Back to one OS and I need some Help

Presently I have two operating systems. I would like to do away with one (2000Pro "D") and keep the other (XP Pro "R"). Presently I use "Acronis Disk Director Suit 10" and use the OS selector at start-up to choose the operating system. I installed the suite in a folder on drive "F". Does this matter?

The boot wiz program resides on "D". This is where 2000 Pro is installed as well. (how would I format and install to "D" without problems?)

Is it as simple as reformatting and then installing the NEW XP Pro in the “D” Partition and then reinstalling Acronis?

What I would like to do is go back to one OS for now but I would like to keep the old XP install until I make sure that I have all my settings and configurations that I like in the NEW XP install. Then delete the old install (or reformat the partition and do some consolidating). At some point in the future I would like to give Vista a try but that is not necessary at the moment. (just in case there is something that I could do now that would make this Vista install easier in the future)

I would like to do a clean install of Xp Pro in the "D" Partition where 2000 Pro currently resides. Or even better yet where "C" is...as long as this location does not cause a problem. (different hard drive)

How can I do an install on this partition without screwing up the boot file and/or startup?




Any Help?

PS...I haven't read everything on the forum yet. But i'm working on it.

I know that there are allot of questions in this post. Hopefully they will help someone in the future.

 

Here is a screen shot of the disk management console.

Lookin for some help to make everything go smoothly









Just an observation...The boot wiz folder with all the files in it and a bootini file are on "D" but looking at the screen shot the management console is showing something called boot with () around it that it resides with XP on "R". What does this mean?

Copy of boot file:

[boot loader]
;timeout=1
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(3)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(3)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /noexecute=optin /fastdetect
;multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINNT="Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional" /fastdetect



There are no OS on Disk 1 and there is nothing in the "C" partition other than a couple of loose files.

Disk O is the original harddrive that came with the machine.

Disk 1 is a Maxtor SATA that i plugged in a while back...if that makes any difference.

 

Tricky! That looks like Partition Hell to me!
I've never used Acronis Disk Director Suite, but this post caught my eye. Saying that I wouldn't know where to start with this configuration, I'm only posting because no-one else has.

When using the boot manager to boot into 2000, I don't suppose Windows 2000 see's the drives exactly as XP does in the Disk Management Console?

First Trueimage C: D: and R: before attempting anything!
I'd read http://www.goodells.net/multiboot/partsigs.htm

And here's some useful links I've found useful in the past when moving Windows drives around.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/228004/en-us
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=223188
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/249321/

Good luck!

 

Thanks for the response.

I went ahead and made a small goof. I wasn't paying attention and installed XP Pro in the same drive as the 2000 PRO without reformatting. I had no intention of doing that. I was looking to go ahead and install to the "C" drive on disk O. It was late and I was tired and I threw the install CD in and forgot to set up to boot from CD. Oh well...onward.

I then did a NEW install to the "C" drive and installed OSS. Now I have 3 XP's and a 2000Pro. All the XP's boot up fine. However the one that I installed in drive "C" on Disk 0 is acting funny...I think maybe the HardDrive is on its way out. I know this is a seperate issue. Any way to tell for sure?

I will have more time tonight to mess with the setup and hopfully clean things up a bit.

 

Here's a link to an article by Dan Goodell, on booting multiple Windows OSes, I just found on the True Image forum that might be helpful to you:

http://www.goodells.net/multiboot/partsigs.htm

I know how finicky XP boot codes can be. If you do opt to use only one OS, you might consider skipping OS Selector. I tried it out, thinking that I might add a second OS later, but found that I had far too many problems. Once I got my boot code all straightened out, I decided to let XP boot itself, and it sure loads faster. Good luck!

 

lol, that link looks familiar...

 

I'm wondering where to go from here. Can I safely reformat drive: 2k(D) and still use the OSS for the XP's that I have installed on drive "XP Pro (R)" and the XP Pro that I just installed to (C)?

The reason I ask is because the bootwiz main folder is on this drive.

After I updated to sp2 everything seems to be running ok with the install that I was concerned about.(Hard drive).

Thanks for the links. Been reading but my brain is shot for the day

 

My brain must have been shot! I sure missed that one. Well, two links may be better than none.

 

If I still want to use OSS how do I go about making sure that I don't mess up the bootwiz folder if it resides on the drive that I would like to reformat?

Anyone have a procedure for this?

Everything is running fine I would just like to get rid of some stuff without creating a bunch of headaches. Last year I deleted one of the OS and ended up with a pain in the arse for a few days. I don't want to do that again!

 

Ok...I reformatted 2k(D). I did a fresh install of XP Pro. This is the drive where the boot wiz main folder was on so I reinstalled disk director and OS selector. The OS selector shows the new install of XP that is on (D) but the older XP install is not being detected. I tried using the OS detection Wizard to get it to work.

Why is OS not detecting the other XP operating system? This seems like it would be easy enough

When I checked out the boot.ini file the line to the other disk and XP operating system was not there. So I wrote in the line to the other disk. When I try to boot using that line I get the \system32\hal.dll is missing. Any Ideas how to fix the record?

I noticed that the drive letter changed where the old XP resides from (C) to now (D). The new install is now (C).
What can I do about this?
Does the MBR need to be repaired?

 

I'm still stuck. Any help?

 

I rewrote the Bootini to this:

[boot loader]
;timeout=1
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS
timeout=30
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional"/noexecute=optin /fastdetect
multi(0)disk(1)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="XP Professional Graphics"/noexecute=optin /fastdetect

The boot file used to look like this:

[boot loader]
;timeout=1
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS
timeout=30
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /fastdetect

The boot file resides on the Disk 2 that the new install of XP is on.

With the boot file like this OSS will put it in the selector but still does not detect the Old XP on the partition. When I try and boot the old system this is the messege I get:

Windows could not start because of a computer disk hardware configuration problem could not read from the selected boot disk. check boot path and disk hardware. please check the windows documetation about hardware disk configuration and your harware reference manuals for addtional information.

Any Idea whats going on here?

I really really need to be able to boot that other older XP system up.