Boot Messages Arise Where?

After messing around with partitions and operating systems I have the following situation and am wondering if there is anyone reading this that can give me a hint or can give me an answer to my question. But let's begin with the situation and then the question.

I now have two disks
First disk
one primary partition with WINDOWS 98
one logical partition containing the Applications
one logical partition containing the Data.
Second disk
one logical partition for Windows98 back up
one logical partition for Windows XP backup
one logical partition for Applications backup
one logical partition for Data backup
one logical partition for Utility purposes
At onetime there was an XP primary partition on the First disk but it was deleted and its partition was absorbed by resizing the Windows 98 partition.

Now here is the problem. When I boot up I get a screen with the following menu choices

Microsoft Windows XP Professional Setup (Highlighted)
Microsoft Windows

If I make no choice the screen times out and goes into an XP setup routine. At one point during this setup routine I can choose F3 and get back to the start of the boot process. I do not have to go through the Setup process. I might have gone through this setup routine in one of my past gyrations in setting up these partitions but in the current situation I avoid entering into this.

If I down arrow and park on "MICROSOFT WINDOWS" it will just sit there. No timeout occurs. If I click on this menu item I boot into WINDOWS 98 and all works just ipsy-pipsy, yankee-doodle dandy.
I am using this 98 system as I write this.

My question is, " How do I get rid of the menu and get a normal 98 boot? Once this is accomplished I intend to use Partition Magic and establish a partition containing XP.

Some evidence:
I tried looking for the string
"Microsoft Windows XP Professional Setup"
using FIND. There were a number of files: pq_debug.txt, pq_debug.001, pq_debug.002....and so forth. Yes, at one time I also had Power Quest BootMagic installed but this has been uninstalled.

There is a "boot.ini" file in the root directory. Its contents is different from what I have seen in the past in such a file. Here is "boot.ini ":

[Boot Loader]
Timeout=5
Default=C:\$WIN_NT$.~BT\BOOTSECT.DAT
[Operating Systems]
C:\$WIN_NT$.~BT\BOOTSECT.DAT= "Microsoft Windows XP Professional Setup "
C:\= "Microsoft Windows "


In the registry, if I use PQ as a search key, there are a load of entires referencing PQBOOT. But I am telling you I used the uninstall procedure to remove BOOT MAGIC from the computer. I realize Microsoft engineering has a great deal to be desired but I would not expect the boot menu to be under the control of BOOTMAGIC . The menu presentation does not look like the BOOTMAGIC screen. It looks like a normal Microsoft presentation.

Do any of you gurus have suggestions 'cause I have run out of steam? I do not want to reformat and start all over again. I want to try and understand what is going on here. How do I get rid of the message and return to a normal Winows 98 boot process.

David L. Favin

 

Do this command at the prompt, do not do this while windows is running. Do it 3 times to be sure, it will appear to do nothing.
fdisk /mbr
This will rewrite the Windows 98 Master Boot Record on the drive, no more boot choice will appear.
You could then delete these files, located at C:\
Bootsec.Dos
Boot.Ini
Ntldr
Ntdetect
Pagefile.Sys

 

I did the following.
Using the boot disk I executed, from the command line fdisk /mbr 3 times.
I then removed the files you indicated. I removed the boot disk and tried booting. I received the following error message

ntldr is missing

Press any key to reboot

Upon pressing any key I received the next error message

Disk Boot Failure. Insert system disk and press Enter.

After all this I reestalished the files that had been removed and the system
is as it was before the suggested "fix ". Any furthur thoughts?

 

Hi David, Mark's advice is sound but I think you will also have to edit
msdos.sys - remove the read only attribute first - and remove any
muli-boot stuff.
regards

 

Mark and Merlin:

I appreciate your advice but nothing seems to be doing a thing to change the boot message situation.
Let me review what I did so there is no misunderstanding. I changed the permission options on Msdos.sys and edited BootMulti=1 to read BootMulti=0.(See below) I checked to see that the change had been effected and changed the permissions back to read only
I put the boot Windows 98 system disk in and at the A: prompt typed

fdisk /mbr.

I did this typing 3 times. I then turned off the computer and removed the system boot disk and booted back up. The results were exactly the same as originally described. NOTHING HAS CHANGED. Any more suggestions?

David Favin

The msdos.sys file looked like the following.

[Paths]
WinDir=C:\WINDOWS
WinBootDir=C:\WINDOWS
HostWinBootDrv=C

[Options]
BootMulti=0
BootGUI=1
DoubleBuffer=1
AutoScan=1
WinVer=4.10.2222
;
;The following lines are required for compatibility with other programs.
;Do not remove them (MSDOS.SYS needs to be >1024 bytes).
;xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxa
;xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxb
snip

 

Check your BIOS and disable Virus Protection, this will prevent the MBR from being overwritten.
Your Msdos.Sys file looks fine, unless the word "snip" is actually in it.

 

Mark:

I truly appreciate your interest in this problem of mine.

All the testing I have done so far has been with the Virus Alert Disabled in my BIOS. Do you have some other item in mind? If so what item would you recommend I look for in the BIOS?

David

 

The Virus Alert sounds like what I was referring to. Boot with the floppy, and do this command;
sys a: c:
fdisk /mbr
Take out floppy and reboot, this should fix you up.

 

Mark:

I do wish that I could shake your hand. THAT DID IT. You truly are to be complimented for I had asked quite a number of really respected computer people plus talking to a newpaper computer columnists on how to fix this thing. AND YOU CAME THROUGH. It's like getting rid of a wart.

Now to clean up:

1. Could you tell me why I needed to transfer the system. What had the system to do with the problem? Why did you think in this direction?

2. Should I now remove the following files? And why?

Bootsec.Dos
Boot.Ini
Ntldr
Ntdetect
Pagefile.Sys

3. Should I leave msdos.sys with the BootMulti=0? If I eventually install WINDOWS XP will all this be taken care of automatically?

David

 

When you had XP installed, it was as a dual boot. XP installs a NT based boot manager, along with some system files. This was the thing that provided you with a choice of Windows to boot up, and is the source of those files I suggested to delete.
I only suggest to delete those files as they are now dead weight. You can leave them if you want, they'll just sit there. You may want to delete Pagefile.Sys anyway, it is XP's swapfile, and may occupy 100 to 300 mb.
To help you understand this better, suppose you installed XP first on another partition, then you installed 98, your XP will then be unbootable, as the 98 install creates it a MBR and installs it own system files.
I am sure by that you know the proper way to dual boot 98/XP is to have 98 installed first, then install XP on another partition, creating a boot manager in the process.
Yes, leave the Msdos.Sys file with the BootMulti=0.
If you do decide to install XP as a single boot in an upgrade install, keep this in mind, it will delete everything in the windows folder.