OT: Installed XP and my dual boot isnt' workin! Help?

180 Views 10 Replies 6 Participants Last post by CRM3000, Oct 26, 2001

fastrnyou

Discussion Starter · Oct 23, 2001

i had ME on one of my test machines here at work, and I installed windows XP home eddition off of the MSDN cd, well it doesnt' dual boot. I installed in different directories on the same partition.. i know, but i wanted to. Well now under startup and recovery it doesn't show ME, just XP. How do i edit the boot.ini or SOMETHING, to make this thing see ME too?

i'd prefer not to install any 3rd party software.. suggestions?

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Elmo

· #2 · Oct 23, 2001

Why would you want ME after running XP?

Actually.... Why would you want ME, PERIOD!?!??!

eh. nevermind.

I think you're SOL. Once XP overwrites the boot sector, you can't use Boot.ini to multiboot, unless ME was on a different Primary partition. Boot.ini is usually only used to control which partition houses the desired 'boot OS' And even then, I don't know if telling Boot.ini which partition to look at, and what the 'sysroot' folder is (\windows) would work... I don't think it likes it.

I have seen it done before though. Even with Win2K Pro. But I rarely attempt to dual boot. It's not worth the hassle to me. So I can't really afford you much help. I guess I'm just TTT'ing this for you.

Good luck. Hope you figure it out.

Elton

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fastrnyou

Discussion Starter · #3 · Oct 23, 2001

well the internet dept wants an ME machine to test dialup on like their customers do.. that the ONLY reason i could see having it, is so you can support other morons with it

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Mutilator

· #4 · Oct 23, 2001

How'd you install XP? Did you start it while you were in windows already or boot directly off the CD? If you booted directly from the CD that's probably why it didn't pick up ME.
I have to agree with Elmo tho... ME sucks, I couldn't stand it so I went back to 98se... then went to 2K, I'm using 98se again right now but I like to format and reinstall just to keep things fresh

I'll probably XP in the next couple of weeks and give that a try myself.
Right now I'd say 2000 is the best OS MS has made... but XP is supposed to be better.

fastr - check out VMWare or similar products... that would let you run ME inside of XP if they support XP already.

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Jspec

· #5 · Oct 23, 2001

there is a dual boot option??

when i was installing it on my friend's machine it just upgraded it automatically to XP...

actually XP has alot of problem as of now...he is having problem runnning Office 2000...anyone else have this problem?? did i forget to download a service pack or something.

hehe i'm still running ME....this is my 1232434434534 times installing it and i think for the first time it will shutdown correctly.

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BigBadVR4

· #6 · Oct 24, 2001

Yes you can dual boot with Xp and ME and yes it does work on the same partition. If you are having problems, you could go to recovery console and do a bootcfg command. I don't remember all of the switches, but you can go to the recovery console and do a bootcfg /?.

If you can boot to XP you can edit the boot.ini and point it to the different directories.

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Elmo

· #7 · Oct 24, 2001

well, here's my...er... uhm... 'A' Boot.ini from an XP machine....

[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="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /fastdetect

So, I presume, if this is like the older NT 4.0 boot.ini, you could just add another line like so (in green):

[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="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /fastdetect
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINME="Microsoft Windows ME" /fastdetect

Where the \WINME is the designation for the alternate folder where ME's Command.com processor kernel is.

That's my guess anyhow. I haven't had time to learn all the ins and outs of XP yet.... cuz ...er... I don't... have access... to .....it... yet.... since ...its... not ...for sale...

heh.

Elton

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fastrnyou

Discussion Starter · #8 · Oct 24, 2001

With an MSDN licences you get XP prof and Home edition. We got ours 2 days ago

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CRM3000

· #9 · Oct 24, 2001

First of all if you installed on the same partition you are fucked cuz all the stuff that isn't stored in the windows directory now has conflicting versions.........such as IE. The fastdetect command is only for 2000 and XP so you don't need that and the after the disk and partition path you should have the \"whatever the ME directory is" path. And there is another line you need......don't remember what it is anymore cuz I avoid using the windows boot options and only use XP PRO now but it is something like dualboot=0 or 1 0 for off 1 for on. I'll post it when I find it agian. 98se and XP Pro are the best Operating systems they have ever made and I would never use anything else.

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BigBadVR4

· #10 · Oct 24, 2001

You don't have to do the dualboot=0 line in the .ini file, that was only used in 95/98. Your boot.ini looks right. A couple of things you could do. You could use a 98 boot disk and do a sys c:. Then you could create an XP boot disk to boot to XP. I will look through the XP Resource kit today and see if I can come up with something else. Did you happen to switch the partition to NTFS? If you did that, you are in a little predicament. Can you boot to any OS?

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CRM3000

· #11 · Oct 26, 2001

This is what the boot.ini looks like for dual boot on a system with ME and XP Pro. ME is set to default on the C drive. XP is on the D. Settings should be changed accordingly for one drive setup.

[boot loader]
timeout=3
default=C:\
[operating systems]
C:\="Microsoft Windows"
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /fastdetect

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