Win98SE w/ XP SP2 - bootsect.dos error

[Woodmon]

Hello. A friend is having issues with his XP Home SP2 system (fairly new
HP with Athlon 2.4GHz) after adding a second hard drive and installing
Win98SE on the new drive.

My research indicates that possibly the OS boot sector on the orginal
drive has been rewritten due to the install of Win98SE on the second hard
drive.

Here are the actions, as I understand them, which likely produced the
current situation:

1. Original 160GB IDE hard drive (jumpers set as single drive) contained
system partiton C: (HP_PAVILION) and a hidden partition (HP_RECOVERY).
I'm assuming the orginal drive was set up as NTFS (looks as HP set up the
system at factory with sysprep).

2. Then second drive was added as slave on primary channel (jumpers on
orignal drive reset to 'master' and jumpers on new drive set as 'slave').

3. Then PC was booted with Win98SE startup disk and ran 'fdisk' and then
'format' on the new drive (drive D. Drive was formatted as FAT32.

4. Then when system was rebooted the following error displayed (and
continues to display):

I/O Error accessing boot sector file
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\BOOTSECT.DOS

5. From this point unable to proceed. (So not able to boot XP OS).

6. However if I press ESC when starting up PC, I get HP's Boot menu and
am able to select the brand new hard drive, and Win98SE successfully
launches.


My research has led to following conclusion: For multi-booting to work
correctly the XP install should be on the D: drive (formatted with FAT32)
-AND- the Win98SE install should be on the C: drive (formatted for
FAT32).

thpc.info/dualboot.html provides many possible suggestions for correcting
situation. Main suggestion is to first creating bootsect.dos on the
orignal XP drive then rewrite the OS boot sector on the original XP drive
(or repairing). The site provides a utility to do this (btsect.bat) but
after attempting all the varied instructions I continue to hit dead-ends.

One dead-end: I have downloaded from MS site the archive to produce XP
SP2 Home setup floppy set. My attempt to boot from the floppy set errors
out on disk #4. Error is "file lbrtfdc.sys casue an unexpected error
(4096) at line 5964 in d:\xpsprtm\base\boot\setup\setup.c"

However booting from HP System Recovery CD I can access the Recovery
Console. When starting RC I observe a list of three "Windows
installations" to log into:
1. c:\i386
2. c:\miniNT
3. i:\Windows

Choosing "3" I and doing a DIR, I can see the I:\ drive is the orginal
hard drive with XP installed labelled HP_PAVILION". It appears this
installtion was orginally set up by HP .

I do not observe a bootsect.dos file in root of I:\

Some questions:

A. How do I confirm is I: drive (orignally c is formatted as FAT32 or
as NTFS? (remember I am not able to boot XP to find out via the GUI)

B. If I find the drive is formatted as NTFS is it possible to setup
multi-boot configuration?

C. If not should I completely repartion the C: drive and reformat as
FAT32. Assuming I have to move the W98SE drive to master position and
move the orignal C drive to slave position? Will I have to reinstall
Win98SE before I re-install XP? Should I install XP from the HP_Recovery
partion or the System Recovery CD I created. Will I have to delete the
HP_RECOVERY partition.

D. If I find the orignal drive is formatted as FAT32 any easy recommends
on sliving dilemma.

(note that no XP CD or application CD's came with this HP system... had
to create HP System Recovery PC Recovery Tools CD and two Application
Recovery CD's).

Also note that my friend has stated that the system is fairly new and
that not many data files on the hard drive. He has not backed up the
system and is thus prepared for a complete re-install if necessary. But
if that can be prevented that would make his day.

Any and all recommends are appreciated. Thanks.

Woody

 

[Rod Speed]

Hello. A friend is having issues with his XP Home SP2
system (fairly new HP with Athlon 2.4GHz) after adding a
second hard drive and installing Win98SE on the new drive.

My research indicates that possibly the OS boot sector
on the orginal drive has been rewritten due to the install
of Win98SE on the second hard drive.

Here are the actions, as I understand them,
which likely produced the current situation:

1. Original 160GB IDE hard drive (jumpers set as single drive)
contained system partiton C: (HP_PAVILION) and a hidden partition
(HP_RECOVERY). I'm assuming the orginal drive was set up as
NTFS (looks as HP set up the system at factory with sysprep).

