Potential AT FAQ inside! (was "After installing FreeBSD 4.6, can't *log* into Win2K")

[SUOrangeman]

As I understand things, FreeBSD can only see primary partitions on your hard drive during the install. If you have an extended partition, FreeBSD won't be able to see inside. So, I installed the new release and thought all was well. And then I rebooted.

Error #1: I apparently let FreeBSD make its partition active/bootable. No big deal. I've got a DOS floppy and reset my Windows-booting partition to active. WinXP/Win2K/WinME/Debian options return. I add FreeBSD to that NT Loader menu as I always do.

Still being in the playful mood, I boot into XP (now, I favorite toy OS, as I have two CPUs to throw at it). I noticed that my drive letters are a little out of order and the logical drives that I purposely hide are now visible. Didn't think much of it and reset things back to the way they were (I hide my Windows OSes from each other ... on purpose).

I get home today to do real work in Win2K (still my preferred OS). I log into my personal account only to be automatically kicked back to the login screen. Tried Administrator with the same result. I scurried over to WinXP and reassured myself that all my Win2K files were still there. I just can't log in to Win2K (yes, with the correct passwords).

What to do? What did FreeBSD (or something else) do to my WIn2K install (and technically, to my WinXP install)? Other than extracting needed files via WinXP mounting and reapplying a 3-week-old Ghost image, how can I salvage my nearly-pristine Win2K install? The only other time I experienced this lock out was when I swapped mobos without properly running Sysprep (and Ghost) beforehand.

BTW, the other OSes seem to be fine. Win2K like "relettered" as WinXP had done. Unfortunately, my WinXP volume would have been lettered before the Win2K volume, throwing off the preferred scheme (system volume is D: regardless of which Windows OS I choose ... again, I did this on purpose).

-SUO

UPDATE: I guess Andy will see if the next post is worth of FAQ-ship. 🙂

 

[SUOrangeman]

Eureka! After a week of missing out on Win2K goodness, I am finally back in the saddle. And here is how a did it ...

But first, a lil background. I have posted my thoughts on partitioning and multi-booting many times on this forum. Among the highlights is my intent to keep every OS separate (5 different ones successfully installed and working right now). For the Windows side of the world, I have a separate logical vloume for WinXP, Win2K, and WinME. It so happens that I have those volumes laid out on my hard drive in that order. By installing these OSes in the reverse order listed (WinME then Win2K and finally WinXP), I was able to give each OS it's own D: partition. With WinME not being able to access NTFS volumes and the ability to hide partitions in XP and 2K, I made sure that one OS doesn't touch another's "D:" drive.

I'm still not sure how this happened, but after I installed FreeBSD (which can't even see inside of my extended partition during the install), Win2K lost its drive letter mappings. The only thing I know is that the FreeBSD install changed my active/bootable partition. I want to think that reassigning the active/bootable flag would not have affected me the way it did. Oh well.

So, for the last week, my Win2K install thought it's "D:" was the WinXP "D:"while its true "D:" had now become "E:". I was able to verify this by booting into the recovery console (via the Win2K install CD and observing the drive mappings *according to Win2K*. The result of this improper drive mapping leads to a situation described in this MS KnowledgeBase artcile. Simply put, I could log in once Win2K booted, but I really couldn't log in.

All the while, I could easily boot into WinXP and mount my Win2K volume to ensure that everything was still there. So I finally took the advice of the MSKB article's option 3 (make a fake WINNT\system32 folder and copy userinit.exe from Win2K into it). Remember, Win2K now thinks that my XP volume is D:, so that's where I put the "fake" directories and files. After a reboot into Win2K I could log in! YEAH!

But that was only half the battle. I now had to fix the drive mapping. Thankfully, another MSKB article was able to help me. A lil registry tweaking and I was fully back in business after a reboot or two. I had to reboot a few times because Win2K kep finding new "Generic volume" devices. I can't explain that, but everything works now.

BTW, if any of you have ever wanted to change your system or boot drive letters, and normal conventions don't work, that second article *may* be of some use.

So, I am now back at 100% and have already updated my month-old Ghost images. 🙂

Hope this helps someone else out in the future!

-SUO