XP Boot problem

[Kalisperas]

Recently, in the process of battling a virus or two, I ended up having to install WinXP on my second HD. I eventually ended up wiping the Windows partition on my primary drive, and re-installing Windows there. After this, I deleted the Windows directory from my secondary drive, along with the other directories created by the install. However, when I boot up, it still gives me the choice of two WinXp installations to choose from. I have to choose the second one to boot from the installation on my primary drive. If I let it sit, it auto-chooses the first one, which gives me an error message about a corrupt or missing dll file. I have my view options set to show hidden files, and I'm pretty sure I cleaned all the Windows stuff from the secondary drive. So why is the machine still giving me the option of two installations to choose from?

 

[JackBurton]

Alright man, right click on My Computer and choose properties. Now go to the advanced tab and under Startup and Recovery choose settings. From here you'll a section called System Startup. Now just hit the Edit button. Here are the lines that are showing up when your system boots. Before you modify anything, BACK UP YOUR BOOT.INI FILE AT THE ROOT OF C:. Now, be VERY careful which line you want to delete. Once you know which line, just delete it and you'll be fine. This is the line you want to KEEP if you are using at EIDE hard drive and it is the only partition on that drive and it is set to master:

multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /fastdetect

Just to be on the safe side, post both lines that your system has listed before you delete anything.

 

[Kalisperas]

This is what I found:
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition" /fastdetect
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition" /fastdetect


Primary drive has two partitions. 1st partition for Windows, 2nd for files, apps.
Secondary drive has one partition.

Is the order of these these lines the same as the order displayed at bootup? When the machine gives me the option, I have to choose the SECOND option to boot from my primary drive.

 

[xcript]

Originally posted by: Kalisperas
Is the order of these these lines the same as the order displayed at bootup?

Yeah, delete the first one.

Later.. :beer:

 

[Kalisperas]

Well, it changed something, but didn't quite fix it. I deleted the first line, but it still gives me two options on startup. Only now, the first says Windows XP Home Edition, and the second says Windows(default). The second one is highlighted by default, and brings me to the error message telling me to re-install. Selecting the first option now boots my primary drive, but it took a long time between the selection screen and the "loading" screen. This is what my boot.ini file looks like now:

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

Do I need to change the "default" line to match the "operating system" line (rdisk(1) change to rdisk(0))?

 

[xcript]

Yes you do.. Sorry, should've thought of that.

Also, check out:

System Properties -> Advanced -> Startup and Recovery

You can set the default there, disable multiboot entirely, etc.

Later.. :beer:

 

[Kalisperas]

Ah, yes...much better. Thanks for the help everyone!