2. Then second drive was added as slave on primary channel (jumpers on
orignal drive reset to 'master' and jumpers on new drive set as 'slave').

3. Then PC was booted with Win98SE startup disk and ran 'fdisk' and
then 'format' on the new drive (drive D. Drive was formatted as FAT32.

You appear to have installed Win98SE as
well, tho you dont actually say that there.

4. Then when system was rebooted the following
error displayed (and continues to display):

I/O Error accessing boot sector file
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\BOOTSECT.DOS

5. From this point unable to proceed. (So not able to boot XP OS).

6. However if I press ESC when starting up PC, I get
HP's Boot menu and am able to select the brand new
hard drive, and Win98SE successfully launches.

My research has led to following conclusion: For multi-booting
to work correctly the XP install should be on the D: drive
(formatted with FAT32) -AND- the Win98SE install
should be on the C: drive (formatted for FAT32).

Thats just one way of doing it. You can boot W98SE on the D drive.

thpc.info/dualboot.html provides many possible suggestions
for> correcting situation. Main suggestion is to first creating
bootsect.dos on the orignal XP drive then rewrite the OS
boot sector on the original XP drive (or repairing). The site
provides a utility to do this (btsect.bat) but after attempting
all the varied instructions I continue to hit dead-ends.

Dead ends in the sense that you cant get XP to boot
or you cant get a proper menu of OSs to boot from ?

One dead-end: I have downloaded from MS site the archive to produce
XP SP2 Home setup floppy set. My attempt to boot from the floppy set
errors out on disk #4. Error is "file lbrtfdc.sys casue an unexpected
error (4096) at line 5964 in d:\xpsprtm\base\boot\setup\setup.c"

Dunno, I never bother with floppys anymore.

However booting from HP System Recovery CD I can access the
Recovery Console. When starting RC I observe a list of three "Windows
installations" to log into:
1. c:\i386
2. c:\miniNT
3. i:\Windows

Choosing "3" I and doing a DIR, I can see the I:\ drive is
the orginal hard drive with XP installed labelled HP_PAVILION".
It appears this installtion was orginally set up by HP .

I do not observe a bootsect.dos file in root of I:\

Yeah, looks like its got klobbered.

Some questions:

A. How do I confirm is I: drive (orignally c is formatted as FAT32 or
as NTFS? (remember I am not able to boot XP to find out via the GUI)

Easiest to boot a Bart PE CD and check that from
there. Thats essentially a bootable XP on CD.

B. If I find the drive is formatted as NTFS
is it possible to setup multi-boot configuration?

Yes, the format is irrelevant to multibooting,
it works fine with both formats.

C. If not should I completely repartion
the C: drive and reformat as FAT32.

No need.

Assuming I have to move the W98SE drive to master
position and move the orignal C drive to slave position?

That isnt necessary. Its possible to boot W98SE on the D
drive by setting up the boot.ini and its supporting files properly.

Will I have to reinstall Win98SE before I re-install XP?
Should I install XP from the HP_Recovery partion
or the System Recovery CD I created. Will I have
to delete the HP_RECOVERY partition.

Academic since you dont need to reformat.

D. If I find the orignal drive is formatted as FAT32
any easy recommends on sliving dilemma.

Just understand how the XP boot process works,
use the recovery CD to repair the XP boot back to
what it used to be and then manually add a single
line to boot.ini to boot W98SE on the D drive.

(note that no XP CD or application CD's came with this HP system...
had to create HP System Recovery PC Recovery Tools CD and two
Application Recovery CD's).

Also note that my friend has stated that the system is fairly new and
that not many data files on the hard drive. He has not backed up the
system and is thus prepared for a complete re-install if necessary.
But if that can be prevented that would make his day.

Its not necessary.

 

[Woodmon]

You appear to have installed Win98SE as
well, tho you dont actually say that there.

Thanks for the info Rod. Yes forgot to mention that Win98SE was installed
on D drive after it was partitioned and formatted. ;-)

Thats just one way of doing it. You can boot W98SE on the D drive.

Yes right now I can boot Win98SE. So you're stating below once I edit
boot.ini on C and create a correct bootsect.dos on C I will be able to
either boot XP on C (NTFS) or Win98SE on D (FAT32).

Not sure yet how to make this happen. Would the following boot.ini be
correct on C:\?

