Boot problems on triple system 1

[toolman59]

Recently I have created four partitions on an 80gb disk with partion magic for two Win XPs (NTFS) and Win98 plus a FAT32 partition for user files and a small NTFS one for a seperate pagefile. The the HD prior to partitioning was a single XP NTFS setup as supplied with the computer.
Not wishing to dump the original XP this was left on C: a new XP was installed on the empty NTFS partition, registered and updated via MS update, when it was complete it was copied with PMagic to produce another XP partition.
At this stage the Bootloader was tracking each new addition and working as expected.
When the new XP setups were complete, I copied the bootloader files to a safe place, then formatted C: and installed Win98 also copied the boot loader files back into C: root.
Since then I cannot boot into XP even when the Partitions are unhidden and set active with PMagic or BMagic. I have installed PMagic and BMagic in C:trying all the various settings. I have read thro' the PMagic and BMagic paper work and help, it really says that the best solution for booting WIN98 and XP is to use the Bootloader from Windows XP.
How do I get the Bootloader back online when I can't get into the XP partitions?

Thanks

Toolman59

 

[edfair]

Maybe a repair installation?

Ed Fair
Give the wrong symptoms, get the wrong solutions.

 

[toolman59]

Edfair

Thanks for your reply,ran fixboot from the recovery console also found that Partition Magic was hiding the partitions when changing the active partition, so I then set the active partition first and then set the other partitions to unhidden.

Toolman59

 

[wolluf]

Toolman59 - does this mean you're sorted then?

 

[toolman59]

Wolluf

I thought it was all was sorted, but now we have found that we cannot boot into Win98 from the menu, if we run "SYS C:" Win98 boots straight past the bootloader menu into WIN98.

If we run "Fixboot" the bootloader menu appears as expected allowing both XPs to boot, but if Win98 is selected from the menu the system reboots to the bootloader menu.

It would seem that "Fixboot" and "Sys C:" reset each other's settings. I checked the help in the Recovery console to see if there were any other switches to use with Fixboot, only changing the default drive is available.

At least we can access the OSs, but have to make choice early on and then we are stuck with it.

My own system boots to XP or Win98 as required, at the moment I cannot put my finger on the difference that allows mine to work and the other to stumble. There must be a way to set the bootsector on C:\root that accomodates XP and Win98.

Cheers

Toolman

 

[toolman59]

Wolluf

I have read your thread again in the XP forum, I will run the Dougknox repair again to see if this is the solution now that the partition hiding has been nailed.

Toolman

 

[wolluf]

let us know how you get on

 

[toolman59]

Wolluf

We have tried all the various repair actions to get a boot menu for XP and Win98 that would work, but without success.

We did SYS C; and fixboot, a repair installation, the Dougknox debug procedure, all of these would not produce a working boot menu for XP and Win98.

So we have deleted all the operating systems and started from a reformatted disk. Loaded Win98 first to C: and then XP to E: NTFS, D: is a FAT32 work file partition. As soon as we finished loading XP and rebooted, we had a fully functional boot menu.

The lessons we learnt from this exercise were:

1 Load Win98 first then XP

2 When using Partition Magic make sure to set the active
partion first, then unhide anything that needs
unhiding.

3 Boot Magic did not solve the problem.

4 Load recovery console to HD, it saves a lot of time.

It must be possible to load Win98 after XP and get a fully working boot menu, we certainly did not crack the problem. However we have probablely done ourselves a favour by clearing out the HD.

Thank you both again for your suggestions.

Toolman

 

[wolluf]

Glad you're sorted.

Don't know if you're interested - but IMO, its best for each operating system in a multi-boot to have its own boot sector on its own partition. This makes them all independent - so if problems with one, others still work. This setup is also best served by a third party boot manager - like the one I use, boot-us or Boot Magic. when you are setting this up, after first operating system is installed, always hide all partitions, apart from the one you're installing to when setting up subsequent o/s (for windows, this forces them to create boot sector on their own, rather than first partition). When all installed, unhide the partitions and use your boot manager to set up boot menu. It doesn't matter which order you install the different versions of windows in this scenario.

 

[toolman59]

Wolluf

You have answered a question that was nagging at the back of my mind, which was, how to make each OS bootable in it's own right. Next time I have a "clean up" on my HD, I will use the procedure you have described.

During this exercise I have been keeping notes so that I don't repeat my mistakes, and I will add this this to the "Do" section.

Thank you again.

Toolman