Problem using PowerQuest BootMagic 8 with Windows XP

a bit confuseing to say the least Lee :>)      i'm thinking you may want to bootup with your xp cd or rescue disk and go into the xp command consol     then select the command fixmbr    then fixboot     ok this should fix the xp boot problem      then bootup into xp and reinstall bootmagic       good choice gettin rid of Partition magic 6    its for sure not trust worthy useing xp  (lost a lot of data for me a while back when I first got xp )

maybe u should try @ applications

better hold on  / disregard that last comment   for the moment    (trying to think but nuthin's happening :>)       its most likely something doing with haveing to hide the 9x partitions from one another            ok    i'll try thinking while typeing  <grin>    xp would put its bootloader on the first active partition  and add the version of 9x it see's to the loader     but not both versions .......crap   I'm gona have to study on this a while dude and get back

sorry about all the post Lee  ....   ok all OS's work right   its simply the xp selection in bootmagic thats not working right   so I'm thinking you have bootmagic installed on one of the 9x  installs correct ?      maybe bootup into xp and install bootmagic and see if that does the trick           I have xp installed at the moment and also have PM8 but dont have any other OS's installed to test

Hi Lee,

Actually your presumption is correct, but you also have a second issue that PowerQuest should have identified for you.

First things first though. You presumption about the MBR is correct. From Microsoft to their developers, load all operating systems in the order of release, or in this case, Windows 98, ME and then XP. The second problem arises from PM6 not being completely removed before adding PM8 AND using it along with the XP boot loader. It's one or the other, not both. Essentially, the procedure would be to load 98, ME and then XP using PM8/Boot Magic. Remember, there are Int13 and 8GB issues with 98 that are not present in ME and XP.  I suspect the partition table is causing a problem too.


Here's some additional info:

http://www.powerquest.com/support/primus/id3975.cfm

Dennis

Here's more Lee:

http://www.powerquest.com/support/primus/id4086.cfm

http://www.powerquest.com/support/primus/id3215.cfm

http://www.powerquest.com/support/primus/id3750.cfm

hey, I have installed Win98 and XP without BootMagic. First I make C: bootable with my Win98 bootable floppy (only bootsector, Msdos.sys, io.sys, command.com), install XP on C:, after that install Win98 on D:, changed some in Boot.ini, msdos.sys, config.sys, autoexec.bat (changed drivers path and WinDir to D:\win98).
My boot ini looks like this
[boot loader]
default=multi(0)disk(0).....
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)....="Windows XP"
C:\="Windows 98"

Powerquest does indeed rock! heres some more options

Repartitioning and Multiboot tools


*****Commercial (Not Free Products)*****


Partition Commander
Safe resize, create, move & copy for Windows 95/98/Me/NT/2000/XP/2003, Linux and DOS partitions. Exclusive BackStep Wizard™ lets you UNDO partitioning
http://www.v-com.com/product/pc8_ind.html


*****Freeware*****

Partition Resizer
Partition Resizer is a small DOS executable, which requires no installation, and can perform, all these tasks in a short while, giving you the opportunity to re-arrange your partitions safely, quickly and fuss-free.
http://www.zeleps.com/

Ranish Partition Manager
http://www.ranish.com/part/
Boot manager and hard disk partitioner.
It gives users high level of control for running multiple operating systems,
such as Windows 98/NT/XP, Linux, FreeDOS, and FreeBSD on a single disk.

FIPS
This is software for splitting existing partitions
http://www.igd.fhg.de/~aschaefe/fips/

3D Partition Manager
Create, delete, and resize partitions. Format and resize FAT-16 and FAT-32 file systems
http://www.sofotex.com/download/software/1884.html

PartEd
Parted is a program for creating, destroying, resizing, checking and copying partitions
http://www.gnu.org/software/parted/

Zpart
Dos utility for managing partitions.
http://www.bela2.sulinet.hu/blum/rgazda/zpart/Zpart850.htm


*****Trialware*****

Paragon Partition Manager (95/98/ME/NT/2000/XP, DOS, Linux)
Even converts NTFS >FAT32 and FAT32 >DOS
http://www.partition-manager.com/