[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS

[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Windows XP Home" /fastdetect
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Windows 98SE" /fastdetect


If so any suggestions on how to edit the existing boot.ini? (see below)

Dead ends in the sense that you cant get XP to boot
or you cant get a proper menu of OSs to boot from ?

I get a menu when pressing F10 when starting PC. This is a menu produced by
HP Bios I suspect, not a multi-boot menu genrated by MS.

When I select from the menu the hard drive with Win98SE installed boots
fine. When I select the hard drive with XP installed I get the "I/O Error
accessing boot sector file" error.

Yeah, looks like its got klobbered.

My thought was it did not get written to the C drive as Win98SE could not
access the NTFS formatted partion on C:\ ?

I assume doing a DIR listing in RC by default shows ALL files (hidden,
system, read-only or otherwise).

Yes, the format is irrelevant to multibooting,
it works fine with both formats.

What I understood from MS KB docs from MSKB was that Win98SE would NOT be
able to read bootsect.dos (or boot.ini) if stored on the system partition
which is formatted as NTFS (that is Win98SE can't access files stored on a
NTFS formatted partition).

Its possible to boot W98SE on the D
drive by setting up the boot.ini and its supporting files properly.

Not quite seure how to do this. That is, how do I edit the boot.ini?

When logged into RC it appears I don't have access to "edit"?

I understand I can run bootcfg /rebuild to rebuild boot.ini. Is this
suggested versus editing boot.ini manually?

(I have edit on a 98SE boot floppy but I can't access the NTFS C;\ drive
when booting from that floppy.

Just understand how the XP boot process works,
use the recovery CD to repair the XP boot back to
what it used to be and then manually add a single
line to boot.ini to boot W98SE on the D drive.

Launching the HP PC Recovery Tools CD gets me to a menu. I can access RC
from the CD menu. However when I choose "Start System Recovery program from
the recovery partition, I get a dialog stating "click to start the system
recovery program" When I click next (standard or full) the system
restarts, and boots from the CD with the exact same menu. Endless loop.

I'm assuming the Recovery CD is having trouble recognizing the active
system partition on C:\ and XP boot drive?

So still not sure of best method to proceed.

Woody

 

[Rod Speed]

Yes right now I can boot Win98SE. So you're stating below once
I edit boot.ini on C and create a correct bootsect.dos on C I will
be able to either boot XP on C (NTFS) or Win98SE on D (FAT32).
Yes.

Not sure yet how to make this happen.

I'd concentrate on making the XP boot again first, then just edit the boot.ini

Would the following boot.ini be correct on C:\?

[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS

[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Windows XP Home"
/fastdetect multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Windows
98SE" /fastdetect

Yep, I should have given you the boot.ini line.
That defaults to booting XP if you dont select anything.

If so any suggestions on how to edit the existing boot.ini? (see below)

I get a menu when pressing F10 when starting PC. This is a menu
produced by HP Bios I suspect, not a multi-boot menu genrated by MS.

When I select from the menu the hard drive with Win98SE installed
boots fine. When I select the hard drive with XP installed I get the
"I/O Error accessing boot sector file" error.

Sure, I was actually asking about what happened
when you tried the dualboot.html suggestions.

My thought was it did not get written to the C drive as Win98SE
could not access the NTFS formatted partion on C:\ ?

Yes, but its not a Win98SE file, so it shouldnt
have got erased by the Win98SE install.

I assume doing a DIR listing in RC by default shows
ALL files (hidden, system, read-only or otherwise).

Cant remember.

What I understood from MS KB docs from MSKB was that Win98SE
would NOT be able to read bootsect.dos (or boot.ini) if stored on the
system partition which is formatted as NTFS (that is Win98SE can't
access files stored on a NTFS formatted partition).

Correct, but both of those are used by ntldr before Win98SE
is booted, to give you the menu where you choose what to boot.

Not quite seure how to do this.

Basically by editing boot.ini

That is, how do I edit the boot.ini?

By booting XP, by repairing the boot files so you can boot XP again.

When logged into RC it appears I don't have access to "edit"?

I understand I can run bootcfg /rebuild to rebuild boot.ini.
Is this suggested versus editing boot.ini manually?

Yes, that's one way, just somehow get XP booting
again and then edit boot.ini from within XP to add
the extra boot option for Win98SE as you listed above.

(I have edit on a 98SE boot floppy but I can't access
the NTFS C;\ drive when booting from that floppy.

