Last State
On Lan: Power On
First Boot Device: Removable Device
Second Boot Deice: Hard Drive
Third Boot Device: CD-ROM Drive
Forth Boot Device: Network Boot
>Hard Drive
>Removable Devices

Cheers...k

 

[TekTippy4U]

I may be off here, but I think, that because the 98 is the Active BootDrive and XP is the slave...the Dual boot function is thru msdos.sys (replaced by, when you SYS C
It's good you did Sys C: anyway as it got your 98 up and running.(I forgot is was a Master/Slave setup and not diff partitions on the same drive)

Did u try just/only the Sys C: step....
was it necessary to repair the XP boot loader at all??

Did you view your Msdos.sys in (C:\)for a
[Options]
BootMulti=2

First; Do the SYS C: again to get into 98
Go Start>Settings>Folder Options>View
select"Show All Files"
Go to/Find Msdos.sys on C:Right click Msdos.sys...choose properties
uncheck Read,System,Hidden attrib's
click OK
Right click Msdos.sys and choose OpenWith
choose NotePad(uncheck the "always open this type...."box)
Click OK
Go File>Save As> Msdos.xxx (this is so you have a backup copy, of original)(save it to C:\ also, so it's easy to find in Dos Mode, and its only a matter of removing the attrib's and renaming the extension to reuse it.)
Add back the Read,System,Hidden attrib to msdos.xxx
only, for now

Now , edit the original, if so inclined, or just view and wait for more input from others....
If your not going to edit it, put the Read,System,Hidden Attrib's back.

Post back with Msdos.sys or Msdos.xxx text if no "BootMulti=" entry is present
(just the legible part, not all the -xxxxxx-'s towards the bottom, don't mess them up either)

TT4U

Notification:
These are just "my" thoughts....and should be carefully measured against other opinions....I try very hard to impart correct info at all times.