Dual Boot Problem with Win2000 and Win ME

[oldbear]

My friend has a dual boot Sony Vaio (sp) system with Win ME and Win 2000. The Win ME was on it first. He loaded Win2000. Something apparently happened where he could no longer boot in ME...Win2000 works fine. He tried to reload Win ME over itself and it only goes so far before it stops. The message on the screen says it is continuing to load/process files, etc like right before it makes the final adjustments and gives you a final screen. The hard drive light stays lit but the system doesn't do anything. If you don't hit ESC key, the Win ME screen stays on with the little progress bar at the bottom flashing across the screen. It's stuck at this point and won't go any further...any suggestions?

oldbear

 

[wolluf]

Some questions/points

- installing ME over itself will wipe out the 2k bootloader (ie, no dual boot - just ME booting). I would create a 2k boot floppy (copy ntldr, ntdetect.com & boot.ini from root of C: to a newly formatted floppy) for insurance.

- is 2k on ntfs or fat32 partition? - they are on SEPARATE partitions? (can have problems installing ME if ntfs partition is present/visible).

- does he really need ME and 2k - might be better off just with 2k.

- would be a good idea to find out what went wrong with ME - could be reason why its not reinstalling properly.

- if really wants to get ME back, probably best backing up, wiping the ME partition and then clean installing. Will then need to either do a repair reinstall of 2k (

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;292175&Product=win2000)

or recreate bootsect.dos and play with boot.ini & fixboot (eg,

http://www.petri.co.il/install_win98_after_xp.htm)

or go for third party boot manager & primary partitions to make the installations independent (I use

http://www.boot-us.com)

to re-establish dual boot. Of course, if both in same partition (which you should not do), slightly different problem (as wiping it will wipe both o/s).

 

[oldbear]

Wolluf,

Thanks for the ideas...the Win ME was the original operating system on this computer and he has (or had)all his programs and files attached to it. He really needs access back to Win ME. The Win 2K was installed recently and I didn't check to see if they were on separate partitions but will do so. It might be the reason he is having problems now.

Thanks again,

oldbear