Help With Dual Boot Problem

[MoeBackus]

Hey everyone,

Last night I decided to resize part of my hard drive so that I could make a new partition to install Windows Media Center 2005. So I resized it, I partitioned the space I wanted and then I insalled WMC. Everything works fine on the WMC end, but when I try to boot my main drive (Windwos Pro) it gives the windows load screen, then it goes to a windows screen that says "Setup is being restarted........." then a window pops up that has an error and has something to do with Security accounts, access denied or something like that. I've tried having windows repair and do all that stuff, no luck. I don't know what to do. I can still access the data on that partition through my WMC. Help would be appreciated.

Thanks,

Morgan Backus

 

[montag451]

At a guess -

Do a search for "boot.ini" on all your drives/partitions.

Compare the text in them.
It is possible that your boot option for your original installation isn't in the new os's boot.ini, although it should be on the C drive anyway.
You should see a line in the boot.ini file to give the option to load each OS.
If you can post the contents of the boot.ini and more details about your drive letters and which partitions hold which os, we should be able to give you a hand.
IF that is the problem.

 

[Muse]

I don't know the answer but I will say that I think you could have avoided this situation by Ghosting your system before you did what you did yesterday (or used similar HD or partition restore software).

 

[MoeBackus]

Ok thanks for all the help guys. I did a search on both the partitions. Just to let you know my C drive is the main one with Windows Pro and my D drive is the one that has Windows Media Center 2005. On the C drive I came up with a file called "boot.ini.backup". I opened it up with notepad and came up with this -

[boot loader]
timeout=5
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

I then did the same search on the D drive and couldn't come up with any file.
What do you think?

Thanks

 

[MoeBackus]

bump

 

[jackschmittusa]

I have Win2k and XP as dual boot on this rig. Installed 2k first (older os), XP is the default boot, and my boot.ini file looks like this:

[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /fastdetect
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT="Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional" /fastdetect

 

[montag451]

Check to see that you have 'show hidden/system files' in explorer.
Boot.ini is hidden and won't show up.
When you have opened up the new boot.ini, Make a backup - bootini.bkp
insert
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition" /fastdetect
into the boot.ini file.
"Save as" boot.ini
See if that does it.
At the worst, you will have to edit the boot.ini in dos prompt - and alter the 2nd or first bkp to overwrite the original one.

 

[MoeBackus]

Ok, I found the boot.ini through Control Panel -> System -> Advanced Tab - > System Recovery
It shows this -

[boot loader]
timeout=1
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" /noexecute=optin /fastdetect
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS="Windows XP Media Center Edition" /noexecute=optin /fastdetect

I tried deleting the noexecute part and restarting, but no dice.
I can't find the actual boot.ini on the my Windows PRO and the only way I can edit the boot.ini on my media center is throught hat System Restore thing.

 

[montag451]

http://www.microsoft.com/resources/docu.../XP/all/reskit/en-us/prmc_str_masc.asp

is all you need to know.
Not the easiest to understand - as it goes into more detail than you need, but this also contains what you need.