WinXP dual boot install to separate HD breaks Win2k

  • Thread starter Thread starter Rebus
  • Start date Start date
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Rebus

I have an Abit AN7 system with integrated SATA controller. C: drive
with the Win2kSP4 installation is a SATA drive. I added an IDE drive
and installed Win2K on it originally in a dual boot configuration. That
worked well for many months until this second installation became
corrupt. So I installed WinXP to this second drive, selecting the
delete partition and quick format options. Afterwards, the C:boot.ini
shows both the original Win2k and the new WinXP boot options at bootup
and WinXP boots and operates fine on drive D:, but now the main Win2k
bootup reports, "Windows 2000 could not start because the following file
is missing or corrupt: \WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\CONFIG\SYSTEM". This occurs
immediately after selecting that boot option, not after the horizontal
progress bar appears like when this file is really corrupt. Replacing
the reg hives on C: from a backup set doesn't change anything either.
This seems to be a boot file problem rather than a registry problem. It
appears the WinXP install overwrote the Win2K ntldr and ntdetect.com
files on C: drive, as it's supposed to (dates and filesize match the CD
files). I'm not sure what else gets overwritten. I'm at a loss. Ideas?

Scott
 
Post the contents of boot.ini

--
Regards,

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

:
|I have an Abit AN7 system with integrated SATA controller. C: drive
| with the Win2kSP4 installation is a SATA drive. I added an IDE drive
| and installed Win2K on it originally in a dual boot configuration. That
| worked well for many months until this second installation became
| corrupt. So I installed WinXP to this second drive, selecting the
| delete partition and quick format options. Afterwards, the C:boot.ini
| shows both the original Win2k and the new WinXP boot options at bootup
| and WinXP boots and operates fine on drive D:, but now the main Win2k
| bootup reports, "Windows 2000 could not start because the following file
| is missing or corrupt: \WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\CONFIG\SYSTEM". This occurs
| immediately after selecting that boot option, not after the horizontal
| progress bar appears like when this file is really corrupt. Replacing
| the reg hives on C: from a backup set doesn't change anything either.
| This seems to be a boot file problem rather than a registry problem. It
| appears the WinXP install overwrote the Win2K ntldr and ntdetect.com
| files on C: drive, as it's supposed to (dates and filesize match the CD
| files). I'm not sure what else gets overwritten. I'm at a loss. Ideas?
|
| Scott
 
Dave said:
Post the contents of boot.ini
Click to expand...

[boot loader]
timeout=20
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP
Professional" /noexecute=optin /fastdetect
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT="Windows 2000 Professional"
/fastdetect
C:\CMDCONS\BOOTSECT.DAT="Microsoft Windows 2000 Recovery Console" /cmdcons
 
BTW, I did find one old newsgroup post reporting this problem with a
WinXPSP1 install and the solution was to replace the ntldr and
ntdetect.com files with original WinXP versions; that the SP1 versions
were not always compatible with Win2k. Is this an issue with SP2 also?

Scott
 
It may be worth a try. 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"
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINNT="Windows 2000"
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(1)\WINNT="Windows 2000"
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(2)\WINNT="Windows 2000"


--
Regards,

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

:
| BTW, I did find one old newsgroup post reporting this problem with a
| WinXPSP1 install and the solution was to replace the ntldr and
| ntdetect.com files with original WinXP versions; that the SP1 versions
| were not always compatible with Win2k. Is this an issue with SP2 also?
|
| Scott
 
Dave said:
It may be worth a try. 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...
Click to expand...

What I did was to create a boot floppy and copied the three files from
one of my backup sets from the Win2k installation prior to the WinXP
install. With that on A: it does indeed boot Win2k fine (but not
unexpectedly does not boot XP, giving the same error for it as it does
for Win2k with the XP files). I also tried a set of files from a
WinXPSP1 CD with the same results as the WinXPSP2 files -- only booting
XP. I'd like to try an original XP set to see if they will boot both
Win2k and XP, but now can't find my original XP CD. It's probably
somewhere safe... I'm still looking.

Any ideas why the XPSP1/2 versions of these files do not load Win2k?

