How can i get a boot menu to choose the OS for a dual boot system?

[Athlon4all]

What I meant is that The progam modified boot.ini. You're still getting the error about booting Win Me? Is it the same error message on the cannot find <system root>\system32\ntoskrnl.exe? Oh and you don't need to put the floppy on the boot menu. Here's what I think is going on, I think what you just did was create a Windows 2000 Boot Sector file, not a windows Me one, because your C:\ bootsector is 2000, and it probably just created it so, here's what you should do to make this Me bootsect.dos file:

1. Make sure you have a copy of on sys.com from <Windows Me Directory>\command, and bootpart on your boot disk.
2. You will need to make backup's of C:\io.sys, C:\command.com, C:\msdos.sys unless your boot disk is Windows Me if it isn't Me, then you must backup these files.
3. Boot boot disk
4. Type &quot;sys a: C:&quot;. This is putting back in the me boot sector
5. Now type &quot;bootpart 0 bootsect.dos Windows Me&quot;
6. Type &quot;bootpart WINNT BOOT:C:&quot;
7. Now restore your backup copies of io.sys, command.com and msdos.sys.
8. Reboot and try to boot Me.

Let me know if this works

Oh and P.S. Io.sys, command.com, msdos.sys usually have the read only, Hidden, and System Attributes on, so you'll have to turn them off before you can backup, or replace them

 

[mikef208]

Well here is the first problem, I just found out that my Western Digital(which is an extra hard drive that i have on my system, that i'm not really using) occasionally decides to take over as the c: dirve during boot up, but it goes back to it's normal drive letter in windows. I had this problem during the reinstall, i accidentlly installed Windows on that drive. i fixed that, by setting the BIOS to not look for that drive. But then after I reinstalled i reset the BIOS. So the first thing i just found, is that the first time i wrote that bootsect.dos, it got written to that C: drive. I deleted from there and went to try what you told me, again with that drive disconnected. here is my next problem, it doesn't appear to be writting the bootsect.dos file to the C: drive, it appears to me that it's being written to the A: drive.

Secondly, why do you say i don't need the A: drive in the boot menu, is there any easier way to do it?

 

[Athlon4all]

Ok, I think we are getting close. Do you have a copy of the me bootsect.dos file on the hard drives, or the floppy? Copy it to the Me drive:\, then modify boot.ini to exactly the following:

[boot loader]
timeout=10
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINNT

[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINNT=&quot;Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional&quot; /fastdetect
c:\bootsect.dos=&quot;Microsoft Windows ME&quot;

Ok, I think that this should fix it all finally. Let me know if it doesn't. And about the A:, you may be able to but I just don't see any reason to. To boot a floppy, you just need to insert a bootable floppy and then reboot, you don't even need to invole the NT boot manager.

 

[Athlon4all]

bump, did it work?

 

[mikef208]

Nope none of that worked, I don't understand this.

About the floppy though. If you put it as an option in the boot loader, then it doesn't need to be your first boot option in the BIOS, which means that it won't be checked for a disk during startup. So this does a few things. One it boots a little fatser, and two if you accidentlly left a non system disk in the drive, you don't get that invalid system disk error.

Oh and by the way. I noticed that if I copy msdos.sys, IO.sys, and command.com from my startup disk to the C: drive it automatically will boot Win ME without going to the boot loader.