Background: this notebook began life as a Win98 machine, on which I installed System Commander 2000. I upgraded to Windows 2000 Professional several months ago and never uninstalled System Commander. Despite an
annoying error message at startup after the OS upgrade (syscmndr.sys not found, choose boot partition or something of that nature), once I hit "0" Win2k always booted up just fine.

A few weeks back, I decided to remove all the data and applications from the "D:" drive/partition, which I believe is FAT32 and use the utilities in Win2k to remove the partition. Here is where the trouble started, as I guess I did not know what I was doing.

After the error message (which referenced the boot.ini file and partition numbers 0 and 1, I think), I rebooted the machine and have since not been able to startup Win2k.

Using a Win98 bootup disk, "fdisk" is able to see both drive partitions still. Additionally, OnTrack's Easy Recovery Professional v5.10 is able to see all of the data on the drive. Booting from a Win2k boot disk set that I created from my Win2k Professional CD on my Win98 machine yields
this message: Setup is inspecting your computer's hardware configuration... Disk I/O error: Status = 0001000 NTDETECT failed.

I purchased a copy of Norton Utilities 2001, figuring the fix would be easy since the other utilites see the partitions. No luck so far and Symantec has said that Norton Utilitie cannot be of help, since it was
not installed, with a rescue disk created before this occured.

I created an Emergency Disk set using my Win98 machine. Norton seems to work fine, but I cannot figure out what commands, even based on the documentation, that I am supposed to run. Additionally, I have tried to boot from the CDROM (after changing the PC's BIOS settings to both CDROM
FDD and FDD CDROM) and get the error message "Non-System disk - Insert a
boot diskette and press any key ..."

At this point I am at a loss. I have to believe that since OnTrack's utility sees all of the data, Norton would have been able to get my MBR back in order. No such luck. Are there any utilities out their that
may be helpful or any other tips/tricks anyone can suggest?

 

i would have to recommend buying a new truck!!

 

Steve, it sounds like when you removed the Win98 partition you inadvertently changed the partition table. Now this is not a bad thing, it's just NT/2K uses the partition number to know which partition to boot. If you look at the file boot.ini you'll see entries such as this:

multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINNT

This lets NT/2K know which partition to boot, but if the partitions changed then this now points to an unknown partition. I can probably help you fix the problem, but I require more info about your current system configuration. Feel free to send me an email and we'll try and fix your system through email.


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1999 Lariat SuperCab Flareside, Amazon Green with Silver trim, 5.4L, 4x2, 4 wheel disc/ABS, 3.55 limited slip, towing package, fog lamps, sliding rear window, captains chairs, keyless entry with alarm, spray-on bed liner, bug guard, and K&N. http://www.csc.calpoly.edu/~bfriesen/truck.html

 

Freezer,

I suspect that is the problem as well, but it came as a result of using the Win2k disk management tools, not the upgrade itself, as the machine was working fine as a Win2k box before I tried to resize the partitions!

Additionally, I downloaded an app called BootIt NG 1.22 from TeraByteUnlimited. It allows you to do partition management without having access to the actual file system. The software is seeing two partitions, one FAT32 and one NTFS. I can set the NTFS to the active partition using fdisk, but when booting I receive the "Missing Operating System" message.

Here, BTW, are the contents of the boot.ini file on the notebook:

I would prefer to not have to install Win2k again and I do not have recovery or startup disk created on this box... Grrrr...

 

If I have gotten this correct I think this is the easiest way to fix your problem. I think you said you have a partition for 98 and one for 2000 (NT). First of all I don't think win 98 can read NTFS so what you cou;d do is use your win2000 disk and upgrade you copy of 98 that is on your computer. This takes probably a half an hour. That will probably get you back up and running but you will lose the use of win98. I like 200 beter myself so that is the route I would go.

Also since I like to keep my computer's file system extremely clean I would then hook up a zip drive of a network connection or something and transfer all the finles you want onto a hard disk of another machine then fdisk your hard drive and make the partitions you want (I like having one partition for win200 (4.3 gb) and seperate ones for my files but I also have 23 hard drives lol but I would reccomend for ease of use one big partition) and then format the partition and install just windows 98 or 2000. Hope this helps.

Jimmar

 

May be off base here, but I had a somewhat similar problem. I originally had two 10 gig drives w/4 partitions. I added two 30 gig drives on a Iwill RAID controller. I could disconnect the two 10's and boot from the RAID array, but not if they were plugged in. Turns out all I needed to was to enable "alternate boot method" in the BIOS. Have you checked what HDD device the BIOS is set to boot from?

I'd go w/ Moose-Man. Clean install solves all.

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1994 SVT Mustang Cobra. #1032 of 6009. Black coupe with black leather int., 3.73 rear, Bassani Exhaust, Aluminum D/S, Bridgestone RE-71 255-45-ZR17

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If all else fails, just grab that drive out of there, plug in another box, xfer your data. Reload W2k, skip steps 2-4 that killed it , and shake hands with a friend of mine called Norton Ghost. Take a snap shot and sleep like a baby at night.


S.

[This message has been edited by MrScot (edited 04-21-2001).]

 

Steve,

You need to edit the boot.ini :

default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOW S <--this looks like the problem, should read \WINNT="Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional" /fastdetect

You need to change the last portion (partition) to reflect the OS you are trying to boot. I assume that would be your Win2k partition. the last portion should read \WINNT="Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional" /fastdetect

This may be incorrect for your particulr laptop but try this:
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT= "Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional" /fastdetect

-or-

default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINNT= "Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional" /fastdetect

Win 2k uses the NT file structure and boot options. The partition entry must reflect the partition you installed Win 2k on. Microsoft set the OS like this so that you could perform multi boot configs (more than one OS installed on the PC).

 

Steve,
As a pc tech for 5 years i highly recommend doing the most simple thing.

Use your copy of windows 2000 boot from the cdrom, Format the drive using NTFS and do a fresh install of windows 2000.

If you need to save data off the laptops hard drive i recommend using a serial cable and using a program like "laplink" and just transferring the data to a desktop temp and then transferring it back when the new install is done.

I can tell you programs like system commander and especially norton utilites are a waste of time

Hope this helps!

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