Clean up a messy startup situation

Hi people. My situation is a dual boot Win98fe/WinXP Home with two internal HDD's. This is the way I installed XP. Win98 is on C drive of a 3 partition drive of 80GB and Win XP is on F of a 3 partition 80 GB. C drive with Win98 is the boot drive and I have buggered up the Win98 installation. The computer still boots fine when I choose XP for boot but I would like to just rid myself of the dual boot and Win98 and just have a single boot WinXP and have the other HDD available for programs and data. I am a semi noob with great gaps in my knowlege of computers so is there a relatively easy and painless way to achieve my goal?

 

im not entirely sure if this might work .. but have u tried using an XP cd to boot up then format the partitions with win 98?

 

Hi Bob,

Read this thread - same question, the two OS's are different versions of XP, but the same technique. Boot into XP and then proceed getting rid of 98.

http://www.windowsbbs.com/showthread.php?t=49176&highlight=dual+boot

EDIT: Go thru the exercise with the Recovery Console first - a practice run to make sure that you can access the RC and use the Bootcfg command.

Regards - Charles

 

charlesvar - That looks do-able, even for me. I assume that you meant by the statement:

to set the BIOS to boot from CD first? After my coffee intake has some effect in waking me up I will reread and consider and thanks. I note brolly hasn't been heard from since 2 Nov - You wouldn't think that's a bad omen would you?
Torpedo - I would like to keep my XP on the second drive intact but if I formatted the Win98 drive it would mess up my Master Boot Record.......I think.

 

Hi Bob,

set the BIOS to boot from CD first?
Yes, otherwise the system would try to boot from the C drive.

I note brolly hasn't been heard from since 2 Nov - You wouldn't think that's a bad omen would you?
Who Knows, not hearing from people comes with the territory for forum helpers.

Once again, go thru the exercise before formating the C drive to just to make sure that you can re-establish the MBR - as you wrote, the MBR is currently and will be on drive C afterwards.

Regards - Charles

 

charlesvar - Ok thanks. Now off to practice!

 

Hi Bob,

Thinking more about this, a different way to do this:

Switch drives first, then the RC - bootcfg, then you format the 98 drive, which should now be the D drive. I think this would be a cleaner way to do it.

Look out for the pin settings on the drives. If need changing, the pin settings for the XP drive should be the same as it is currently for the 98 drive, and vice versa for the 98 drive. If this is a Cable Select system, then the System makes the Master/Slave decision and the pin settings will be in the CS position and you can leave as is.

If you're ok with not switching the drives, that's fine. It can always be done later.

Regards - Charles

 

Thanks for your time and thoughts Charles. You are suggesting that I switch jumpers and connectors for the two drives, i.e., making what is now my slave drive the master and so on and with what is now the master the slave, right? I'll have to do some checking to find out about the Cable Select settings (Been awhile since I have done this - CS is a jumper setting on the HDDs, right?). I believe we are on the same page.

 

Hi Bob,

You are suggesting that I switch jumpers and connectors for the two drives, i.e., making what is now my slave drive the master and so on and with what is now the master the slave, right?
Yes, because what's now the XP drive is probably jumpered as the slave, if you switch drives, it becomes the master and the current 98 drive becomes the slave.

Its only a minority of systems that have the CS setup, for instance Dell is setup that way, which I have. Mentioned it just in case yours is a CS system.

Also want to mention that behind doing it this way is that it's safer, if you can't for some reason create a new MBR, then you just reverse and go back to square one. And once you get XP working in the new config, you don't have to format the 98 partition for awhile, it'll be just another "data" partition to XP.

Regards - Charles

 

Ok Charles, I'm straight now. XP is the slave and safer sounds gooder to me. It might be awhile before I get back to this because I'm kind of slow. Thanks again.

 

That looks logical and reasonable. Problem is that you'd be left with a PC that would not boot to anything.

Dual boot setup for NT systems writes some small, hidden, essential startup files to C: regardless of what OS is on C: and you have to move them elsewhere and tell your NT OS (XP in this case) where they are before you can safely format the C:\ partition.

The suggestion above to use the recovery console and a command to do this is a good one.

 

Ok charles (and others watching) - here's where I am. I have changed jumpers and connectors on harddrives. I changed to boot from the CD in BIOS. I inserted the XP(Home) CD and booted and into the RC where I typed >bootcfg< and then I get a series of DOS stuff such as:
\add
\rebuild
\scan
\list
\disableredirect
\redirect [Port Baud rate] : [Use BIOS settings]
then a list of "stuff" then the cursor
This is new territory for me so I ask, is this what I should be seeing? Hopefully this was a practice run as I have done no formatting or anything else at this point. I am blindly following instructions as it's way out of my purview!


BTW, not that this makes any difference but now all partitions are formatted for Fat32

 

not exactly sure on u'r setup here but if xp is a drive other than C: and u redo u'r setup so that it resides on C: ... u'll have problems w/ all the reg/progs that assume they'll find xp on F:

i'm assuming that u'r current xp setup 'sees' it's system drive as other than c: and it DOES see the 9x on c:

fairly sure if this is the case, u've got one choice and that's backup/reinstall clean.


and i'd probably opt clean even if u can juggle drive letter w/ something like 'drive mapper' in Partition Magic or such. it's just easier in the long run

 

Hi Bob,

You want the add option because there is no MBR on what is the C drive where XP is. When the RC scans the drive, it'll tell you it found XP and 98 and ask what to add, you only want XP.

