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Format /mbr not working...

N

Nessal

Senior member
I have Windows XP on my other rig and I formated the drive and installed Win2k over it. The only problem is when I boot up, it would asks me if I want to boot up from WinXP or Win2k. I don't even have WinXP anymore yet it still asks me like it thinks that there are two OS when there is only one. So I put in a Win98se bootdisk to format the master boot record from there but it gives me some message like it can't be done. WTF is going on? How can I make it so that when it boots up, it won't ask me to boot up WinXP?



Oh yeah...I typed in format /mbr and it say invalid switch.
 
Master Boot Record ( /mbr switch) is for NTFS only. Windows 98 supports only FAT32, which has a Boot Sector instead. With the Windows 98 disk, all you could do is format the drive in FAT32, which wouldn't help you too much.
 
I think I've run into something similar to this before. Try booting from your winxp disc, go to the recovery console and run "fixmbr" then try to install win2k again.
 
no, when you boot from the winxp disc, you get the normal DOS preinstall bluescreen environment. The first list of options will let you choose to enter the recovery console by pressing "r"
 
Thanks bro. I'll try that in a little bit, it's formating the drive right now. I'll report back soon!
 
Hah, what's really sad is that I realized that the computer didn't come with the XP CD but rather it includes with recovery disks that automatically installs WinXP and fixes the problem. However, I don't want to use XP. Argh. I think I'm going to need to make a XP boot disk, but the only problem is that I don't have 6 floppies.
 
I can't seem to locate boot.ini. It's not showing under search even with hidden files showing. What folder is it in?
 
"1. Right-click Start, and then click Explore.
2. On the Tools menu, click Folder Options, and then click View.
3. In the Advanced Settings area, click to select the Show hidden files and folders check box, click to clear the Hide protected operation system files (Recommended) check box, click OK, and then click OK.
4. In the left pane, click to select the %systemroot%, right-click Boot.ini in the display pane, and then click Properties.
5. Click to clear the Read-only attribute check box, and then click OK. "


 
Hah...it is fixed but not how I intended to do it. I deleted all the partition and the extra partition that XP makes as well and formated it under one drive as FAT32. Then I put in the Win2K CD, and formated it back to NTFS then reinstalled Win2K and everything is handy dandy now. I'll be sure to keep that stuff you guys told me about in mind. Thanks a lot guys, rock on.


Edit: Here is my reasoning. Correct me if I am wrong. Since the computer had WinXP under NTFS, it uses a MBR like someone said above. When formatting and reintalling Win2k under NTSF, the MBR is transfered over to Win2k thus showing WinXP and Win2K as installed OS's. However, if you format under FAT32, it uses boot sectors so it erases previous boot instructions and makes a boot sector. Now if you reinstall Win2K it will revert back to mbr but there were no previous copy of mbr because it was erased and replaced with a boot sector. So it should only recognize Win2k because the old mbr was deleted.
 
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