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Getting my Win2K boot menu back

A

Ace69

Senior member
I have a Win98/2k dual boot and 98 kept screwing up on me so now I no longer have my boot menu like I used to. It just always goes into 98. Before I reinstalled 98, I made an emergency repair disk for Win2K, but when I went to repair 2K, the thing didnt work so now I am left with a crappy 98 OS. The only reason I have Win98 is for games anyway. 🙂

Any help getting my precious Win2K back would be appreciated.

Thanks

Ace
 
first thing you may try is checking out your boot.ini file. see what the 'timeout' is set to, if its set to 0 then that is your prob, and set it to something higher.
 
For Win9x/ME after NT/2K is installed, try "setup /ntldr" I have used it for some success.

It sounds like the emergency floppy (which is the correct method) just didn;t work this time for some reason. Sorry.

You should be able to "fdisk /mbr" to get the Win2K menu back.

-SUO
 
What partitions do you have 98 and Win 2k installed on? One problem when 98 screws up is if you reinstall 98 it destroys the Win 2k boot files on the C drive. Some say you are supposed to back them up before you install 98 and then copy them back and then insert the Win 2k CD and start to install but choose the REPAIR option. There is an option when you choose Repair to use your emergency repair disk or let it find it on it's own. I think if you have the disk it will find your 2k install and repair it. I have repaired mine a couple of times due to drivers destroying 2k but never when 98 screwed it all up but it can be done. That is probably the only thing good about Win ME is that it can be installed after Win 2k and it does not mess up Win 2k's boot! Try doing a reinstall of 2k but after it reboots to DOS to start the install choose Repair instead of Install and follow the prompts. That should work.

 
I have tried fdisk /mbr and that does not work. I have tried the repair option and it said that my emergency repair disk that I made did not work for some reason. Also, I looked for my boot.ini and for some reason I cannot find it. I thought that it was a hidden file in the root, correct me if I am wrong. I haven't however tried the setup /ntldr. I will try that one sometime soon

Thanks for the help


Ace
 
You can do an emergency repair and that will add the boot menu thing. Don't use your floppy disk, just use the CD. If the CD isn't bootable, you can start the installation from win98.
 
I CANNOT use the emergency repair disk because the one that I had did not work. Is there anyway to make another disk withoug getting into Win2K?
 
It may be easier to just reinstall Win2K. It will maintaint all of your current settings, provide that you install to the same spot on your HD.

-SUO
 
If you lost your boot.ini that would be a good reason why you can get to w2k.

Try making a file like the following on c:\boot.ini
***************************************************
[boot loader]
timeout=10
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\Windows2000
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\Windows2000="Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional" /fastdetect
C:\="Windows98"
****************************************************

Just make sure that partition(2) corresponds to where you've installed W2k. If it was on D: then leave it like this otherwise I think you need to change it (1) if you have it in c:, (3) for e: and so on.
I'm not tooo sure what the other stuff means, maybe someone can help clarifying it.
 
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