W2K-Pro refused to boot (after I attempted to change the boot order from the W2K System Recovery) and could not be repaired.

I appear to have no alternative but to re-install W2k which some think to be a good idea anyway -- to get rid of several years' of accumulated operational krap.

QUESTION:

1. Can I reformat drive D: (the W2K partition) from the G: (XP Partition) and reinstall W2K on D: -- without having 1. to zap G: (XP), 2. re-install W2k (on D:) and then 3. re-install XP (on G:)?

2. What about W98SE? which is on C: If I reformat that, will it not make the other OSs inaccessible?

I had multibooted this machine years ago using as a guide the Radified's recommendation; Have combed the Internet but could not find specific advice regarding re-installation of the first 2 OSs in a triple-boot machine (or even a dual-boot one)!

[Note— E: is Data. F: is Audio and there is an H: Misellaneous. E: & H: are full, but F: has some 23GB free].

TIA

John

@ John


Quote:

W2K-Pro refused to boot (after I attempted to change the boot order from the W2K System Recovery) and could not be repaired.

Do you have backups of your  various OS system partitions?

Are you using the Microsoft way of multi-booting?  If *yes*, then I think given you have Win98SE as well as Y2K and WinXP, then the necessary boot file(s) must be on your C: (Win98SE) partition, and that partition has to be in a FAT file format.


Quote:

1. Can I reformat drive D: (the W2K partition) from the G: (XP Partition) and reinstall W2K on D: -- without having 1. to zap G: (XP), 2. re-install W2k (on D:) and then 3. re-install XP (on G:)?

I think if you are using the Microsoft way of multi-booting, then you have to install the oldest OS first and work you way forward--reason being if you install an older OS after the newer OS, the installation program will not necessarily be aware of the newer OS and may over-right the boot information rather than incorporating it into an updated multi-boot menu.  I don't work with multi-booting, so I'm not sure of the details--but, there may be a way to *repair* the multi-boot from the *Recovery Console* available on the WinXP installation CD.  Probably *bootcfg* is what's needed.


Quote:

2. What about W98SE? which is on C: If I reformat that, will it not make the other OSs inaccessible?

As mentioned above, the boot file(s) will be on the C: partition if using the Microsoft way--so, yes a reformat will wipe out the ability to use those boot files.  Again, that might be something that can be repaired as mentioned above.


Quote:

I had multibooted this machine years ago using as a guide the Radified's recommendation; Have combed the Internet but could not find specific advice regarding re-installation of the first 2 OSs in a triple-boot machine (or even a dual-boot one)!

There are other ways to multi-boot than using the *Microsoft way*--here's an excellent reference to help you understand what's going on:  Understanding MultiBooting and Booting Windows from an Extended Partition

These Google searches probably have some useful information:

repairing multi-booting win98se and winxp

and this one:

winxp recovery console repair dual booting

@ John

This might give you some ideas. I haven't used it with Win98 or Win2000 but it certainly works with WinXP and Vista/Win7.

http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/kb/article.php?id=324

Thankx Nightowl and Brian.

Yes the multiboot is "Microsoft" way, and after reading the article on "Understanding Multibooting..." I see that the W2K partition is not independent (since it is not derived from an image as described in the article) and so cannot be re-formatted and W2K reinstalled without first removing XP the third and last OS.

The boot.ini is of course in C:\W98SE

No, the W2K repair console did not work...

Well, my data is pretty well backed up, so wiping all and re-doing the multiboot is probably the way to go.

Thanks again for the useful links too, which I will go through

Regards
John

@ John


Quote:

Well, my data is pretty well backed up, so wiping all and re-doing the multiboot is probably the way to go

I was thinking restoring just the boot files from a backup--if the booting was working fine in the past!

Thanx again Nightowl

Booting was fine but, unfortunately, there is no backup of bootfiles -- which, by the way, do you mean? Boot-ini looks OK, but does not work for W2K.

Will have to rectify this when re-installing...

John

@ John


Quote:

Booting was fine but, unfortunately, there is no backup of bootfiles

So......., not using Ghost or some other imaging program to make backups of your OS partitions?!!!!


Quote:

Boot-ini looks OK, but does not work for W2K

Using the WinXP Recovery Console tool lets you add and delete entries in the boot files for the various OSs found by that tool.


Quote:

Will have to rectify this when re-installing...

Shouldn't have to *re-install*--should be able to *repair*--you need to use the repair tool of the most recent Windows OS that's been installed--i.e. the WinXP repair tool for the boot files--it will be aware of the older Windows OS and the required structure for the boot files.

If you used only the Y2K repair tool--it may not have known the correct information to change in the boot files that should now be based on the more recent WinXP boot file structure.

Thanks Nightowl.

Yes,  have not been imaging my drives.

Had not observed that one can repair WINNT from XP. Appreciate your pointing this out.

I booted from the XP CD and reached the "repair" point and did a FIXBOOT -- to no effect.

I also did a SYSTEMROOT to see if that would repair the error that appears when I presently select W2K from the boot menu -- namely that the System32\config\system file was inaccessible -- to no effect.

In the system32\config directory I see the following files:
system 6656000 06/19/09
SYSTEM ALT 6656000 06/19/09
system.sav 2990080 07/16/2005
system.LOG 10/05/2009 contains the following garbage:

regfWg Wg ÀCXeõEÊ €e n2\WINNT\system32\config\system ãî DIRTÿ

Any further ideas?

TIA
John

@ John


Quote:

I booted from the XP CD and reached the "repair" point and did a FIXBOOT -- to no effect

Once you reach the *Recovery Console*, I think you might need to use *bootcfg*:


Quote:

BOOTCFG Use this command for boot configuration and recovery. This command has the following options: bootcfg /add bootcfg /rebuild bootcfg /scan bootcfg /list bootcfg /disableredirect bootcfg /redirect [portbaudrate] | [useBiosSettings] Examples: bootcfg /redirect com1 115200 bootcfg /redirect useBiosSettings You can use the following options: /add Adds a Windows installation to the boot menu list. /rebuild Iterates through all Windows installations so that you can specify which installations to add. /scan Scans all disks for Windows installations and displays the results so that you can specify which installations to add. /default Sets the default boot entry. /list Lists the entries already in the boot menu list. /disableredirect Disables redirection in the boot loader. /redirect Enables redirection in the boot loader, with the specified configuration.

Read more here:

Description of the Windows XP Recovery Console for advanced users

Thank you very much Nightowl

Have followed the link and saved the info re the Recovery Console.