XP Home/W98 Dual Boot Problem

[itsgenekramer]

I have a hard drive partitioned to C: XP Home and D: W98. I used to be able to select which OS I wanted to boot to during start-up. I get the option to select which OS but if I select W98, it just restarts the counter and doesn't load. Here is my boot.ini.

[Boot Loader]
timeout=30
Default=C:
[Operating Systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition" /fastdetect
C:\="Microsoft Windows 98"

Any help is much appreciated.
-Gene

 

[BOURBAKI]

Check out this:
How to edit the Boot.ini file in Windows XP

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;289022

And this:
How To Create a Multiple-Boot System in Windows XP

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;306559

 

[satrow]

Probably needs to look like this

[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
C:\="Microsoft Windows"

Andy.

 

[itsgenekramer]

BOURBAKI - I appreciate the links, but they don't show me how to fix my problem. They only show how to do it. I do appreciate it though.

satrow - I tried yours but it's doing the same thing. I do appreciate your effort though.

-Gene

 

[wolluf]

Gene - that's unusual config (normally you have to install 98 on C: then XP on D: to get XP boot loader to create dual boot). If it did work, then something must have happened to your bootsect.dos file (this is in root of C: and contains an image of the win98 boot sector). Assuming both partitions are fat32,

http://www.dougknox.com/xp/tips/xp_repair_9x.htm

may come to your rescue.

If that doesn't work, please post back with more details - like how you set up dual boot with XP on C: and 98 on D:.

 

[itsgenekramer]

wolluf - I tried the trusted dougknox xp repair with no joy. Same issue. I get the option to select either XP or W98 and XP works fine, but when I select W98, it just resets the counter. I really didn't do anything special when I loaded the OS's. I loaded XP first and then loaded W98...I guess XP took care of the rest and started giving me boot options on start-up. Do you know what is supposed to happen when I select W98? I mean, is it supposed to go to the the D: drive and run win.com? or what?

I appreciate your interest in this issue.

-Gene

 

[BOURBAKI]

Are your two drives physical drives or are they partitions on one physical drive?
If they are two physical drives your boot.ini file should look something like this:

[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 Home Edition" /fastdetect
multi(0)disk(1)rdisk(1)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows"
C:\="Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition"

For more information on the meaning of the entries in boot.ini see:
The purpose of the Boot.ini file in Windows XP

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;314081&Product=winxp

 

[BOURBAKI]

Perhaps this link will help:
Dual Boot Windows (WebTechGeek.com)

http://www.webtechgeek.com/center-Frame-win-SuperTechGeek-Dual-Boot.htm#howwinntfs

 

[satrow]

I think that I've sorted this problem before by - booting from a 98 bootdisk and running "sys c:" then "fdisk /mbr" to rebuild the 98 side of the boot; then booting from the XP CD to ?Recovery Console? and running Fix Boot and Fixmbr.

Someone check the idea first, though - my memory was never much good!

Andy.

 

[itsgenekramer]

satrow - I checked it and tried it, no joy. At first I did the sys c: where XP is located, fdisk /mbr and repaired xp using fixboot and fixmbr and W98 started fine but then I couldn't get into XP. Then I did a sys D: where W98 is located, fdisk /mbr and repaired xp using fixboot and fixmbr and I can get back into XP, but still when I try to get into W98 it just restarts the counter.

Going to take a break for a while. Thanks for all of your help so far. I suppose an easy fix would be to reformat and reinstall, but now I'm curious, you know how that goes, right? It's not an urgent issue but has more or less become an irritant.

~Gene

 

[BOURBAKI]

In order for Windows 98 to work it must be installed on the first 8GB of your hard drive. So if your C: partition is 8GB
or larger your dual boot can't work. It would be better to reformat and reinstall, installing Windows 98 first. Microsoft recommends installing operating systems in order of age, oldest first newest last.
But if you prefer to install Windows XP first (which is not recommended) Here is a good article on how to do it including a discussion of the 8GB barrier.

http://www.bitbenderforums.com/howto/case/Dual_pp_01.htm

 

[wolluf]

Gene - are you sure the dual boot ever worked? If you installed XP first then 98 second, a dual boot menu would not have been created. So some other method must have been used - it would help if we knew what (eg, did you do a repair reinstall of XP after installing 98 - because I think installing 98 would have overwritten the C: drive XP boot sector with a 98 one - so XP wouldn't have booted)

