Re: Boot up files

Does your computer have a floppy diskette drive? If yes create a boot floppy and try to boot your computer with it. To create the floppy boot diskette do the following:

1- Format a floppy diskette with your Windows XP installation. The diskette *must* be formatted with an NT type operating system, if you format the diskette with an Windows 9x installation the diskette will fail to boot Windows XP.

2- Copy the files Boot.ini, NTDETECT.COM and ntldr from the root of the C: drive to the floppy diskette.

3- Try booting the computer with the floppy and see if it can start your Windows XP installation. To boot with the diskette you may have to go in the BIOS and set the boot order so that the floppy drive is set to boot before the hard drive.

If you can boot with the floppy you can then easily change the System partition to the second one providing that it is a primary partition. Use the built-in XP Disk Management tool to take a look at the partitions and you will be able to determine the partition type.

John

yba02 wrote:

Seems some considerable input.
This leads me to the following conclusion, which I hope someone can clarify:
There is only one active partition per physical hard disk?
Also, since everything got to do with formating drive C, will it be a work-around if I move those files out of drive C, format it and then bring them back?

Thanks
Yahya

"John John (MVP)" wrote:


Providing that the second partition is not a logical drive it can easily be changed to the active system partition. You need only move the system files Boot.ini, NTDETECT.COM & ntldr to the partition, mark it active and adjust the ARC path in the Boot.ini file and you will be able to boot Windows without problems.

John

Anteaus wrote:


Just to clarify, the reason this situation arose is because the OP installed Windows to a non-active partition. There is no resolution possible once in this situation, other than a repeat setup from scratch. To avoid this happening, it is necessary to ensure that the partition you intend to install-to is set active with FDISK or the like, before starting the install.

"philo" wrote:



"yba02" <yba02@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:04418B42-526E-41AD-835F-CE1540418677@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx


Issue is much clearer than someone can confuse it.
Yes you are right. The bottom line was to format C, while keeping the

system


bootable with the current OS version.




.

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