Dual Boot (boot.ini problem)

[cravie]

I have 2 Hard Drives C (Old Drive connected as Master) and a D Drive (Connected as Slave)

The old C drive was only some 5GB with Windows 98. I installed Windows 2000 on the New D Drive which is 40GB.

Currently when I boot the system it asks Which Operating system and makes me choose between Windows 98 and Windows 2000 and loads the operating system.

My Problem when I change the Master and Slave. I connected the New Drive as Master and the Old Drive as Slave and now the computer does not ask me which Operating system to Load.

It just goes to the C:\. (I beleive this is my New Drive which has become C (earlier D)

I am giving below the boot .ini File which was in the Old Hard Disk. May be I have to copy this to the New Drive and make some changes to the boot.ini file. Please let me know your suggestion. Please give your suggestion for Dual Boot keeping the New Drive C as win 2000 and the Old Drive D as win 98

If this is not possible. I need to boot to win 2000 using my New Drive and able to go to D:\ (old drive) and copy my old files into C





Boot.ini File

[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(1)\WINNT
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(1)\WINNT="Microso ft Windows 2000 Professional" /fastdetect
C:\="Microsoft Windows"

[GretaP]

Hi cravie,

Since WIN9x does not natively support booting from a secondary drive, I don't know if booting into it would be possible even with WIN2K's bootloader (you might need a third-party boot manager in order to accomplish that). If your BIOS supports booting from different hard drives, that is also an option, though a bit more cumbersome.

The boot.ini file still points to the second disk as the one for WIN2K. Let's work on at least getting WIN2K to boot when it's connected as Master. You'll need to edit it to read as follows:

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

Also, you'll need to copy the following files from the old disk to the root of the WIN2K disk (if they're not already there):
ntdetect.com
ntldr

Since these are hidden and system files, you'll need to remove those attributes in order to get to them.

Once you have copied the ntdetect.com, ntldr and the modified boot.ini to the root of WIN2K disk, see if you are then able to boot
into WIN2K when hooked up as Master drive.

[cravie]

It still diddn't work.

It comes to the step "Booting from CD-ROM) and then hangs

Originally Posted by GretaP

Hi cravie,

Since WIN9x does not natively support booting from a secondary drive, I don't know if booting into it would be possible even with WIN2K's bootloader (you might need a third-party boot manager in order to accomplish that). If your BIOS supports booting from different hard drives, that is also an option, though a bit more cumbersome.

The boot.ini file still points to the second disk as the one for WIN2K. Let's work on at least getting WIN2K to boot when it's connected as Master. You'll need to edit it to read as follows:

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

Also, you'll need to copy the following files from the old disk to the root of the WIN2K disk (if they're not already there):
ntdetect.com
ntldr

Since these are hidden and system files, you'll need to remove those attributes in order to get to them.

Once you have copied the ntdetect.com, ntldr and the modified boot.ini to the root of WIN2K disk, see if you are then able to boot
into WIN2K when hooked up as Master drive.

[GretaP]

See if booting into the Recovery Console and utilizing the fixboot and/or fixmbr commands helps to resolve the problem. Here is a description of the Recovery Console.