Can't boot up my 2nd W2K installation

  • Thread starter Thread starter Jon
  • Start date Start date
J

Jon

Hi.

I had a system crash with my main W2K installation on Drive C. All
drives except C were accessible. I had a second installation on Drive
G. This has Norton Ghost installed on it, and I did a mirror copy of C
onto an external hard drive a few months back.

I was able to boot up the Drive G installation but everything was
slowed down. I assumed it was because there was a problem reading
Drive C which now appeared to be completely unsalvageable.

So I installed a new version of W2K on Drive C, only to find that, on
booting up, it doesn't give me the choice of installations. So I now
want to boot up the Drive G nstallation, in order to run Norton Ghost,
in order to try to restore my original W2K instalation on Drive C.

Can anyone help?

Jon
 
Jon said:
Hi.

I had a system crash with my main W2K installation on Drive C. All
drives except C were accessible. I had a second installation on Drive
G. This has Norton Ghost installed on it, and I did a mirror copy of C
onto an external hard drive a few months back.

I was able to boot up the Drive G installation but everything was
slowed down. I assumed it was because there was a problem reading
Drive C which now appeared to be completely unsalvageable.

So I installed a new version of W2K on Drive C, only to find that, on
booting up, it doesn't give me the choice of installations. So I now
want to boot up the Drive G nstallation, in order to run Norton Ghost,
in order to try to restore my original W2K instalation on Drive C.

Can anyone help?

Jon
Click to expand...

I use products other than Norton Ghost for imaging and they
all let me boot a machine with a Recovery CD or disk so
that I can restore an image onto a blank partition, thus
making it unnecessary to have a working version of Windows.
Surely Norton Ghost has a similar option, doesn't it?
 
Try creating a boot disk. For the floppy to successfully boot Windows 2000
the disk must contain the "NT" boot sector. Format a diskette (on a Windows
2000 machine, not a DOS/Win9x, so the NT boot sector gets written to the
floppy), and copy Windows 2000 versions of ntldr, ntdetect.com, and boot.ini
to it. Edit the boot.ini to give it a correct ARC path for the machine you
wish to boot. Below is an example of boot.ini. The default is to start the
operating system located on the first partition of the primary or first
drive (drive0). Then drive0 partition 2 and so on.

[boot loader]
timeout=10
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT="Windows 2000 0,1"
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINNT="Windows 2000 0,2"
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(1)\WINNT="Windows 2000 1,1"
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(2)\WINNT="Windows 2000 1,2"


Another possibility is to try loading the controller driver also from
floppy. For the floppy to successfully boot Windows 2000 the disk must
contain the "NT" boot sector. Format a diskette (on a Windows 2000 machine,
not a DOS/Win9x, so the "NT" boot sector gets written to the floppy), then
copy ntldr, ntdetect.com, and boot.ini to it. Edit the boot.ini to give it a
correct ARC path for the machine you wish to boot.


In order for this to work you'll want to change the arc path in boot.ini
from multi syntax to scsi syntax to indicate that Windows 2000 will load a
boot device driver and use that driver to access the boot partition. Then
also copy the correct manufacturer scsi driver to the floppy but renamed to
ntbootdd.sys


Something like this below;


[boot loader]
timeout=10
default=scsi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT
[operating systems]
scsi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT="Windows 2000 0,1"
scsi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINNT="Windows 2000 0,2"
scsi(0)disk(1)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT="Windows 2000 1,1"
scsi(0)disk(1)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINNT="Windows 2000 1,2"



--

Regards,

Dave Patrick ....Please no email replies - reply in newsgroup.
Microsoft Certified Professional
Microsoft MVP [Windows]
http://www.microsoft.com/protect
 
Try creating a boot disk. For the floppy to successfully boot Windows 2000
the disk must contain the "NT" boot sector. Format a diskette (on a Windows
2000 machine, not a DOS/Win9x, so the NT boot sector gets written to the
floppy), and copy Windows 2000 versions of ntldr, ntdetect.com, and boot.ini
to it. Edit the boot.ini to give it a correct ARC path for the machine you
wish to boot. Below is an example of boot.ini. The default is to start the
operating system located on the first partition of the primary or first
drive (drive0). Then drive0 partition 2 and so on.

