Dual Boot Problems

[Knighthis]

I currently run a dual boot system with Win XP Pro on my two Maxtor SATA drives in RAID 0 running off my SI SATA controller. (drive "F")

I have a third drive running off the IDE channel with Win98 SE. (drive "C")

Win98 has become corrupted and will not start. If I disconnect the drive then my Win XP will not run as the there seems to be an issue with it needing the start files on the Win98 drive to boot up.

My question is, How can I format my "C" drive getting rid of Win98 and then using it for storage and backup, while making my "F" drive the primary boot drive?

When I boot without my Win98 drive powered, my system wants to boot from disk, I put in my WinXP disc but when it gets to the setup it tells me it cannot find any hard disks.

It's been so long ago that I set all this up I forgot how I did it in the first place.

My system spec's should appeare below so you can see my hardware.

Thanks much for the help.

 

[Muse]

I'm not sure, your system being so different from mine. I dual boot but to one HD. The first partition is FAT32 and has Win98, the second has Win2000. Yesterday I installed a new HD (later removing my former boot HD) and added a third partition to which I will install an alternate Win2000 for testing purposes, troubleshooting, etc. There's another partition on it for data backups from the other HDs (2).

Here's something you can try that should mess you up and it might work.

Download a freeware utility called aefdisk.exe. There's a non-freeware version, but the freeware one should do. It's very easy to use and self-explanatory. With it you can make any partition Active or Inactive, with single command at a DOS prompt. You simply put the exe on a bootable floppy and run it with one of the documented switches. If it doesn't work (making your XP partition Active and deactivating your Win98 partition), you can always switch them back using the utility. Good luck.