Terabyte BootIT (NG)
BootIt NG is a partition and multi boot manager with a powerful and simple to use set of tools for partitioning, imaging, and multi-booting your computer
http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/bootitng.html

Acronis Partition Expert
Acronis sets a new partitioning and design standards with Partition Expert 2003. Now you don't have to be a computer expert to partition your hard disk drive
http://www.sharewareunion.com/Utilities_System_Utilities_Acronis_Partition_Expert_17030.html

Lee    I would suspect Dennis is on to something there about the Int13 and 8GB issues with 98  considering you more than likely installed it second on D partition and to even complicate   matters worse  used PM6 with xp   and from past experance they dont play well togeather      the fact that xp's selection wont work when selected in bootmagic  kinda suggest its a problem with bootmagic (may need reinstalled from within xp    not sure if it even makes a diff what OS its installed from )
I tried duplicateing your problem this morning on another machine  but with only xp and 98 without any luck...on selecting eather OS the xp bootloader come's up and then you select so theres no way around that   and also when xp was selected from bootmagic you still get the xploader and still have to select so i'm thinking unless the reinstall of bootmagic helps then you will have to settle for a workaround of some sort       or  (you know what the or is :>)

I personaly dont trust PM6 sense  it lost data for me      now it may have been a harddrive issue  or PM6 or myself   but when I installed xp for the first time I used pm6 to make a partition for it and after a few weeks this partition simply disappeared along with the data  (go figure ) so i'm a bit leary of it now and dont use it  but have sense got pm8 and had no problems (yet)

assumeing you now have winme on C partition and win98 on D and made a E partition for xp useing pm6  you may want to consider  redoing all with as suggested by Den    installing oldest first    but the workaround sounds more appealing and easyer      but     keep in mind my little thingy with pm6 and xp  (I could have left that off hu <grin>

James

Thanks for the confirmation about it being an MBR problem, Dennis (dew_associates).  Your first post seems to be implying that I should reinstall all my operating systems in the order 98, ME, and then XP (rather than the order ME, 98, then XP that I had chosen since my computer came with ME on it.)  I'm afraid this is not an option for me. I have FAR too many programs installed in the earlier operating systems to want to go through all that, and no backup media.

I had an earlier problem with XP when I first installed it and I was still using PM 6 to create the partitions and tried using PQBOOT to change between the different operating systems.  That caused me to enter this question in the XP topic area:

https://www.experts-exchange.com/questions/20433674/Cannot-boot-into-WinXP-Pro-anymore.html

You might want to browse through that to get more info about my setup.  I finally chose to just temporarily use the XP bootloader to dual boot between WinME and XP.  I had to delete and then recreate the XP partition before reinstalling it, and then, following stevenlewis' advice, made sure that all partitions were visible to one another.  So, now, if I boot into 98 I can see the XP and ME partitions (as well as the data partitions on D: and E:), and if I boot into ME I can see the 98 and XP partitions, and if I boot into XP I can see the 98 and ME partitions.

trekie1, I have used the Recovery Console to try the fixboot and fixmbr commands, but that did not work.  When I use the bootcfg command, the RC will only see the partition for XP and whatever earlier Windows partition I chose from BootMagic.  In other words, if I got into XP (and then the Recovery Console) by first going to 98, then ME is not available.  So I conclude that XP's bootloader cannot be used to multiboot 98/ME/XP.  If I want to use a single bootloader to access them all, it will have to be BootMagic.

PeteLong, I will consider alternative partition managers later, perhaps, but since I paid the money for PM 8, and I CAN use it to access any of the three operating systems, even though in an inconvenient way, that possible answer to my problem is rather far down on my list of things to consider.