Scott
 
Completed Test Results

First, to summarize:

Win2KSP4 on C:/WINNT (SATA) (clean install)

Then WinXPSP2 installed to D:/WINDOWS (IDE) (clean install)

Win2K will no longer boot, with error "Windows 2000 could not start
because the following file is missing or corrupt:
\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\CONFIG\SYSTEM" immediately after boot selection (no
progress bar).

Making a boot diskette A: with the same new boot.ini on C: after the XP
install but using the 2K ntldr and ntdetect.com files from prior to the
XP install (retrieved from backup), allows 2K to boot fine (but XP won't).

Using ntldr and ntdetect.com files from a WinXPSP1 CD behaves the same
as the WinXPSP2 files.

Using ntldr and ntdetect.com files from an original XP CD will boot both
2K and XP installations, but 2K will blue screen crash on exit with the
error, "STOP... IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL... Address 80521371 base at
80400000 - ntoskrnl.exe"

Using ntldr from an original WinXP CD and ntdetect.com from WinXPSP2
will boot both 2k and XP, and 2k and XP will exit normally.

Conclusion:

Bottom line is the temporary workaround seems to be to replace the ntldr
file installed to C: by WinXPSP2 with a copy from an original WinXP CD
and leave NTdetect.com alone. Otherwise, I can't dual boot Win2k and
WinXP. The other likely workaround is to avoid the problem altogether
and just dual boot two installations of Win2k or WinXP -- don't mix
them. This would mean reverting my WinXP install to Win2k (wiping it
out and starting over), or performing an upgrade install of WinXPSP2
over Win2kSP4. I've actually been contemplating doing the latter anyway
but haven't had any compelling reason to do so (my testing shows that
Win2k performs better than XP with my applications). I figure I'll have
to eventually just due to the MS forced obsolescence.

I presume this is a WinXPSP1/2 bug. If anyone has any other possible
solutions to this problem I'd like to hear them.

Scott
 
I remember some isolated cases like this but don't remember any solid
conclusion. Possibly hardware related. ntdetect.com is responsible for hare
discovery at boot time. This debug version may help you.

http://www.microsoft.com/windows2000/techinfo/reskit/tools/existing/ntdetect-o.asp

--
Regards,

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

:
| Completed Test Results
|
| First, to summarize:
|
| Win2KSP4 on C:/WINNT (SATA) (clean install)
|
| Then WinXPSP2 installed to D:/WINDOWS (IDE) (clean install)
|
| Win2K will no longer boot, with error "Windows 2000 could not start
| because the following file is missing or corrupt:
| \WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\CONFIG\SYSTEM" immediately after boot selection (no
| progress bar).
|
| Making a boot diskette A: with the same new boot.ini on C: after the XP
| install but using the 2K ntldr and ntdetect.com files from prior to the
| XP install (retrieved from backup), allows 2K to boot fine (but XP won't).
|
| Using ntldr and ntdetect.com files from a WinXPSP1 CD behaves the same
| as the WinXPSP2 files.
|
| Using ntldr and ntdetect.com files from an original XP CD will boot both
| 2K and XP installations, but 2K will blue screen crash on exit with the
| error, "STOP... IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL... Address 80521371 base at
| 80400000 - ntoskrnl.exe"
|
| Using ntldr from an original WinXP CD and ntdetect.com from WinXPSP2
| will boot both 2k and XP, and 2k and XP will exit normally.
|
| Conclusion:
|
| Bottom line is the temporary workaround seems to be to replace the ntldr
| file installed to C: by WinXPSP2 with a copy from an original WinXP CD
| and leave NTdetect.com alone. Otherwise, I can't dual boot Win2k and
| WinXP. The other likely workaround is to avoid the problem altogether
| and just dual boot two installations of Win2k or WinXP -- don't mix
| them. This would mean reverting my WinXP install to Win2k (wiping it
| out and starting over), or performing an upgrade install of WinXPSP2
| over Win2kSP4. I've actually been contemplating doing the latter anyway
| but haven't had any compelling reason to do so (my testing shows that
| Win2k performs better than XP with my applications). I figure I'll have
| to eventually just due to the MS forced obsolescence.
|
| I presume this is a WinXPSP1/2 bug. If anyone has any other possible
| solutions to this problem I'd like to hear them.
|
| Scott
 
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