Sure, you have to do it from XP or from a Bart PE bootable CD.

Launching the HP PC Recovery Tools CD gets me to a menu.
I can access RC from the CD menu. However when I choose
"Start System Recovery program from the recovery partition,
I get a dialog stating "click to start the system recovery program"
When I click next (standard or full) the system restarts, and
boots from the CD with the exact same menu. Endless loop.

I'm assuming the Recovery CD is having trouble recognizing
the active system partition on C:\ and XP boot drive?

Yeah, looks like it.

So still not sure of best method to proceed.

Do you have access to another XP distribution CD ?
You should be able to boot the RC from that.

If you dont, you should be able to do an install in place,
basically just install XP over the top of the existing XP install.
That will clean up the mess thats there now in the early boot
phase and will retain the settings for the current XP install.
Just proceed as if doing a clean install of XP and once you
specify which drive to install it on, it will find the existing
install and ask if you want to repair it.

Once thats successful, just manually edit the boot.ini from
within XP and add the line for Win98SE as you listed at the top.

 

[Woodmon]

Woodmon <mr.mediamonATgmail.com> wrote in


Follow-up.

I launched RC,
then I choose the installation
3: I:\WINDOWS
(which is the XP installation),

At I:\ prompt I ran "bootcfg /list".
Observed message "There are currently no boot entries available to
display".

Then at I:\ prompt I ran "bootcfg /scan" with the following response:
The Windows installation scan was successful.
Total identified Windows installs: 1
[1]: I:\WINDOWS

Then I ran "bootcfg /rebuild".
Response shows found I:\Windows.
Then asked "Enter load Identifier:"
I responded "WindowsXP" (without quotes)

Then asked "Enter OS Load Options:"
I responded "fastdetect" (without quotes)

Then at I:\ prompt I ran "type boot.ini"

Observed follwoing onscreen:

[boot loader]
timeout=0
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS

[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Home
Edition" /noexecute=optin /fastdetect
C:\CMDCONS\BOOTSECT.DAT="Microsoft Windows Recovery Console" /cmdcons


I'm not sure if this is what I wanted?

But then after I reboot (removing CD) and pressed ESC key, the HP boot menu
appeared as expected. Then I selected the hard drive XP is installed on.
Then success, the PC booted into XP and up comes the XP desktop!

Good to see.

So for some more info gathering...

In Disk Management I see HP_RECOVERY is the first partition listed on Disk
0 (D and is the "system partition" (formatted as FAT32).

HP_PAVILION is the second partition listed on Disk 0 (C and is the
"boot" partition (formatted as FAT32).

And Disk1 is the G: drive with a single active partition (the drive with
Win98 installation).

So I am confused about how to configure the boot.ini on C:\. (note there is
also a boot.ini on D:\

Is the following resulting boot.ini on C:\ correct?

[boot loader]
timeout=0
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP
Professional" /noexecute=optin /fastdetect
C:\CMDCONS\BOOTSECT.DAT="Microsoft Windows Recovery Console" /cmdcons

And then is the following boot.ini on D:\ correct?

[boot loader]
timeout=0
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS="WindowsXP" fastdetect
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP
Professional" /fastdetect
C:\CMDCONS\BOOTSECT.DAT="Microsoft Windows Recovery Console" /cmdcons
C:\="Microsoft Windows 98"

And I don't see how/why Windows XP Professional shows up in the mix?

Note when I rebooted again then pressed F10 then chose the hard drive XP
was installed on I got anoter boot menu (looks like the MS multi-boot menu)
with following options:

Please select the OS to start:

WindowsXP
MS Windows XP Professional
MS Windows Recovery Console
MS Windows 98

As stated above when I chose "WindowsXP", XP launches correctly it seems.

When I chose " MS Windows XP Professional" I received error:

Windows could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt:

<Windows root>\system32\hal.dll
Please re-install a copy of the above file.


If I select "Microsoft Windows 98"

I get the error;

I/O Error accessing boot sector file
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\BOOTSECT.DOS


Final note. When I let system boot without pressing the ESC key, the PC
boots boot directly into Windows98SE

As you can tell I'm a bit confused on all this with the HP_RECOVERY
partition in the mix. And now there are two boot menus, One the HP menu and
the other the MS boot menu.