[boot loader]
timeout=10
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT="Windows 2000 0,1"
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINNT="Windows 2000 0,2"
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(1)\WINNT="Windows 2000 1,1"
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(2)\WINNT="Windows 2000 1,2"

Another possibility is to try loading the controller driver also from
floppy. For the floppy to successfully boot Windows 2000 the disk must
contain the "NT" boot sector. Format a diskette (on a Windows 2000 machine,
not a DOS/Win9x, so the "NT" boot sector gets written to the floppy), then
copy ntldr, ntdetect.com, and boot.ini to it. Edit the boot.ini to give it a
correct ARC path for the machine you wish to boot.

In order for this to work you'll want to change the arc path in boot.ini
from multi syntax to scsi syntax to indicate that Windows 2000 will load a
boot device driver and use that driver to access the boot partition. Then
also copy the correct manufacturer scsi driver to the floppy but renamed to
ntbootdd.sys

Something like this below;

[boot loader]
timeout=10
default=scsi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT
[operating systems]
scsi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT="Windows 2000 0,1"
scsi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINNT="Windows 2000 0,2"
scsi(0)disk(1)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT="Windows 2000 1,1"
scsi(0)disk(1)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINNT="Windows 2000 1,2"

--

Regards,

Dave Patrick ....Please no email replies - reply in newsgroup.
Microsoft Certified Professional
Microsoft MVP [Windows]http://www.microsoft.com/protect



Jon said:
Hi.
Click to expand...
I had a system crash with my main W2K installation on Drive C. All
drives except C were accessible. I had a second installation on Drive
G. This has Norton Ghost installed on it, and I did a mirror copy of C
onto an external hard drive a few months back.
Click to expand...
I was able to boot up the Drive G installation but everything was
slowed down. I assumed it was because there was a problem reading
Drive C which now appeared to be completely unsalvageable.
Click to expand...
So I installed a new version of W2K on Drive C, only to find that, on
booting up, it doesn't give me the choice of installations. So I now
want to boot up the Drive G nstallation, in order to run Norton Ghost,
in order to try to restore my original W2K instalation on Drive C.
Click to expand...
Can anyone help?
Click to expand...
Jon- Hide quoted text -
Click to expand...

- Show quoted text -
Click to expand...

None of the files you mention could be found on Drive C. On Drive G,
there's an ntdetect.com and an ntldr. There's no boot.ini anywhere.
There is a win.ini on G, however, but it doesn't have anything like
the syntax you give here.

By the way, I do have an emergency repair disk with the three files
you mention (formatted under W2K). But when I try to boot from it, I
get the message: invalid file, booting from Drive C.

Jon
 
Stands to reason since the system partition was lost. The ERD is not a
bootable disk. win.ini is a carry-over from the days of 16 bit windows.

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;[LN];99743

--

Regards,

Dave Patrick ....Please no email replies - reply in newsgroup.
Microsoft Certified Professional
Microsoft MVP [Windows]http://www.microsoft.com/protect



Jon said:
None of the files you mention could be found on Drive C. On Drive G,
there's an ntdetect.com and an ntldr. There's no boot.ini anywhere.
There is a win.ini on G, however, but it doesn't have anything like
the syntax you give here.
Click to expand...
By the way, I do have an emergency repair disk with the three files
you mention (formatted under W2K). But when I try to boot from it, I
get the message: invalid file, booting from Drive C.
Click to expand...
Jon- Hide quoted text -
Click to expand...

- Show quoted text -
Click to expand...

So how can I do as you suggest?

Jon
 
Start -> Run -> Open c:boot.ini
Add an entry for drive G.
If drive G is on a second disk, it's on rdisk(1)partition(1).
 
Use another machine to create the boot floppy and boot from it.

--

Regards,

Dave Patrick ....Please no email replies - reply in newsgroup.
Microsoft Certified Professional
Microsoft MVP [Windows]http://www.microsoft.com/protect



Jon said:
So how can I do as you suggest?
Click to expand...
Jon- Hide quoted text -
Click to expand...

- Show quoted text -
Click to expand...

My ERD was created on another machine.

Something seems to have happened to the HD, otherwise why did it
install a 16-bit version of W2K?
 
Start -> Run -> Open c:boot.ini
Add an entry for drive G.
If drive G is on a second disk, it's on rdisk(1)partition(1).








- Show quoted text -
Click to expand...

That did the trick. Thanks.

Jon
 
ERD's are machine specific and non-interchangeable but moot since they're
also non-bootable.

I don't know what the second comment means.


--

Regards,

Dave Patrick ....Please no email replies - reply in newsgroup.
Microsoft Certified Professional
Microsoft MVP [Windows]
http://www.microsoft.com/protect
 
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