Upgrading from WinME to Win2K Professional

  • Thread starter Thread starter Dennis
  • Start date Start date
D

Dennis

This upgrade requires a clean install. So I could continue
to run some of my old programs, I upgraded so that I could
use both OSs. I did this on two hard drives so I can use
one as a backup for the other. On one, everything went
fine. On the other, everything seemed to go fine
initially, until after I installed all the updates from
Microsoft, plus ZoneAlarm plus Mcafee. After installing
Zone, I was prompted to re-boot. When I did, I got the
message "NTLDR not found; press any key to re-start."
Which, of course, means that pressing any key just gives
you the same message again. I re-installed that particular
drive as a secondary (using the good one as my primary)
and saw that all of the root files had been wiped out. I
copied the root files from the good drive, swapped the
disks again, and this time, although I was now able to
boot up Win2K Pro, when I selected WinME, I got the
message, "Invalid system disk. Replace and strike any
key." This makes me wonder if some virus got in and nailed
my boot sector - but I would think that would have
affected Win2K also.

Any ideas how I can get my WinME back?

Thanks to anyone who can help!


Regards,

Dennis
 
You're correct there is no supported upgrade path from WinME to Windows
2000. Sounds like you didn't upgrade you tried to dual boot except you
swapped the drives around in the process. To dual-boot these two OS's
install WinME to the first drive. Then without any drive swapping either
boot the Windows 2000 install CD-Rom or setup disks. The set of four install
disks can be created from your Windows 2000 CD-Rom; change to the \bootdisk
directory on the CD-Rom and execute makeboot.exe (from dos) or makebt32.exe
(from 32 bit) and follow the prompts and install to the unallocated space on
drive 1 (second drive) This assumes an unpartitioned drive so you may need
to format or better yet delete/ recreate the partition.

The reason being the both operating systems write a boot sector to the first
primary active partition (system partition)

You may be able to put the drives back as original, then boot a winme
startup disk, run fdisk and make sure the correct partition is marked as
active and possibly again booting a winme startup disk from a command prompt
sys C:
to rewrite the WinME boot sector to the drive.

--
Regards,

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


:
| This upgrade requires a clean install. So I could continue
| to run some of my old programs, I upgraded so that I could
| use both OSs. I did this on two hard drives so I can use
| one as a backup for the other. On one, everything went
| fine. On the other, everything seemed to go fine
| initially, until after I installed all the updates from
| Microsoft, plus ZoneAlarm plus Mcafee. After installing
| Zone, I was prompted to re-boot. When I did, I got the
| message "NTLDR not found; press any key to re-start."
| Which, of course, means that pressing any key just gives
| you the same message again. I re-installed that particular
| drive as a secondary (using the good one as my primary)
| and saw that all of the root files had been wiped out. I
| copied the root files from the good drive, swapped the
| disks again, and this time, although I was now able to
| boot up Win2K Pro, when I selected WinME, I got the
| message, "Invalid system disk. Replace and strike any
| key." This makes me wonder if some virus got in and nailed
| my boot sector - but I would think that would have
| affected Win2K also.
|
| Any ideas how I can get my WinME back?
|
| Thanks to anyone who can help!
|
|
| Regards,
|
| Dennis
|
 
I do know that when you get the 'NTLDR' message, it means
there is a floppy in your drive. Just remove it and
continue.
 
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