Any ideas how to streamline to single boot menu and clean up boot.ini
and/or resolve above reported errors?

Thanks for any ideas.

Woody

 

[Woodmon]

Woodmon <mr.mediamonATgmail.com> wrote in

Final note. When I let system boot without pressing the ESC key, the
PC boots boot directly into Windows98SE

As you can tell I'm a bit confused on all this with the HP_RECOVERY
partition in the mix. And now there are two boot menus, One the HP
menu and the other the MS boot menu.

Any ideas how to streamline to single boot menu and clean up boot.ini
and/or resolve above reported errors?

So to review I can now get into XP and Win98Se but not through the same
menu.

I think I just want to use the MS menu to choose which OS to launch
Reasns include that won't have to press ESC right at boot time and will
have a delay of 30 secs to choose to change OS before default OS is
booted.

Should be only two choices on menu:
- XP SP2 Home
- Win98SE

I prefer RC to not be listed but if it has to be that is ok.

So open for suggestions on how get past the previous reported menu errors
and a proper menu working.

Woody

 

[David J. Craig]

This question has been asked and answered many times. Install Win98SE on
the C: drive using FAT32. That is the master drive on the primary
controller as listed in the BIOS. At the INT 13h level it is the 0x80
drive. After you get it working, you can install XP on the second drive or
an extended partition on the same drive - if you have space. You need to
install Microsoft operating systems in the order of their release from
oldest to newest. How could 98SE know about XP? This solution has been
recommended by Microsoft in the past. Try searching some of the user
newsgroups, though there might have been posts in this newsgroup also.

I hope both drives are the same in the level of ATAPI or SATA support they
provide. If you use an old ATAPI 33MHz drive and a newer 133MHz drive, it
can cause a slowdown of the faster drive.

 

[Woodmon]

This question has been asked and answered many times.

I searched the web on bootsect.dos and I hardly came up with anything. So
not sure of which you speak.

Install Win98SE
on the C: drive using FAT32. That is the master drive on the primary
controller as listed in the BIOS. At the INT 13h level it is the 0x80
drive.

After you get it working, you can install XP on the second
drive or an extended partition on the same drive - if you have space.

XP is already on the C boot drive. As mentioned in my previous post HP
did not provide a XP CD. I did create a PC Tools Recovery CD and
applications Recovery CD's. How do I install XP on drive D using the
tools at my disposal.

You need to install Microsoft operating systems in the order of their
release from oldest to newest. How could 98SE know about XP? This
solution has been recommended by Microsoft in the past. Try searching
some of the user newsgroups, though there might have been posts in
this newsgroup also.

I've read many KB articles on this subject but also articles on various
websites, thpc.info is one. It seems that some have been able to make XP
run on C drive, and then install 98SE on D drive and able to select which
OS to boot to from a menu.

Rod in his replies seems to imply this is possible. Are your
recommendations contractory? Just learning here so be kind.

I hope both drives are the same in the level of ATAPI or SATA support
they provide. If you use an old ATAPI 33MHz drive and a newer 133MHz
drive, it can cause a slowdown of the faster drive.

They are both ATA-133 7200rpm EIDE drives.

If you have any specific recommends or specific resources you can point
me to I'm all ears and eyes. Appreciate the feedback.

Woody

 

[Rod Speed]

Woodmon <mr.mediamonATgmail.com> wrote

Wanna be careful, you can end up blind...

Follow-up.

I launched RC,
then I choose the installation
3: I:\WINDOWS
(which is the XP installation),

At I:\ prompt I ran "bootcfg /list".
Observed message "There are currently no boot entries available to
display".

Then at I:\ prompt I ran "bootcfg /scan" with the following response:
The Windows installation scan was successful.
Total identified Windows installs: 1
[1]: I:\WINDOWS

Then I ran "bootcfg /rebuild".
Response shows found I:\Windows.
Then asked "Enter load Identifier:"
I responded "WindowsXP" (without quotes)

Then asked "Enter OS Load Options:"
I responded "fastdetect" (without quotes)

Then at I:\ prompt I ran "type boot.ini"

Observed follwoing onscreen:

[boot loader]
timeout=0
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS

[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP
Home Edition" /noexecute=optin /fastdetect
C:\CMDCONS\BOOTSECT.DAT="Microsoft Windows Recovery Console" /cmdcons

I'm not sure if this is what I wanted?