I wonder if ANYone has a multiboot setup similar to mine, and if so, could that person use PowerQuest's PartInfo tool (or any other alternative program) to dump their MBR to a text file which can then be copied and pasted to a comment?  I could use the same tool to compare that to mine and see if I can figure out how to modify the MBR (using PowerQuest's other tool MBRutil)?   Read here about these free partition info and partition edit tools:

http://www.geocities.com/thestarman3/asm/mbr/BootToolsRefs.htm
http://www.geocities.com/thestarman3/tool/FreeTools.html#PARTINFO

Hi, James (trekie1).  Just read your latest post (which came in as I was typing the above comment.)  Just to make it easier for you and any others trying to solve this problem, I will give the exact setup for my partitions as they are seen from XP  (the info is available from my previous XP question, referenced above, but it's a long thread):

first is C: with WinME on it.  Next are D: and E: with programs and data.  Then comes G: with XP, then H: with 98se.  (F: is my Iomega internal zip drive.)  The sizes of these partitions are:

C:   3.95 gigabytes  (ME)
D:   14 gigs
E:    10.6 gigs
G:    2.23 gigs          (XP)
H:    6.32 gigs          (98se)

Both the D: and E: partitions were created to be physically AFTER the H: partition, and the G: partition was created physically between the C: and H:.  So the way XP sees these partitions is not alphabetically arranged to match their physical order on the drive.  If you add up the sizes of C: and G:, you will see that H: is below the 8 gig boundary need for 9x partitions when using PartitionMagic.

>>>So I conclude that XP's bootloader cannot be used to multiboot 98/ME/XP

True because it has to see all the installations to config the boot menu and it isn't as simple as adding a line to the boot.ini file as some might think. XP's boot loader will config dual boots for Win98/XP or ME/XP though. The basic problem is that since Win98 and ME really don't coexist very well they need to be hidden from one another during the installation. Also if the all partitions are FAT32 it doesn't matter what order the OS's are installed in. In that you can Install XP first on the first partition then a Win9x based OS's on the other partition and then run a few commands from the Recovery Console to set it up for XP to boot and to create the boot menu so both OS's can be booted. But again the problem here is that Win98 and ME have hard time coexisting unless one is hidden from the other.

Alhough the following options do cost a bit money this is how you can run many different OS's without ever having to shutdown XP to do it. I am test driving VMware and have Win95 Win98 and Win2000 all installed inside of VMwares virtual machine and can run the OS's while staying in XP

Virtual PC
http://www.connectix.com/products/vpc5w.html

VMware Workstation
www.vmware.com

Lee,

Obviously not an option for you, but you can multiboot 98/ME/XP, but as I noted, it will require and entirely new installation as I noted, and in the order noted. The reason for this is that 95/95B/98/98SE are not dual or multiboot aware, while ME/2000/XP are.

As unfortunate as this may sound, since you can get into all three, even if cobbled together, I would live with it for now until you can clean the drive and start fresh. We've tried editing the MBR, and frankly you are asking for headaches well beyond your wildest dreams.

And if all the partitions are FAT32 the order they are installed makes no difference.

Quoted from the following link.

http://www.dougknox.com/xp/tips/xp_repair_9x.htm

How do I install Windows® 98/Me after I've installed XP?
(without 3rd party software)
I DO NOT provide any support for these procedures, via e-mail or the newsgroups.

Necessary Criteria

 This procedure assumes that Windows XP is installed on drive C:  No support is offered for other drive letters.
 Drive C: must be FAT16 or FAT32 to be able to install Windows 98/Me after XP is already installed.  The 98/Me installation routine cannot write to an NTFS partition.
 You must have a second hard disk or partition formatted for FAT16/32 in order to be able to install Windows 98/Me. Installing 98/Me to the same partition as Windows XP is NOT RECOMMENDED!
 I recommend the use of a Windows 98/Me Startup disk for this procedure.  If you don't have one, you can download the necessary files from http://www.bootdisk.com  You should ensure that DEBUG.EXE is on your Startup disk.  If it isn't, it can be copied from the Windows\Command folder.  On a 98/Me Startup disk, created from Add/Remove Programs, its in the EBD.CAB file on the Startup disk.  For a 98 Startup disk created from FAT32EBD.EXE its on the floppy

Installing Windows® 98

1) Use a Win98/Me Startup disk (with CD support) to boot your computer.
2) Insert your Win98/Me CD into the CD Rom drive.
3) At the A: prompt type X:\Win98\Setup.exe (for Win98) or X:\Win9x\Setup.exe (for Win Me) where X: is your CD-ROM drive.
4) Proceed with the install. When prompted for the install location, you'll see C:\Windows.000. Choose Other directory and change this to the drive you wish to install 98/Me to and name the folder Windows (or something else if you prefer).
5) Complete the Win98/Me install.  Allow the computer to boot into Win98/Me.

