Some Kind of Boot Error

A couple weeks ago I decided that I needed some more room on my
computer, and since I had two installations of XP Pro (on different
Masters) so I figured I could get rid of my old one (which happened to
be the Primary Master).

Anyway, I loaded the XP cd to delete the partitions and create new
ones, but when I restarted I couldn't boot from my other install. I
tried a number of things like trying to get the drive letters back in
the old order, moving the secondary master into the primary position
and bootfix. Eventually I found bootcfg and it said I had no boot thing
defined, so I set that up, but it still wouldn't work.

My last resorts are to ask for some help because I have no idea what
I'm doing in this area, ask for some help on how to get access to My
Documents on the installation of XP that won't boot up (which is what
I'm after by doing this since they are protected), or take a chance and
run fixmbr on that drive and possibly make all the partitions
inaccessable.

So any help anyone could offer would be greatly appreciated.


--
Oujirou
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"Oujirou" wrote in message
...

A couple weeks ago I decided that I needed some more room on my
computer, and since I had two installations of XP Pro (on different
Masters) so I figured I could get rid of my old one (which happened to
be the Primary Master).

Anyway, I loaded the XP cd to delete the partitions and create new
ones, but when I restarted I couldn't boot from my other install. I
tried a number of things like trying to get the drive letters back in
the old order, moving the secondary master into the primary position
and bootfix. Eventually I found bootcfg and it said I had no boot thing
defined, so I set that up, but it still wouldn't work.

My last resorts are to ask for some help because I have no idea what
I'm doing in this area, ask for some help on how to get access to My
Documents on the installation of XP that won't boot up (which is what
I'm after by doing this since they are protected), or take a chance and
run fixmbr on that drive and possibly make all the partitions
inaccessable.

So any help anyone could offer would be greatly appreciated.


--
Oujirou
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Oujirou's Profile: http://forum.osnn.net/member.php?userid=6758
View this thread: http://forum.osnn.net/showthread.php?t=47803


Your report is a little light on specific details. Statements such as
"no boot thing defined" do not mean a great deal. I suggest you
give a precise report on the following:
- Which OS was installed on which partition on which disk.
- Which OS you removed.
- Which partition carries the current OS.
- The precise error message you get on booting.
- What partitions and partition types you have (FAT32/NTFS)
- If you can boot into the Recovery Console with your WinXP CD.

Pegasus \(MVP\) Wrote:
Your report is a little light on specific details. Statements such as
"no boot thing defined" do not mean a great deal. I suggest you
give a precise report on the following:
- Which OS was installed on which partition on which disk.
- Which OS you removed.
- Which partition carries the current OS.
- The precise error message you get on booting.
- What partitions and partition types you have (FAT32/NTFS)
- If you can boot into the Recovery Console with your WinXP CD. Opps, sorry, it was late last night. Okay here's how my drives were
setup:

Primary Master - 80gb HDD with 3 partitions NTFS - XP Pro installed on
the first partition (This was the first installation and is where I
figure the MBR was being stored for both OS)
Primary Slave - CD/DVD
Secondary Master - 120gb HDD with 3 partitions NTFS - Xp Pro installed
on the first partition (At the time, was being used as the primary OS)
Secondary Slave - Another HDD NTFS

And yes I can boot into the Recovery Console and it does detect the
installation of XP.

As for the error that I get when I try to boot to that installation:
"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 documentation about hardware disk
configuration and your hardware reference manuals for additional
information."


--
Oujirou
------------------------------------------------------------------------
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"Oujirou" wrote in message
...

Pegasus \(MVP\) Wrote:
Your report is a little light on specific details. Statements such as
"no boot thing defined" do not mean a great deal. I suggest you
give a precise report on the following:
- Which OS was installed on which partition on which disk.
- Which OS you removed.
- Which partition carries the current OS.
- The precise error message you get on booting.
- What partitions and partition types you have (FAT32/NTFS)
- If you can boot into the Recovery Console with your WinXP CD. Opps,
sorry, it was late last night. Okay here's how my drives were
setup:

Primary Master - 80gb HDD with 3 partitions NTFS - XP Pro installed on
the first partition (This was the first installation and is where I
figure the MBR was being stored for both OS)
Primary Slave - CD/DVD
Secondary Master - 120gb HDD with 3 partitions NTFS - Xp Pro installed
on the first partition (At the time, was being used as the primary OS)
Secondary Slave - Another HDD NTFS

And yes I can boot into the Recovery Console and it does detect the
installation of XP.

As for the error that I get when I try to boot to that installation:
"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 documentation about hardware disk
configuration and your hardware reference manuals for additional
information."


--
Oujirou
------------------------------------------------------------------------
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I gather from the above that WinXP is installed on the first partition
of your primary master disk.

I would now check this:

- c:\boot.ini should look like so:
[boot loader]
timeout=0
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOW S
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Micro soft Windows XP
Professional" /fastdetect

- Boot the machine with a Win98 boot disk from www.bootdisk.com,
then run fdisk.exe and set the first partition to "active".

- Run this command: fdisk.exe /mbr
This will restore the Master Boot Record. It works on your disk too,
regardless of the type of your partitions (NTFS).

If the machine does not yet boot, try to boot it from a floppy disk:

- Format a floppy disk on some other WinXP/2000 PC.
Don't do it on a Win9x PC - it won't work.
- Copy these files from the \i386 folder of your WinXP CD to A:\
ntldr
ntdetect.com
- Create a file a:\boot.ini with the above lines.