Yes it is, except that you now need to
manually add the Win98SE install to that too.

But then after I reboot (removing CD) and pressed ESC key,
the HP boot menu appeared as expected. Then I selected
the hard drive XP is installed on. Then success, the PC
booted into XP and up comes the XP desktop!

Hope you remembered to superglue your sox on.

Good to see.

So for some more info gathering...

In Disk Management I see HP_RECOVERY is the first partition listed
on Disk 0 (D and is the "system partition" (formatted as FAT32).

HP_PAVILION is the second partition listed on Disk 0 (C
and is the "boot" partition (formatted as FAT32).

That matches the boot.ini above.

And Disk1 is the G: drive with a single active partition
(the drive with Win98 installation).

So I am confused about how to configure the boot.ini
on C:\. (note there is also a boot.ini on D:\

Is the following resulting boot.ini on C:\ correct?

[boot loader]
timeout=0
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP
Professional" /noexecute=optin /fastdetect
C:\CMDCONS\BOOTSECT.DAT="Microsoft Windows Recovery Console" /cmdcons
Yes.

And then is the following boot.ini on D:\ correct?

[boot loader]
timeout=0
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS="WindowsXP" fastdetect
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP
Professional" /fastdetect
C:\CMDCONS\BOOTSECT.DAT="Microsoft Windows Recovery Console" /cmdcons
C:\="Microsoft Windows 98"

Its a bit mangled, but irrelevant, you wont be using it when
you specify the original drive to boot from in the HP menu.

And I don't see how/why Windows XP Professional shows up in the mix?

It clearly got a bit confused about the recovery partition on the original
drive.

Note when I rebooted again then pressed F10 then chose
the hard drive XP was installed on I got anoter boot menu
(looks like the MS multi-boot menu) with following options:

Please select the OS to start:

WindowsXP
MS Windows XP Professional
MS Windows Recovery Console
MS Windows 98

Yep, thats clearly coming from the boot.ini quoted above.

As stated above when I chose "WindowsXP",
XP launches correctly it seems.

When I chose " MS Windows XP Professional" I received error:

Windows could not start because the following file is missing or
corrupt:

<Windows root>\system32\hal.dll
Please re-install a copy of the above file.

Thats because its the recovery partition
which doesnt actually have XP installed on it.

If I select "Microsoft Windows 98"

I get the error;

I/O Error accessing boot sector file
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\BOOTSECT.DOS

Thats because the

multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(1)

hasnt been setup correctly for that.

Final note. When I let system boot without pressing the
ESC key, the PC boots boot directly into Windows98SE

You must have the HP menu defaulting to booting
the new drive which has Windows98SE installed
on it. That doesnt use the boot.ini at all.

As you can tell I'm a bit confused on all this with the HP_RECOVERY
partition in the mix. And now there are two boot menus, One the HP
menu and the other the MS boot menu.

Yes, that's inevitable if you have two boot managers installed.

Any ideas how to streamline to single boot menu

Do you prefer the HP or the XP boot menu ?

and clean up boot.ini and/or resolve above reported errors?

Just add
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Windows 98SE" /fastdetect
to the boot.ini on the original drive.

 

[Rod Speed]

Woodmon <mr.mediamonATgmail.com> wrote

Gone blind yet ? Reply if you cant read this.

So to review I can now get into XP and Win98Se
but not through the same menu.

I think I just want to use the MS menu to choose which OS to launch

OK, just edit the boot.ini on the original drive as I listed in the other
post and configure the HP menu to boot that drive unconditionally.

Reasns include that won't have to press ESC right
at boot time and will have a delay of 30 secs to
choose to change OS before default OS is booted.

Should be only two choices on menu:
- XP SP2 Home
- Win98SE

I prefer RC to not be listed but if it has to be that is ok.

You can just delete that line from the boot.ini on the original drive.

 

[Rod Speed]

This question has been asked and answered many times.

This is a very clumsy way of getting what he wants now.

And is a rather awkward way of doing what he wants too.

What would have been a much cleaner approach would have
been to temporarily disconnect the original drive, have just
the new drive plugged in, install Win98SE on the new drive,
plug the original drive back in and manually add the line
for Win98SE to the boot.ini after having booted XP.