Repairing the Windows® XP Boot Loader

1) Create a Win98/Me Startup Disk
2) Create a Notepad file with the following entries, exactly as shown:

L 100 2 0 1
N C:\BOOTSECT.DOS
R BX
0
R CX
200
W
Q

3) Save the file to the Win98/Me Startup Disk as READ.SCR
4) Boot the computer with the Win98/Me Startup Disk and at the A: prompt type

            DEBUG <READ.SCR

Steps 1 - 4 create the BOOTSECT.DOS file needed to boot Win98/Me. For your convenience, you can download READ.SCR here.  I suggest you use right click and Save As.  You may need to use the ATTRIB C:\BOOTSECT.DOS -S -H -R command if BOOTSECT.DOS already exists and you get an error when trying to recreate it.

5) Configure your computer to boot from the CD drive.  This is done in the BIOS, or your computer may offer the option at startup if it detects a bootable CD.  Consult your computer's manual for more information.  If your computer does not support booting from CD-Rom, you should also be able to boot with a 98/Me Startup disk, and run WINNT.EXE from the I386 folder of your XP CD.
6) Insert your XP CD and boot from it.
7) You'll see some files being copied, then you'll be presented with a choice of installing or
repairing an existing installation. Choose Repair.
8) You'll be asked which XP installation you want to log into. Enter 1. There is usually only
one installation.
9) You'll be prompted for the Administrator password. For Home, the default password is blank, so just hit Enter. For Pro, enter the same password you did during setup for the Administrator account (this is not the same as the password for an Admin level account.  It must be the Administrator account password).
10) At the C:\Windows prompt, type FIXBOOT. You'll be prompted to confirm. Do so.
11) When FIXBOOT is finished, remove the XP CD and type EXIT and the machine will reboot.
Reconfigure your computer to boot from the hard drive if necessary.

You will now get the XP Boot loader with your choice of operating systems.

12) If you found this information helpful, please consider making a donation to the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation. (Optional)

No e-mail support is provided for this procedure.

This page last updated 09/29/2002 00:37
All material © 2002 - Doug Knox

Lee    this has nuthin doing with the problem  but one thing that needs to be corrected before you go much futher is the size of your xp partition   (G:    2.23 gigs          (XP)
this machine i'm on at the moment has a fresh install of xp pro and without any apps installed   this is the reading of  drive C where its installed     total space 9.76 gig     free space 7.19       xp is a large OS  and i'm afraid your partition isn't going to be big enough  after installing only a few small apps

windows folder  996 mgs
program files     123  mgs
documents and settings     60.7 mgs
system volume info     106  mgs
total                        1719.7 mgs        no apps installed  with custom install leaveing out some of the junk  

Thanks, trekie1.  I felt I had to make it small because of the 8 gig limit.  Actually, so far I haven't run into any problems.  I install most of the programs I use in XP on drive D:, and I moved the Favorites and Temporary Internet Files folders to drive D: also.  And my paging file is there too. I go through and empty out the Windows\Prefetch folder periodically to help keep disk space usage low on G:.

Say, where's stevenlewis?  I'd have expected him to login to this question.  Come to think about it, I don't think I've seen him in ANY xp questions for some time now?  On an extended vacation, without a computer handy?

I was booted up to WinME.  Now I've booted into WinXP, because I figured Disk Managment would be the quickest way to tell that, Dennis (I couldn't remember how I'd set it up.)  According to that tool:  

C, G, and H are all primary partitions
D and E are logical partitions in a single extended partition.

Well, it's getting close to my bedtime here in sunny Flawida.  I'm going to log off until tomorrow evening, when I get back to work.  Meanwhile, Dennis and Spence, could you please just stop trying to prove the other wrong, and instead work on finding a way to get this problem solved?  If it cannot be done, then I think I will be awarding Dennis' comment of 07/20/2003 11:59AM EST, which is, essentially, what I would have done anyway if no solution came up: keep on putting up with the way I'm doing it now: choose 98 or me from BootMagic's menu, and XP from the following XP bootloader menu.

