dual boot - 98se & xp; reinstalling 98se

[oupei]

I had set up a dual boot by installing 98se in the C: partition and then installing xp in the D: partition on the same hard drive. my win98se started screwing up so I reinstalled it by deleting (not reformating) *.* in C: Now, I can no longer boot into winxp. does anyone know how to reconfig the dual boot or do I need to reinstall xp?

 

[AndyHui]

Insert the Windows XP CD, boot up from that, and select Repair. Set it to inspect boot sector files only.

 

[oupei]

well. i went into the windows repair thing (looks kinda like dos). I tried "fixboot" but now it says that it's missing NTLDR and it won't boot from hard disk anymore. I also can't get the windows repair to see the windows installed in c:\windows (98se). if i try to access that folder, it says access denied.

am I stuck with reinstalling both OSes now?

 

[SUOrangeman]

When you reinstall Win9x/ME, use "setup /ntldr" and it should keep the NT Loader intact.

-SUO

 

[oupei]

oh. ok. well, i reinstalled both OSes this time but i'll keep that for reference next time something happens. thanks guys.

 

[skrjones]

AFAIK if you copy the boot.ini file off the C: drive before you format you can do anything to Win98 without affecting XP.
When you have finished loading 98 back up overwrite the boot.ini file with the old one et voila.

 

[SUOrangeman]

Saving the boot.ini file won't help much in this case as the Win9x install will overwrite the master boot record (MBR). Using the /ntldr flag on the 9x install is *supposed* to preserve the MBR.

-SUO

 

[0rion]

It has to be oldes to newest so if you format and reinstall 98 you will also have to do XP.

 

[oupei]

so it's "maybe it'll work with /ntldr"? are there programs i can DL/buy that set up the dual boot? i mean, I can understand xp setting up the dual boot automatically with 98se, but what about the people who dual boot with linux and windows?

thanks everyone for your help.

 

[SUOrangeman]

"setup /ntldr" has worked fine for me, but others have claimed different experiences.

Most Linux installs will configure your multi-booting options automatically. And unlike Windows, Linux installs may offer you an option to not change any of your boot parameters ... even if it means not being able to boot into Linux when the install is done.

For the record, I currently multi-boot WinME, Win2K Pro, WinXP Pro, and Win2K3 Server as well as KNOPPIX Linux 3.2, FreeBSD 5.0, and BeOSMax 2.1 all from Microsoft's NT Loader. So, I've been around thises blocks a few times.

-SUO

 

[oupei]

ok, but if i use setup/ntldr, how should I wipe out the harddrive? I'm guessing formatting it or deltree *.* would remove the NTLDR along with the boot sector?

 

[SUOrangeman]

Boot sector will not be erased by format nor deltree. 'fdisk /mbr' will revert to the previous boot record, bu that's about it. You'll need a serious low-format tool (or 'dd if=/dev/zero ...' from Linux/*nix).

-SUO