Dual Boot worry

[Imemine]

Hello,,,
I am pasting a post here that I made in xp general..... (I have never
cross posted in my life, and
dont wish to start now, so will copy/paste as the problem I have
relates to both win98 and xp.)

"I have developed a problem with my dual boot system. I have win98
and xp,, win98 being on the
c:
drive, and xp on the d drive.
I switched to xp today after a reboot, all seemed okay as it went
through the normal motions, then
it produced a screen as if xp had been installed for the first time
then just ceased up.
I havent used xp a great deal, and it doesnt have access to the
internet.
When I open win' explorer, (via booting back to win98) it shows my D:
drive with all of the things
that are loaded into xp, including all new folders and stuff that I
created last time I was there.
(oh, xp was loaded on using fat32, and has been that way for over a
year without a problem.)

So, one of my main concerns right now is the fact that xp is the boot
manager for the dual-boot, and
I sure as heck dont want to lose the ability to boot into win98.

I have heard that there is a repair tool on my xp disc, and was
wondering whether I should try to
use that? I also dont have my product key anymore. I downloaded
'magicjellybean' product key
finder, and saved it to a file in win98, then from there created a
folder on xp (d: drive) and
copied it into there,, but realised that I was still in a 98
environment and hence couldnt fire
it up to find xp's product number..... still, I dont even know if I
need that at this stage
because I have the original disc anyway.

Can anyone advise on what I should do, or better still, what any of you
here would do in the same
situation? Basically, I havent really tried anything yet, thought
I would come here first.

Have run all the obvious antivirus and malaware programs, comes up
clean for win98.


Thank you for input. "
-------------------------------

And again,,, thank you for input toward a solution,, also,
anyone know of why I am
having this sort of problem? is it a known thing?


--

Posted via http://computerhelpforums.net Forum to USENET Gateway

 

[pjp]

I run dual boot on two pcs. Few oddities have occured, including your
concern

Boot to 98(SE) and create a Floppy Boot Disk. That's found in Control Panel
under Add/Remove Programs on the Startup Tab. You need to provide the 98(SE)
cd for it though.

Then reboot with that floppy in the floppy drive. If pc doesn't boot to
floppy but instead proceeds normally you'll have to reboot again, enter the
BIOS, find the screen that allows setting the Boot Order (or similar
nomenclature) and change that to use the floppy first (instead of CD or Hard
Disk), Exit and Save BIOS which will reboot pc. If it then uses floppy to
boot it'll be obvious

If you want to, choose CD support although to repair 98(SE) so it'll boot
(under scenario you fear) all you usually need is to get to the blinking
"A:\" prompt and type "SYS C:" and let it do it's thing. Take floppy out and
reboot to 98(SE).

Getting XP to reinstall itself into boot sequence is tricky as above
destroys that. I ended up just deleting and reinstalling XP instead when it
happened to me but then again, I didn't care about the XP side.

After doing the "SYS C:" command and before you reboot, if you choose "CD
Support" during bootup you might as well insure you can access a cd in the
cd drive. Put any normal data cd in and type "DIR 'x'" where you replace the
'x' with the normal drive letter of the cd drive, usually D so the command
would be "DIR D:". If you get a list of files and/or folders and not an
error message, floppy disk appears good and something you should set aside
and keep.

Why? Well because if you ever want/need to do a complete clean reinstall the
best way is to boot with that floppy, format the hard disk(s), change to the
cd with the install cd already in it and then run the setup program
manually. Without the floppy, you can't get at the cd drive except from
within windows which may not be there if hard disk is toast, virus so
obscene it's passes along with new install, new disk or any number of other
reasons.

"Imemine" <Guest.399hnw@nntp.nospam.local> wrote in message
news:Guest.399hnw@nntp.nospam.local...
>
> Hello,,,
> I am pasting a post here that I made in xp general..... (I have never
> cross posted in my life, and
> dont wish to start now, so will copy/paste as the problem I have
> relates to both win98 and xp.)
>
> "I have developed a problem with my dual boot system. I have win98
> and xp,, win98 being on the
> c:
> drive, and xp on the d drive.
> I switched to xp today after a reboot, all seemed okay as it went
> through the normal motions, then
> it produced a screen as if xp had been installed for the first time
> then just ceased up.
> I havent used xp a great deal, and it doesnt have access to the
> internet.
> When I open win' explorer, (via booting back to win98) it shows my D:
> drive with all of the things
> that are loaded into xp, including all new folders and stuff that I
> created last time I was there.
> (oh, xp was loaded on using fat32, and has been that way for over a
> year without a problem.)
>
> So, one of my main concerns right now is the fact that xp is the boot
> manager for the dual-boot, and
> I sure as heck dont want to lose the ability to boot into win98.
>
> I have heard that there is a repair tool on my xp disc, and was
> wondering whether I should try to
> use that? I also dont have my product key anymore. I downloaded
> 'magicjellybean' product key
> finder, and saved it to a file in win98, then from there created a
> folder on xp (d: drive) and
> copied it into there,, but realised that I was still in a 98
> environment and hence couldnt fire
> it up to find xp's product number..... still, I dont even know if I
> need that at this stage
> because I have the original disc anyway.
>
> Can anyone advise on what I should do, or better still, what any of you
> here would do in the same
> situation? Basically, I havent really tried anything yet, thought
> I would come here first.
>
> Have run all the obvious antivirus and malaware programs, comes up
> clean for win98.
>
>
> Thank you for input. "
> -------------------------------
>
> And again,,, thank you for input toward a solution,, also,
> anyone know of why I am
> having this sort of problem? is it a known thing?
>
>
> --
>
> Posted via http://computerhelpforums.net Forum to USENET Gateway
>