Install Win98SE on the C: drive using FAT32. That is the master drive on the
primary controller as listed in the BIOS. At the INT 13h level it is the 0x80
drive. After you get it working, you can install XP on the second drive or an
extended partition on the same drive - if you have space. You need to install
Microsoft operating systems in the order of their release from oldest to
newest.

No you dont, thats just one way of doing it.

How could 98SE know about XP? This solution has been recommended by Microsoft
in the past.

But is a pretty clumsy approach when XP is already installed.

 

[Thomas Wendell]

If I've read this chain right, your friends XP was installed on C:, with
filesystem NTFS?
If so, there's no way to get W98 installed on that system.
To install a W9x-series OS on a computer with XP already installed, the
filesystem on C: HAS to be FAT16/32

Instructions on www.dougknox.com , WinXP Tips, righthand column 3rd from top


--
******************************************************
Most learned on these newsgroups
Tumppi, Helsinki, FINLAND
(translations from/to FI not always accurate)
******************************************************

 

[Andy]

Two options:
1. Use a third party boot manager.

2. What you can do to use Windows dual boot manager is what you
mentioned in one of your follow-up posts: make the Windows 98se drive
the master, and the Windows XP drive the slave, since the Windows XP
file system is apparently NTFS. In this configuration, the PC should
initially immediately boot into Windows 98.
Then what you have to do is install the Windows XP boot loader on the
Windows 98 drive to get dual booting. The way I would do this
temporarily install a spare disk drive in place of the Windows XP
drive. Then using a standard Windows XP CD, install Windows XP onto
the spare disk; this will install the dual boot files onto the Windows
98 drive. Finally replace the spare disk drive with the Windows XP
drive.

 

[Rod Speed]

If I've read this chain right, your friends XP was installed on C:, with
filesystem NTFS?
Correct.

If so, there's no way to get W98 installed on that system.

Wrong, he said in the first post that there is a second hard drive.

And that he has installed W98SE on that fine too and only
has a problem getting the boot menu working properly.

To install a W9x-series OS on a computer with XP already installed, the
filesystem on C: HAS to be FAT16/32

Nope, not if its installed on a different drive.

 

[Folkert Rienstra]

This question has been asked and answered many times.

Not quite clear whether you understood it yourself, given next.

Install Win98SE on the C: drive using FAT32.

There is no C: drive. There is a drive with partitions, one of them is C:
The C: drive you are referring to is the C: letter abomination from
the bios setup boot order list.

That is the master drive on the primary controller as listed in the BIOS.
At the INT 13h level it is the 0x80 drive.

That has nothing got to do with master drive on primary controller.
My SCSI drive has device number 0x80.

After you get it working, you can install XP on the second drive

or an extended partition on the same drive

Which will still be 0x80.

- if you have space. You need to install Microsoft operating systems in the order
of their release from oldest to newest.

How could 98SE know about XP?

It can know about NT. Doesn't mean it gives a rats ass though.

This solution has been recommended by Microsoft in the past.
Try searching some of the user newsgroups, though there might have been posts
in this newsgroup also.

I hope both drives are the same in the level of ATAPI

Not important.

or SATA

Not even on the same bus.

support they provide.

If you use an old ATAPI 33MHz drive and a newer 133MHz drive, it
can cause a slowdown of the faster drive.

Can't even get the terminogy right.

You are obviously past 'senior'.

 

[Woodmon]

Here's what I ended up doing.

As stated in previous message within HP's BIOS Setup I set "Boot Device
Priority" to the new hard drive (D containing Win98SE install, which is
the slave on the first channel, as the higherst priority drive (default).

So when PC starts Win98SE auto boots, (if I don't press the ESC key).

But if I want the PC to boot XP (which will be used much less often than
Win98SE), I press the ESC key at PC boot time. I then get the HP Boot
Menu. I select the hard drive that contains XP install (1st channel
master) and XP auto launches.

To make this happen I set the WindowsXP install as the defualt OS and the
bootloader timeout to 0, by directly editing boot.ini,

or...

Control Panel > System > Advanced Tab > Start up and Recovery Settings
button > System startup

So I'm using both boot managers to get done what I needed to do. I'm sure
there is a better way to do this but it works and was the easiest method,
avoiding having to reinstall, or move drives or installs around, etc.

After reading through a ton of MS KB docs I was thinking that this would
not have been such a simple possibility.

Thanks to everyone for their feedback and to Rod for asserting that it
can be done.

Woody