Points that skeet6961 is making:

... u'll have problems w/ all the reg/progs that assume they'll find xp on F:
Thats a problem with the short cut links for the software, and it will be a PITA for awhile, but you change the shortcut targets by right clicking on the shortcuts (the desk top icons or the icons in the QuickLuanch toolbar or the program list from "all programs ") > properties > Shortcut tab and change F to C.

Or you would delete the shortcut (the desktop icon), go into the program folder to the execute and rght click > create shortcut.

An example: "D:\Program Files\HDD Thermometer\HDD Thermometer.exe ". That's the target for one of my programs. If I switched drives so that D became C, I'd change D to C to reflect the new path. BTW, I'm dual booting two XP installations.

i'm assuming that u'r current xp setup 'sees' it's system drive as other than c: and it DOES see the 9x on c:
That's the reason for using the RC and telling the system there is only one OS on the system. Right now, there is no MBR on C, so it sees nothing.

Don't format the 98 partition, don't have to for this to work - you can do it later when you're sure everthing is settled in and you've copied all the data off.

Regards - Charles

 

Charles - I'm still around..........just trying to absorb all that's been said. Most of this is uncharted waters for me. When you said above "What you want is \add" - what happens then? I know very little DOS as I think I've mentioned. Also, I'm including (I think) an attachment of a screenshot of what my drives and partitions look like now after changing jumpers and connectors of the drives. I think the only change is that F drive is now listed at boot whereas before C was listed as both System drive and Boot drive. Does this look right at this point? My progress is at a standstill at the moment.

 

Hi Bob,

To see what the RC will find, use the scan option - its informational only.

When you opt for the Add function, RC will scan the system for installed OS's. Then it will present the list found and ask which ones you want to create the MBR for. You can halt the process at any time, I would allow the process to finish, taking the XP cd out, try the bootup into XP, and test.

One reason I thought this was a better way to do this is because, if you create the boot.ini on XP's partition (now C), and then test it for booting, if you don't like the results or doesn't work, reversing the drives will get you back to where you were at the start, a bootable system since you never touched the 98 partition.

Regards - Charles

 

Hi Bob,

Use the scan option and see the OS's found - if you want, post back at that point.

I see I double posted - having trouble with my connection

Looking at your picture, when you boot up into XP, of the things that will happen is that some of the drive letters will be re-jiggered, almost sure that G will change to I if its not assigned to a device, optical or USB. If it is a USB device, make sure its plugged in on bootup. So you're going to have to change that if not assigned.

Regards - Charles

 

I feel as though I'm dragging this out but as you probably can tell I am hesitant (read chicken/timid) to do major changes to things I know little about but : On last check I ran RC>it found Windows in E, F, and H (in the past I have done some back up to those) and C, of course, is gone now. I selected F>bootcfg /scan and it showed the same Windows installs on those 3 drives(partitions).
The way I understand it I then type /add, it will scan and give me those three drives, I select F and away we go? That will add the the MBR to F? If you say "yes" then I let it do it's do and then attempt to boot to F, right? I feel like I'm testing the depth of the water with both feet. I think I understand what you told me about if all fails I undo the cables/jumpers thing and all will be like it was before...........a "GoBack" thing.

 

Hi Bob,

On last check I ran RC>it found Windows in E, F, and H (in the past I have done some back up to those) and C, of course, is gone now. I selected F>bootcfg /scan and it showed the same Windows installs on those 3 drives(partitions).
Could you post here the results after doing a bootcfg /scan W/O the drive letter: bootcfg /scan.

From your 1st post:
My situation is a dual boot Win98fe/WinXP Home with two internal HDD's. This is the way I installed XP. Win98 is on C drive of a 3 partition drive of 80GB and Win XP is on F of a 3 partition 80 GB. C drive with Win98 is the boot drive
Why did you select the F drive if you've switched drives, the drive that contains XP should be on what is now C.

The way I understand it I then type /add, it will scan and give me those three drives, I select F and away we go?
Don't select F or any other drive letter, lets see if the RC finds XP on what used to be the F drive that has XP on it and now is in the primary IDE position on the cable ribbon.

Should have asked yesterday, how did you get the disk management results? Did you boot into XP thru the RC to get that?

Let me see if I've got your partitions straight looking at your picture:

Disk 0 - partition C = XP home
partition D = data
partition E = data

Disk 1 - partition F = 98
partition G = data
partition H = data


Regards - Charles

 

I was just looking over this post and I have no idea about the startup problem. ( other than multiple OS ) But in post #15 I see that Drv1 VOL 1 & 2 only add up to 51GB.

Isn't that an odd number ?

Drive 2 adds up to 95 which I believe is a bit close to correct.

Am I reading wrong or missing something ?

Am I overlooking something ? Or do I need to get my 2nd cup of coffee and do more thinking ? LOL

BillyBob

PS ( Addition )
I just added up the sizes of my partitions C:- H: and they add up to 80GB which is correct. It is an 80GB WD drive

BB