Good night.

You mention the partition configuration, which is fine for boot magic, and actually it would have been fine for 98/ME/XP in that order.

You have, as I see it, two options here, you can disable bootmagic and try and cobble together the boot loader, although doing so may be a bit of a problem given that the loader files are on the 3rd physical partition with 98 rather than in the first physical sector of the drive.

As to the other option, disable the boot loader and then work on boot magic. What's your preference?

I am currently listening - Lee please do not close this question out yet.

Thank you,
Bev

As I noted in this comment; 07/20/2003 08:41PM PDT, it really is up to you which way to go, but personally I would get rid of the boot loader files because of the location of the various operating systems and rely on Boot Magic.

Dennis you said they could coexist without these tools and you also said that ME is dual boot aware which it is not and coexist on its own with Win98 without the help of any tools. Nowhere did you say these tools were needed to get them to exist together.

I would like to state here that I highly respect LeeTutor and I do not like the way his thread was going is all.  I would not anticipate that Lee should have to deal with all of this conflict.   And YES I felt intimidated Mr. Dew_associates -  who would even dare to defy your judgement?  I am not defying that - I simply would like a person that I highly respect (LeeTutor) to receive a friendly answer to his problem...

let;s get to it shall we ?

One you are correct that all 3 cannot boot at the same time cuz 98 & ME uses same .sys .io etc...
YOU ARE CORRECT
Dew, You are also correct that all 3 can boot at the same time. it is possible.

here is how you can make ALL 3 boot a tthe same time.

Install all 3 OSes.
boot to 98. copy ini,io, sys, hymem. make copies. Mod this using a compiler form another comp, the codes fidn lines should be somewhere in there, that the ini is poitning to C: change it to only C: no find dir.
write down the path.
boot to ME. copy ini,io, sys, hymem, make copies.  Mod this using a compiler form another comp, the codes fidn lines should be somewhere in there, that the ini is poitning to F: change it to only F: no find dir.
write down the path.
boot to XP. copy ntdlr, system32, winnt. after installing this one. boot to XP. go to comp, props, advance, start up and recovery, mod the boot ini of Xp to do this.

default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(0)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(1)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /fastdetect
multi(4)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(4)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows 98SE" /fastdetect              <<<<<----------------YOU NEED TO CAHNGE THE PATH LIKE YOU MOD IN THE INI FROM THE OTHER otherwise this wil not work
multi(5)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(5)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows ME" /fastdetect                  <<<<<----------------YOU NEED TO CAHNGE THE PATH LIKE YOU MOD IN THE INI FROM THE OTHER otehrwise this will not work
Add the Duel boot line code here.<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<---------------------------------------------

make sure that you change the ini, io, sys, and the hymen on both of the fat32.
IF you do not do mod to these files, you will not accomplish this.
I think you two are capable enough coders to mod these things, and I dont' have to go into the lettering of the codes.
remember each machine has a different himen, so becareful.

MS do not give you this info because they DO NOT want you to mess with their system files.
and this is a way to exploit WinNT security in a network enviroment with multiplatforms and file systems. for one can create two users of the same authentications and mass brute the server or the admin.
I cannot go further into the possibilities that one can take to attack a network taht are enable by doing this. so don't ask.

in conclusion:
you both need to chill out.

and BTW, You Both uses KBs, I know, I can tell, so stop with the KB bashing stuff.
and you both use Personal experience, as I have looked. but you have experience on the what i call good side. and not the underground back end, softice starter experience.
so stop bashing about that too.

points means nothing, hell, you want to duke out your abilities, then go here, and solve my problem.
if you are so big and bad.


https://www.experts-exchange.com/questions/20678719/Windows-Messenger-Contacts-Limitations.html

that should be simple enough. ehe ? think again.

and as for PM that is a piece of <edited> software that shouldn't even exist. Piece of <edited>. crash every system that uses it that I know of.
PM shuld never be use on any system.



have fun,
SDK

As I noted in two previous comments, it really is up to you which way to go, but personally I would get rid of the boot loader files because of the location of the various operating systems and rely on Boot Magic.

