Help Please - Reinstalled WinXP & my Win2K dual-boot screen is gone

[lizardboy]

80GB hard drive - 3 partitions (C, D & E)

a few months ago i built a new pc...installed Win2K into D, then WinXP Pro into C...installation went fine & the dual-boot screen came up when i booted so i could choose XP or 2K

been having some problems with XP - decided to reinstall it...used partiton magic to re-format c: (ntfs)....then reinstalled XP from CD....installation seemed to go fine but now my PC boots straight into XP...i'm never given the chance to choose which OS to boot to

any help appreciated (all the files on D & E are still there - just can't boot into Win2K)

 

[J.Zorg]

Well, i think you erased your Win2k Bootloader. If you have a Rescue Disk its no problem repairing you Win2k installation. Even without it there should be some way but i don´t know how it works.
If you install an 9x or XP after Win2k you have to start the setup with:
setup /ntldr
This means the system will add itself to the Bootloader and will not overwrite it.

 

[Athlon4all]

No. Do not use the 2000 Repair disk. That wlll render XP unable to boot. You need to re add 2000 to the boot loader. Here's what you need to do. Open C:\Boot.ini. This is what it probably looks like:

[boot loader]
timeout=0
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

You need to change the timeout line to 5, then add the following line under the operating systems section:

multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINNT="Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional" /fastdetect

And that should do the trick. I assume 2000 is installed on the 2nd partition (D: ) and is in the \WINNT directory, is this is not the case, then change the line appropriately.

 

[lizardboy]

thanks Athlon4all - dual-boot now works fine

only problem i had is that winxp would not show me the boot.ini - changed every setting i could find to show hidden files, no luck...i ended up just making a new file by cut-and-pasting from your post then copying the file to c:\...then windows asked me if i really wanted to replace boot.ini

any idea how i can get windows to show me all the files at c:\ ??

 

[Athlon4all]

Open an Explorer window, click Tools, the Folder Options. Click the View tab, then there are 3 options u need to change:

Display the Contents of System folders needs to be un-checked
Under hidden files and folders, click Show Hidden Files and folders
Hide protected operating system files [Recommended] needs to be un-checked (a dialog will come up asking you to confirm, click Yes).

Now click apply and you should be all set!🙂 You're welcome! Ever have any questions just ask🙂

 

[SPB]

Yes the c:\bootini does need to be alterd but couldn't he just tap f8 while booting and in there wouldn't it give him the option of booting to XP. I actually prefer this method.

 

[lizardboy]

<<
Hide protected operating system files [Recommended] needs to be un-checked (a dialog will come up asking you to confirm, click Yes).
>>



that's the one that i missed - changed the other two but still wasn't able to see the files - everything's good now

SPB - that was the first thing i thought of - i tried hitting F8 the entire time winxp was loading but was never able to get into the windows boot-up options