Remove Win98 from WInXP/Win98 dualboot?

[feldt]

I have an Win98/WinXPpro dualboot, but now my Win98 disk died, and I cannot boot. I have removed the Win98 disk, and am now trying to get the WinXPpro disk to be bootable. I'm not succeeding!

In fdisk, I have set the XP partition to active, and i the recovery console, I have tried fixboot. When I boot, I get the message

NTLDR is missing
Press Ctrl+Alt+Del to restart.

I have copied NTLDR from i386 on the CD, but now the computer just goes into a continous reboot loop with no error messages.

What is wrong?

On a regular WinXPpro singleboot installation, there is no NTLDR, and no boot.ini. Why are these files necessary now?

I have not tried fixmbr. The message about possibility of loosing contact with the partition scares me a little. The data on the XP disk is important.

 

[linney]

Try the Bootcfg command in recovery console and see if it can rebuild your boot up files that are unfortunately sitting on the disk you removed.

bootcfg /rebuild
Iterate through all Windows installations and allow the user to choose which to add.

Microsoft Knowledge Base Article - Q305595
HOW TO: Create a Boot Disk for an NTFS or FAT Partition in Windows XP

http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/q305/5/95.asp

 

[feldt]

I have tried that, but that was before i copied ntldr from the CD. Maybe I should try again.

There is no boot.ini on the XP drive. Should there be? Is that why the computer just continues rebooting? If that's the case, how should a boot.ini look for at single boot?

/feldt

 

[wolluf]

You should have ntdetect.com (also on XP CD) and boot.ini in root of drive with ntldr. Boot.ini should look something like:-

boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /fastdetect

assuming XP on 1st partition on 1st drive.

 

[wolluf]

PS - you can make a boot floppy - format floppy and copy the files ntldr, ntdetect.com and boot.ini (as above) to it. This should boot your XP installation

 

[feldt]

Hi.

Copying ntdetect.com to root of c-drive did the trick. Now it works fine.

Thanks
/feldt