As for using the bootloader files, you could use PM to create a new C partition and move 98 to it, leaving ME on D and XP on E, but unless you are completely familiar with the PM process as well as what SYS files need to be where, I would stay with Boot Magic etc.

correction: the lines should be.


default=multi(5)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(5)\WINDOWS    <<<<<<<<<<<<----------Remove this if you don't want to default boot.
[operating systems]
multi(1)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /fastdetect
multi(4)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(4)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows 98SE" /fastdetect              <<<<<----------------YOU NEED TO CAHNGE THE PATH LIKE YOU MOD IN THE INI FROM THE OTHER otherwise this wil not work
multi(5)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(5)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows ME" /fastdetect                  <<<<<----------------YOU NEED TO CAHNGE THE PATH LIKE YOU MOD IN THE INI FROM THE OTHER otehrwise this will not work
Add the Duel boot line code here.<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<---------------------------------------------

Lee sorry - am not getting involved in this question - wish you the best for resolution :)

Bev

Man, I HATE this job of mine that sometimes takes me away from my home computer for 10 or more hours a day!  Look what I've come back to.  About a gazillion responses it took me 15 minutes just to read, and most of them not worthy of being in my question.  Bev, thanks for the kind words and the attempt to stop the fire fight; I hope you DO come back to this question, because I respect your knowledge and abilities.

All right, now with that out of the way, let's get down to business.  I didn't understand half of what Steven_Khieu said in his comments, so for the moment I'm more or less ignoring it.  But I want to thank you for joining in the discussion, and I hope more eXPerts do too.  I think I will email stevenlewis to see if he has anything to contribute; I know he's used PartitionMagic.

These words are from dew_associates at 10:41PM EST :

>You have, as I see it, two options here, you can disable bootmagic and try and cobble together the boot loader, although doing so may be a bit of a problem given that the loader files are on the 3rd physical partition with 98 rather than in the first physical sector of the drive.

>As to the other option, disable the boot loader and then work on boot magic. What's your preference?

My answer:  I'm not completely sure which option I would choose, for one thing it depends on which is easier; for another, which is more likely to work.  But I lean toward getting rid of the bootloader and just using BootMagic.  But I also would not like to reinstall ANY of my operating systems, since there is so much software involved.  The only possible exception is XP, since I haven't done THAT much in adding software to it or modifying its operation.  That's why I wish someone would be able to furnish a copy of the MBR that I could compare with mine, to see if any repairs could be made to make BootMagic work fully with XP.

You said something about having ME be drive D: (perhaps you just mean the second primary partition).  As I have it now (this is how XP sees it, although both 98 and ME have different drive letters):

primary partitions                               | logical partitions in an extended partition
C: WinME     |  G: WinXP   |  H: Win98|  D: data and programs |  E: data and programs

Both C: and H: have the boot files used by WinXP.

It has always been my understanding that after installing XP you wouldn't need a third party bootloader simply because it's included with XP.  My advice would be to get rid of the BootMagic and reinstall XP and see what happens.  You might be pleasantly surprised with the results Lee.  I know for a fact that it works quite well with 98 but never tried it with ME but since most of the system files for ME are much the same as 98 this scenario should work just fine.

Sandi

Lee, I'm not sure that it is an issue of ease necessarily, but rather an issue of risk to lost data, which is my primary concern here.

Let me wade through your comments and then we can address the partitions and hopefully which way would be both the safest as well easiest.

I tried the install with 98 at C, ME at D and XP at E, and Trekie tried a similar installation earier this evening (this afternoon). Although I've dumped mine already in anticipation of replicating what you have, Jim may still have his together, but I'm not sure whether the MBR data would be of any use as it is unique to the drive as well as other factors, including the chain data. As for my testing, I'm going to try to replicate your setup and see if there's a way to move the OS's around to enable boot magic to work correctly. If not, I'll try and eliminate the boot loader and repair the boot magic function to see if there are any quirks to worry about. I downloaded PQ's Deploy Center earlier this evening, which has BM 8.* in it, this will enable me to see if all of this makes sense.

