ms said:
I want to be very careful here, not risking bootup problems.
Is this the boot.ini file that would be normal for W2K?
[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT="(Backup Line) Microsoft
Windows 2000 Professional" /fastdetect
Also, my boot.ini was not hidden, should it be?
ms
Yes, this is a normal boot.ini file. I would probably change the
comment
"(Backup Line) Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional" /fastdetect
to
"Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional" /fastdetect
We cannot tell why the file wasn't hidden - perhaps your third-party
boot tool unhid it. Windows doesn't care if it is hidden or not - it's
hidden by default so that you don't delete it by mistake.
I hope the other people that have helped me will see this post.
The CD drive is definitely OK. I wrote to a blank disk, then read it,
then ran several exe files from it. So it functions again. I than put in
the OS Cd and ran the setup.exe, it opened the setup screen, I exited.
Then I rebooted with the CD in place, the OS setup started, to stop it I
had to turn off, but wanted to post here before continuing.
So the CD issues of yesterday are fixed. As you folks know, every day can
be different, and even though I try to be conservative, no installs,
etc., there can be minor surprises frequently.
So now, the only issue is my OP, the multibootup screen.
From this thread, I believe there are 2 things to try:
* modify the boot.ini file
* boot with the OS CD, do as you earlier suggested: Repair/Recovery
Console/fixboot/fix mbr
Are both steps necessary to solve the boot menu problem?
Is it safer to run the setup steps first, then modify boot.ini?
After modify boot.ini, if the computer does not boot up for some reason,
how to recover?
Sorry for the questions, but with bad sleep for 15 years, I need to
proceed slowly, (and stop running even little programs that have hidden
installs!)
ms