Is there a file called bootsect.dos in the root of c:?
Is the D: drive that 98 is on a primary partition or logical drive in extended partition. If its the second, I think you'll need to start from scratch (at least on 98). One approach could be a third party boot manager (I use & recommend

http://www.boot-us.com

- free for personal use). To use this, the second (98) partition has to be primary - so if its not, you'd need to remove it and create a primary partition & install 98 there. Also, hide the XP partition (boot-us has tools for this) while installing 98. You can then use boot-us to create dual boot menu - and both operating systems will be independent.

Note - if 98 is in extended partition, then when you installed it, its boot sector would definitely have been written on C: - as you can't write boot sectors to extended partitions.

btw - win98 WILL boot above 8GB

 

[satrow]

Hey Gene, I'm interested to find out the exact layout of your disk.

Boot from that 98 floppy again and run Fdisk. Say yes to the first (large disk support) screen, if your second screen asks about NTFS drives - say yes, on the next screen -
a), how many numbered options are there?
b), how many and what type are your partitions when you choose item #4?

Andy.

 

[itsgenekramer]

BOURBAKI - Thank you for the link.

wolluf - Yes it did work. No, I didn't use any other dual boot method. XP seemed to take care of it and gave me the option to select. I had reformatted a few times and each time I loaded XP first on C:, which I usually gave approx 16GB and then loaded W98, which took the remaining 3GB or so. I can't be 100% sure on whether I made the D: drive an EXT DOS (like now) or not in the past. Maybe that could be the issue?


Andy -

a)Current Fixed Disk Drive - 1

b)Partition Status Type System
C: 1 A PRI DOS FAT32
2 EXT DOS

System
D: FAT32

Thanks
~Gene

 

[BOURBAKI]

Gene:
You said it did work?
Have you tried a System Restore point from when it worked?
Just a thought.

 

[itsgenekramer]

BOURBAKI - Yes, it worked at one time. I tried a restore back to June 14th, but it was happening then too. This is the first chance that I've really had to try to fix it and June 14th was the latest date to restore from.

~Gene

 

[SkipCox]

If you install 98 first on your C: partition, then install XP on your D: partition, it will work. This was mentioned more than once in the replies above.

If you install XP under fat32, 98 will be able to read the data stored on the XP drive.

With a 20Gig hdd, I'd suggest a 6 or 8 Gig partition for 98 and leave the rest for XP.

I just can't believe it worked with XP loaded first. Let us know what you come up with.

Skip

http://home.comcast.net/~skip9/index.html

http://scc.i8.com

 

[wolluf]

Gene - the only way it could have worked is if you ran an XP install or repair reinstall AFTER you installed 98 (because XP creates the dual boot - and it can only do that if 98 installed in the machine).

The only way I can see to restore your dual boot as was is:-

1. Run sys C: from a dos prompt (boot from win98 boot floppy). I know you've been advised this before - but its just a first step to restore the 98 boot sector, so that when you do step 2, XP can create a bootsect.dos file. After doing this, see if machine will boot into 98. If it won't, then I suggest you do an over the top reinstall of 98 on D: (or edit the msdos.sys file - you may need to completely reproduce it - in the root of C: -

http://www.mdgx.com/msdos.htm

- I think you'll need to make these entries:-

[Paths]
WinDir=C:\WINDOWS
WinBootDir=C:\WINDOWS
HostWinBootDrv=C

refer to D rather than C)

2. Do a repair reinstall of XP -

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;315341

- this will leave your XP intact (need to reapply SP1 & windows updates) and should create the dual boot.

But as has been noted - yours is a non-standard dual boot configuration. If you intend dual booting for any length of time you might consider starting again - either with 98 installed first for standard dual boot or using a boot manager as I suggested earlier (thread751-882444 has some views/info on this).

 

[itsgenekramer]

Guys,
Thanks for all of your suggestions. I ended up fdisk'ing and made my C: drive 3 GB and put W98 on it and my D: drive 17 GB and put XP on that. So far, so good. I was pretty sure it had something to do with the boot.ini file, but finally gave up. (My wife and kids wanted their games back.

Thanks again.

Gene Kramer