I know the premise works in the configuration I noted immediately above, but having the setup as you do causes me some concern as it's unusual to have C, G and H as primary partitions and D and E as logical and no F at all, as it doesn't follow traditional FAT setup. This may be part of the problem though. Given that you do not want to reinstall anything except maybe XP, reinforces my opinion that fixing boot magic may be the most logical direction.

Presuming that ME's files (including boot files) in its partition, and the further presumption that 98's files(including boot files) are it its partition, it may be worth it to eliminate XP, remove all of the boot loader files, and then use boot magic to install XP where you want it. Can you confirm the location of the ME and 98 files?

Den

Don't you just love a fire fight, it's like napalm in the morning!

Both the Win98 and WinME partitions have the bootloader files:  boot.ini, ntldr, ntdetect.com, bootsect.dos...  That was because there were two separate installs of XP (due to my previous question), one when Win98 had been the previously active partition, and the other when I used the PartitionMagic rescue disk to get back into WinME, uninstall PM6, and then reinstall XP.

LOL  after partitioning and installing OS's I screwed it all up trying to rearange a partition so my setup is gone now  but I did notice that pm8 listed win98 and winme as both being on two different C partitions  with one hidden and inactive  (kinda hard to explane but i'll try )     when I set the drive up it had 1 primary with the rest as extended with two lodigal drives    ok I installed winme..   then from PM8 I selected install a second OS  and it ask to make a partition before C or after C but before D      I selected after C and before D    it then rebooted and I installed 98  and then bootmagic 8   and both OS's worked correctly...when bootup into 98 I would see the winme files on D and when booted up into winme the 98 files showed as being on D   but PM8 showed the drive as haveing C then just under that it showed basicly what I'm calling another C but it was hidden then D and E as extended and lodigal    (i'm doing this from memory so bear with me :>)      now   after all that I go into PM8 from within 98 and select install another OS  and again it ask to make partition before or after so and so    I selected make partition after D but before E    allrighty then I install xp pro     it does its first reboot and dont you know the boot loader doesn't work right     wont go to xp or win9x    so I use PQboot to get back into 98       now keep in mind i'm trying to copy Lee's setup as close as possiable  and everything is going pretty much as his did  even the xp loader screwup        this is where I notice from PM8 that I now have a H partition with files on it      and from there things got worse and I fooled around and lost both 9x installs           so for what its worth  something in this may explane how his 98 got or rather shows as being on H from within xp even though me thinks its really on a what you mite say second C partition ofcourse hidden      hope some of that makes sense
Lee if you will take a look from PM8 and see if you dont have just under the active C partition something like no drive letter but so many mgs assigned and hidden      I dont think your 98 is actualy on H but simply shows as being so from within xp

What I was referring to Lee were the files unique to 98 and ME, such as IO.SYS, MSDOS.SYS etc. In order to use BM, we will need to insure that the files unique to these two OS's stay within their partitions so that BM works correctly. Other than that, we will need to copy the root files for 98 and ME to floppy before removing the boot loader, as we need to insure that there's a way back in the event of a mis-step somewhere. Also, my profile contains my email address. Email me and I'll send you my phone number in the event we get into the middle of this and there's a problem.

Trekie, I understand what you are referring to, although I prevented the loader issue at the onset which I believe to be the cause of your losing access to 98/ME.

Den

LEE you may find this a bit interesting       rainning today so :>)      I took a clean 40 gig drive and created a 10 gig primary partition with the rest as unallicated       the only way I could figure out how to install xp and its loader not interfer with other OS's was to install it first  so I did      after install I setup PM8 and selected install a second OS  and created a 5 gig partition after C    (it prompted about the 8 gig issue if win98 however it said 98se didn't have this issue so I proceded )   created the partition and I installed 98se      ok then from dos useing the pm rescue disk it doesn't give the menu for installing OS's so I booted back to 98 and installed PM again and then selected install OS and assigned it 5 gig after C    then installed winme... after setup of winme I then installed bootmagic and it added all three OS's to its menu and all work fine      winxp boots directly into xp without the loader showing and 98 /me bootup when selected    all partitions are hidden from each other and show as C from within eather of the OS's     I then made the rest of the drive as one partition for all to share

