TriBoot Setup but only one OS

[Grassman1]

I have two harddrives with a Tripple boot configuration. Here is the partition setup.

Disk 1- Partition 1=Win98SE
Partition 2=Win XP Home
Partition 3=My Music
Partition 4=My Pictures

Disk 2- Partition 1=Win 2000 Pro
Partition 2=Storage

After formatting a thrird drive for a friend connected in my disk two location I lost the wid 200 pro boot option.

I found a couple posts that the boot.ini file needed to be changed in order to load the first partition of the second disk.

After changing the boot.ini file the 98 partition was not bootable and is not accessable from dos to modify the boot.ini file.

Im not sure but this is what the boot.ini file should look like:

[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi<0>disk<0>rdisk<0>partition<1>\windows

[operating systems]
multi<0>disk<0>rdisk<0>partition<0>\windows=&quot;windows 98SE&quot;
multi<0>disk<1>rdisk<0>partition<1>\winnt=&quot;win 2000 pro&quot;

Windows XP was installed by making the second partition on disk one active so it was never an option on the multi boot screen.

I am using boot magic Partition Magic 7.0 which is installed on the 1st partition of disk 1. I cannot access the 1st partition of disk 1 or disk 2 because of advanced partition hiding enabled in partition magic.

How do I access the first partition of disk 1 to change the boot.ini file? Any help would be much appreciated.

 

[wolluf]

bit confused by use of XP boot loader and boot magic (you don't need boot magic). To boot your config, you need a boot.ini which looks like this:-

[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS=&quot;Microsoft Windows XP Professional&quot; /fastdetect
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(1)\WINNT=&quot;Microsoft
Windows 2000 Professional&quot; /fastdetect
C:\=&quot;Microsoft Windows&quot;

Its not clear if you can boot anything currently - but if you can, partition magic can also unhide partitions.
You can use other tools to hide/unhide partitions (eg,

http://www.lpacomputers.telinco.co.uk/PD.zip

or

http://www.boot-us.com

- a good boot manager).

 

[Grassman1]

Thanks for replying wolluf.

I guess I was not clear about the Windows XP install. XP was installed independent from Win98 and Win2000 Pro, if the partition is set to active it will boot directly to XP without any bootloader.

Lets forget about XP as it is not neccessary to complete my boot.ini file.

I was able to get my 1st primary partition active with fdisk. After looking at your boot.ini recommendation I see why win98 wouldn't boot.

Boot.ini now looks like this:

[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(1)\winnt
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(1)\winnt=&quot;Windows 2000 Professional&quot;/fast detect
c:\=&quot;Windows 98SE&quot;

I can now boot to Win98 but when I try to load Win2000 Pro I get the following message:

Windows 2000 could not start because of a computer disk hardware configuration problem.
Could not read from the selected boot disk. Check boot path and disk hardware.

After triple checking that the above boot.ini file is exactly as it is writen on my drive, I can not load windows 2000 pro

I unhide the Win2000 Pro partition and can access it with Windows XP and I notice there are no system files or boot files in the root of the windows 2000 Pro partition. Could this be the problem? If it is how would I go about copying those files from the Windows 2000 Pro CD?

 

[SYAR2003]

hello !
boot magic is quite useful actually
i used to use it with multiboot scenarios before.

But it's very easy to get a little lost
regarding the boot ini issues.

It's advantage is to hide os partitions during setup
of a new os so your boot.ini of a new e.g w2k
installation only reflects this new one.

I always used it like this .
Have four primary partitions on a disk (partition magic).
The current os e.g win-xp as active and the others as none.

Start boot magic and made an boot meny for all four.

Say i want to install a new (win) os at part.2
Set in bootmagic meny on boot item 2 advanced part hiding
to hide 1&3&4 .
Bios boot order to HDD CD .
Boot machine and choose in bootmagic meny 2
install os e.g w2k from cd to part.2.
This install will not know about the other xp installation
and installs &quot;clean&quot; on the part.2 and having windows
and partition as C: inside windows.

After the install the advanced hiding can be taken away
for menu item 2 so that the xp-partition can be seen as a next drive.

The boot.ini on part 1 is then only for the xp-inst
The boot ini on part 2 is then only for the w2k inst
and they are not dependent of each other as bootmagic
meny directs to the right partition and setting it active
as the menuchoice is given .
E.g meny choice 1
Part 1 active boot.ini here used
Part 2 none
Part 3 none
Part 4 none

E.g meny choice 2
Part 1 none
Part 2 active boot.ini here used
Part 3 none
Part 4 none


I found that the trick is to get indipendent os
installs.

hope this can help
syar

 

[Grassman1]

Syar,

Yes, I follow you exactly. My configuration is setup mostly like you explained, with one exception. I have a Win2000 Pro partition on Disk 2 partition 1.

