Windows XP or Win 98 trbl?

I have a Micron, p3 533EB that has been a great reliable machine.
I was dual booting Win 98 and Win Xp. Win 98 on C (master drive) and XP on a physically seperate drive D.
After everyone in the family was use to XP and tired of dual booting, I decided to get rid of 98. After backing up the files I reformatted the C hard drive to NTFS with Partition Magic 7. The computer first came up with an error saying it was missing a file (NLDR or something) I tried loading the file as per the windows help, booting of a win98 disk etc, but to no avail it just wouldn't work. If I changed the boot sequence in the BIOS to boot on D first it said it could not find the operating system.
The only solution I could come up with was installling xp on the newly formatted HD.
It now boots but I'm concerned about having 2 OS's on the same machine of the same type.
Is there any way to dual boot 2 XP OS's. Since I can't boot to the old xp version on D I can't use the control panel to remove any programs such as my Virus 'Scanner that I also had to reinstall on the new HD.
Am I in a trbl waiting to happen?

 

You can still dualboot if you choose, or you can simply format your D drive now that you have a full working XP on C.
Too bad you didn't post a bit earlier, we could have saved you the complete reinstall...
If you STILL want to get back all the stuff on D, transfered to C, and bootable, I can tell you how to do that.
If you wish to dualboot, I can tell you how to do that too.

To make the old D drive bootable as C:
Install it as primary master, and take out the other drive (physically disconnect the ribbon cable).
Set BIOS boot sequence to CDROM first.
Insert the XP CD and start the computer.
Boot to the CD, you may be prompted to "hit any key to boot from CD ".
Start as if it were a new install, do NOT choose "run repair console ".
A bit later in the install, you will be prompted if you want to repair an existing installation of XP...hit "R" to repair.
This will rebuild the MBR, and include the files needed to boot.
You should be back up and running in under an hour, and then you can slave the other drive back into the computer as D (or E...)

To dual boot:
Open boot.ini in notepad. It may be a hidden file though, so you'll have to set Explorer, Tools, View to view all files, and UNhide operating and system files.
Add this line, and save it:
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(1)\WINDOWS= "Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /fastdetect
This will allow the boot sequence to "see" the other installation of XP on your D drive, and give you the boot menu choice at startup.

 

Alternatively, you could try fixboot and fixmbr from the Recovery Console.

 

Fixboot and FixMBR may not write the correct NTLDR and NTdetect.com to the HD...
In my experience, it's easier to run a repair. Just MHO.

 

reboot thanks for the info.
Where you are giving the info on D drive bootable as C:
- Do I have to move my files to C? D is 60G, and C is 20G. Will I lose them if not?

I am running XP home, not pro. Will this matter?

Even if I choose to dual boot, should I fix the D drive anyway?

 

You may be right, but would you agree that it wouldn't hurt and since it's easy, something to try before a reinstall?

 

I do not think this is possible with Windows XP.

Remember the Acitvation requirement ?

I am not 100% but if XP as been avtivated I do not think you will be able to re-install it again without a new avtivation Code.

At least that is the way I under stand it.

BillyBob

 

brew01. You said that you still had your old XP install on the D drive. What I proposed was to change that drive to C, and make it bootable. You can then do whatever you want with the other drive.
You could keep it the way you have it now, and simply delete/format your D drive, as it's not doing anything, no files on that drive are used, now that you have a new install on C.
You could dual-boot, using either drive as C, depending on if you want to keep the drives where they are now or swap them.
Let me know exactly what you WANT, and I'll explain how to do it.

Abraxas, not knowing the full extent of brew01's knowledge, getting him into the repair console could cause more damage than good, a repair is easier to understand for a beginner, because of the gui. Good point though.

BB, I don't have any clue about activation. All I run is XP Pro Corporate, so that's an issue I've never dealt with. (Well, I have, and there's a way around it, but I'm pretty sure it's not legal)

 

I like the idea of a dual-boot as I like to test new programs and if I cause a big trbl, it won't affect the rest of the family. I proceeded with the instructions and it works, but I am missing a file on the D, sys32/hal.dll. I would like to do a repair as you instructed but will I lose any programs already on D.

 

Do the repair, you won't lose anything.

 

Since we have a new thread dealing with the HAL issue, I'm locking this one.

It IS confusing to have several threads dealing with the same issue for the same person open at one time.