XP not accessible - change boot.ini back?

Hi, can no longer boot to XP partition.
-Have: 40G IDE, 1st partition NTFS, installed XP pro onto it. 2nd partition w98se, working
-plan: to modify boot.ini, so I would have a dual boot choice in the "startup & recovery" "settings" option. For whatever reason, only the winXP partition was the choice.
-what I did: modified boot.ini file (after saving original file as "bootorig" (no 3 char extension, deliberately), adding a line : D:\= "win98 ", and changing the rdisk values from 0 to 2.
-what happened: after BIOS is done, the message appears: "Windows could not start because of a computer disk hardware configuration problem "
-what I tried: booting from XP Pro CD, hit the recovery (F2) key. Effect: no change. There was a message about inserting a "windows automated system recovery disk ". Will creating this allow me access to the XP partition (where I can reset boot.ini)? How do I create one, if this will do the job? Is there a bootable XP CD I can burn, that will do the same thing (allow me access to XP partition where I can modify boot.ini)? Or do I need to reinstall? Thanks.

 

boot.ini

You should have loaded win98 on first coz winxp has the boot menu but stores it on C:\root Here is a copy of mine....
[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS= "Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /fastdetect
C:\= "Microsoft Windows "

 

Any XP install CD should be bootable. Just make sure the BIOS is set to look first for a CD rather than floppy or hard drive.

And as Rancher said, if you want a normal multi-boot system, you will need to start over. Install the older OS first on C, then newer on a different partition, and so on.

 

I appreciate the replies. I found out right after posting I could boot to the CD & use recover. I was able to fix the boot ini since I had saved the orig in root. But I saved Rancher's reply & will try it sometime.
In the long term I plan to wipe the win98 partition, which is why I made the first partition NTFS anyway. So I'm not bothering very much about dual booting except for a few weeks.