Win2K/NT4 Dual Boot - Cannot find Bootfile

  • Thread starter Thread starter James
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J

James

Don't know if this is the correct forum or not. A friend
asked me to take a look at her PC, it would not boot up
correctly. It is a Silicon Graphics 600Mhz Intel
Workstation.

The machine appears to be loaded with both Win2k and
WinNT4 OS's. Win2K is loaded on the C: (partition 2)
drive and NT4 is located on the E: (partition 1) drive
(zip drive is D:).

When I try to boot up with the Win2K partition, I get an
error message "cannot find bootfile" (or it may
say "missing bootfile"). I can boot up to the NT4
partition fine.

However, looking at several of the program shortcuts for
the NT4 partion, they are pointed to a D: drive instead of
the E: drive. This leads me to think the drive lettering
may have changed.

I looked at the C: drive and it appears that all of the
original programs are still on that drive, I just can't
get it to boot up with Win2K. I did notice that Partition
Majic was loaded on the C: drive, and wonder if she may
have screwed up the partions.

Any ideas of what the missing bootfile is refering to? If
so, should I just be able to copy it out there or what.

I saw she does have the NT4.0 workstation CD, but I don't
know if she has a Win2K CD. However, my notebook for work
is configured the same way (dual boot 2K/NT4 partitions).

Thanks in advance.
 
-----Original Message-----



There is no error message such as "cannot find bootfile" or
"missing bootfile". Please quote the error message verbatim,
to facilitate an accurate diagnosis. Also: What partition types
does your friend have - FAT or NTFS?


.
Click to expand...

The bootfile error message is coming from the
SiliconGraphics BIOS GUI. When the machine boots, it
goes to this SI GUI where you can select start methods
(ie. which OS/partition you want to boot with). I have
tried to boot to command prompt with no avail.

I did look at the two partitions. One is NTFS and the
other was FAT. I am pretty sure the C: drive was the
NTFS partition.

TIA
 
James said:
The bootfile error message is coming from the
SiliconGraphics BIOS GUI. When the machine boots, it
goes to this SI GUI where you can select start methods
(ie. which OS/partition you want to boot with). I have
tried to boot to command prompt with no avail.

I did look at the two partitions. One is NTFS and the
other was FAT. I am pretty sure the C: drive was the
NTFS partition.

TIA
Click to expand...

The boot sequence on PCs goes like this:
- The BIOS goes through it hardware detection routine
- It passes control to the code located in the Master
Boot Record (MBR)
- The MBR invokes c:\ntldr
- ntldr looks at c:\boot.ini and runs ntdetect.com
- ntdetect.com fires up various things in the system32 folder

Your short problem description suggests that the code
in the MBR does not run. To confirm this, I recommend
that you do this:
- Format a floppy disk on some other Win2000 PC.
Don't do it on a Win9x PC - it won't work.
- Copy these files from the \i386 folder of your Win2000 CD
to A:\
ntldr
ntdetect.com
- Create a file a:\boot.ini with these lines
[Boot Loader]
Timeout=3
Default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT
[Operating Systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT="Microsoft Windows 2000
Professional" /fastdetect
- Boot the machine with this floppy

What do you get?
 
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