If my memory serves me right an operating system cannot be booted from disk 2 without having some system files on the first partition of Disk 1. This may or may not be true for Win2000 Pro with bootmagic installed.

Ultimately I would like to have all operating systems independant of one another. WinXP is the only independant OS as of right now. I installed Win2000 Pro from the active partition on disk 1 which created a boot loader for Win 98SE and Win2000 Pro. This may be the reason there are no system files except pagefile.sys located in the root of my Win2000 Pro partition.

If someone can tell me if copying the system files ie. (autoexec.bat, config.sys, and boot.ini) to the Win2000 Pro partition would make that partition bootable without creating havoc for the rest of my OS's. I could then by pass boot loader and point boot magic to Disk 2 partition 1, and each OS would be independant of one another.Im sure I could get the system files from the install CD.

Second option would be to disconnect disk 1 and connect disk 2 as the master drive and reinstall Win2000 Pro, as I don't need any data from this partition. However I know it is working I just have a system configuration problem and would like to save some time by not having to do a clean install.

Any insight would be much appreciated.

 

[SYAR2003]

Well your BIOS boots system from HDD0 and BOOT magic has it's own boot record on that disk.

I never tried your setup , only with os's on HDD0 .

Wont it work with making pri partitions on HDD1
format them w/fat32 and adding them in the bootmagic manu .

For testing i used to place sys files from a w98 floppy
on the partition ,so the pri partition boots to a w98 dos prompt .

 

[SYAR2003]

Your boot ini on the second HDD part .1
Should look like this.

[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(1)\WINNT
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(1)\WINNT=&quot;Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional&quot; /fastdetect



And a boot magic menu entry to point at disk 2 and part 1.


i guess .........

don't that work


syar

 

[wolluf]

To make the win2k installation independently bootable, you'll need to create a boot sector on its partition. Copy the files ntldr & ntdetect.com from the 2k install CD to root of second drive (the XP versions of ntldr & ntdetect.com will also work for 2k). Create a boot.ini file like SYAR203's in the last post & copy that to root of second drive too.

Now go into 2k's recovery console -

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;229716

- and run fixboot x:, where x: is the 2k drive letter as seen from recovery console. Your 2k should now be independently bootable (so, for example boot magic should be able to boot it). Its possible it might not like that boot.ini (I've noticed using 3rd party boot managers, they can like the boot.ini on second disk to reference 1st disk). So you could add:-

multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT=&quot;Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional&quot; /fastdetect

to that boot.ini - and see which one it will boot from (may do both!) - and then amend the boot.ini accordingly.

 

[Grassman1]

After coping ntldr and ntdetect.com and creating the boot.ini file above, I used recover console to fixboot. Boot magic does not identify that partition as an operating system. I forced boot magic to make it bootable.

After selecting Windows 2000 pro the following line is displayed:

Preparing system to start Windows 2000 Professional.

The system does nothing from this point with no disk activity. Same results with the Winnt boot.ini changed for 3rd party boot managers.

Seems to me there should be an Autoexec.bat and Config.sys file in the root of Win2000 Pro partition. However there is not.

Any other ideas?

 

[wolluf]

Autoexec.bat and Config.sys are not required - they're only there for backward compatibility (and have zero size).

If you disconnect the first drive and just have 2k drive on its own - does it boot then?

PS. The boot.ini on the first drive should also boot 2k when both connected with
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(1)\WINNT=&quot;Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional&quot; /fastdetect

I'm wondering if there's something wrong with your 2k installation.

 

[wolluf]

PS - the 2k partition is unhidden, isn't it?

 

[Grassman1]

I just did a fresh install to my 2k partition with the disk set to master. And it boots just fine. Connect it as primary slave and it wont boot even with the master boot.ini pointing to multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(1)\WINNT=&quot;Mircrosoft Windows 2000 Professional&quot;/fastdetect.

Kinda strange if ya ask me. Bootmagic couldn't boot it either.

guess Im SOL.

Thanks for all your help everyone.

 

[SYAR2003]

HI ! From bm help file .

Booting from a Second Hard Disk

To boot an operating system that is not on the first hard drive, you must enable advanced
partition hiding. To enable advanced partition hiding, click Options + Advanced
Partition Hiding. If this option is not selected (the default), you can only boot from the
first hard disk.

(hide all hdd0 partitions ?)

 

[Grassman1]

Advanced partition hiding hides OS partitions as to prevent file corruption.

I tried booting with partition hiding on and off. No go either way.

 

[SYAR2003]

Well ,concidering all os at hdd0 comes to my mind ...

 

[Grassman1]

I was thinking the same thing Syar.

After reading through the partition magic user guide. I find this bit of information on page 37.

Windows 2000 has a Boot Code Boundary of 8GB**. The partition I have set up is 10GB.

**Having an LBA-compatible (Logical Block Addressing)MBR will make the boot code boundary null with Windows Me/2000/XP.

Can anyone explain the LBA-compatible MBR a bit more?

 

[wolluf]

Forget boot magic for a minute - if the boot.ini file I posted originally (copied onto root of C: on your 98/XP drive) does not boot 2k, there's something up with your installation (assuming NO partitions hidden).

I suggest using

http://www.boot-us.com

boot manager rather than boot magic - just a trial (you can install the boot manager to floppy disk - so you can try it out first). I've had 8 operating systems on 2 drives (including a 39GB NT server partition (not possible, apparently), 10GB XP and 2k, Linux, Beos, QNX, 98, ME, 2k server, 2k3 server at various times) all booting with no problems using boot-us.

If you want proper independence for all 3 o/s, you will also need to reconfigure the 98/XP drive (you'll need to create a boot sector for XP on its own partition - similiar to menthod I described for 2k - and recreate 98's boot sector, using sys C: from a dos box in 98 or a win98 boot floppy.

Looking back at your first post, I presume your triple boot (using boot magic?) was working before you formatted your friend's drive. so perhaps we should also be looking at what that process changed that's causing the present problem (because what you've got should just work).

 

[Grassman1]

Here's an update.

After reading another post about booting to multi OSes I find out this bit of information:

Ntldr from Windows XP is compatable with Windows 2000 but after installing SP1, it is not compatable with Windows 2000.

I just copied the XP ntldr and ntdetect.com files from XP prior to reinstalling Win2000. Therefore the boot.ini would not boot Win2000

This boot.ini....

[boot loader]
timeout=10
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(1)\winnt
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(1)\winnt=&quot;Windows 2000 Professional&quot;/fast detect
c:\=&quot;Windows 98SE&quot;

.....works now that I have a fresh install of WIN2000. Of course bootmagic does not like the boot.ini and will not boot WIN2000, so I have to use boot loader to access Win2000.

I am now back to the point I was at prior to formating a friends harddrive.

If my WIN98 partition gets wiped out I will not be able to load WIN2000 from disk(1). I can deal with this, I was just trying to save a step upon booting Win2000.

It sounds like Boot-US is a good program but since I shoveled out $90 hard ones for Partition Magic 7.0 I really don't want to purchase another boot manager.

Thanks for all the help and Merry Christmas

 

[wolluf]

'Ntldr from Windows XP is compatable with Windows 2000 but after installing SP1, it is not compatable with Windows 2000'

This is NOT true. XP SP1 ntldr & ntdetect.com will boot 2k (I've just done this to double check). As I said earlier, NT based systems boot sectors are backwardly compatible - so later ones will boot earlier - but not generally vice versa.

boot-us is free for personal use.

'If my WIN98 partition gets wiped out I will not be able to load WIN2000 from disk(1). I can deal with this, I was just trying to save a step upon booting Win2000'

If you want your operating systems independent, you're going to have to put each o/s boot sector on its own partition - as I described earlier. If you do this, wiping 98 partition will not affect either XP or 2k (you do this by hiding/removing other partitions while installing each version of the operating system).

You can also create a 2k/xp boot floppy - just copy XP's ntldr & ntdetect.com to a newly formatted floppy, along with appropriate boot.ini (ie, one that points to correct partitions for XP & 2k).

 

[Barryzwaan]

Finally found a forum about this subject... My situation, I had 2 OSes, winME + winXP on 1 hd, 2 partitions, now winME suddenly crashed and I had to format c:, very stupid of me but I formatted c: before I gathered the boot files for XP, so now here I am with win98SE installed on c: and winXP on d: but I can't load XP anymore, i have tried to make a boot.ini file in the root but i won't even get a menu to choose an operating system....

help anyone??