now then    I'm thinking you can useing pm8 delete your  xp installion and partition    apply the changes  then  make sure the 98 and me installs work correctly useing BM  then check in pm 8 if it does indeed say something like C as so many mgs and active   and just underneath that it will show another primary partition with so many mgs and hidden  (this will be one or the other 9x install depending on what OS your booted into)   the rest of the drive will be extended with lodigal drives with the extended listed as primary
next step is disable bootmagic (important) uninstall bootmagic after disable..... from whatever OS its on    then go back to pm8 and select install another OS  chooseing xp  and tell it to make a partition after C but before D      this way all OS's think they are on C and are hidden from each other and also by installing xp with the others hidden  the loader wont interfer with BM    (by the way a bootsect.dos file wont be created as its not needed )      after xp is installed  you can now reinstall bootmagic and it will pick up all OS's and each one should boot directly to the selected OS

I can send you a snapshot of my PM8 readout if you want

note the size in mgs of the xp partition before deleteing because the new partition will need to be this size
and also just as a reminder as if you need it backup data and do this at your own risk because messing with partitions even with PM8 is tricky

Whew, this is getting complicated!  I wonder if I really want to try it at all?  Well, let's presume I will for now.  Okay, some more responses to those of dew_associates and trekie1:

Dew, both the 98 and the ME partitions contains IO.SYS and MSDOS.SYS.  I'm intrigued that the 98 partition also contains something called MSDOS.SYS.FIXED  Don't know what that is.

Trek, before I had my initial problem with the XP bootloader (my previous XP question that I referenced above), both my Win98 and WinME partitions thought of themselves as C: also, and neither could see the other, as well as could not see the WinXP partition.  However, the XP partition could see ALL partitions.  One of the "fixes" I did after reloading XP in order to solve my previous problem was to make every OS able to see all partitions, since stevenlewis recommended that and said he had never had any problems with that capability of PM, despite their disclaimer to the contrary in the documentation.  I will use PM later to inspect what IT thinks all the various partitions are and let you know.

Trek, again:  about your last post.  I don't understand a few things.  For one, at the start you installed PM twice?  Once, under XP then again under 98?  I seem to recall trying to do that, and it wouldn't let me install a second time because it detected the first installation.

Second, I guess I've had too long and hard a day.  But I'm having a bit of difficulty interpreting this part of what you said:

>I'm thinking you can useing pm8 delete your  xp installion and partition    apply the changes  then  make sure the 98 and me installs work correctly useing BM  then check in pm 8 if it does indeed say something like C as so many mgs and active   and just underneath that it will show another primary partition with so many mgs and hidden  (this will be one or the other 9x install depending on what OS your booted into)   the rest of the drive will be extended with lodigal drives with the extended listed as primary
next step is disable bootmagic (important) uninstall bootmagic after disable..... from whatever OS its on    then go back to pm8 and select install another OS  chooseing xp  and tell it to make a partition after C but before D      this way all OS's think they are on C and are hidden from each other and also by installing xp with the others hidden  the loader wont interfer with BM    

Could you try and state that a bit clearer, perhaps?

Lee,

Generally when you see MSDOS.SYS.FIXED, it means that the pathing statement may have changed as in this example.

[paths]
WinDir=C:\windows
WinBootDri=C:\windows
HostWinBootDRI=C

As for installing PM, I think what Jim was referring to was that he had installed XP first, then BM and installed 98, and then installed BM in Windows 98 which he then removed from 98 afterwards. That's my take on his comments.

bootmagic is the one that  wont let you install twice   thats why I said it was important to uninstall before installing xp    I installed pm8 twice because I didn't want to use pm from dos useing the rescue disk as it doesn't give the same menu as it does from within windows and I didn't want to use pqboot to get back to the original install because it may have interfered with the pm8  OS install  (remember on each install the others are hidden and you need to work as if you only have just that one OS )

state it clearer..  i'll try :>)     before you installed xp your 98 and me saw each other as being on C or rather they didn't see each other but was in a manor of speaking on C      in other words when you installed 98  you created a primary partition after C but before D   so right now they both think they are on C      now if you use pm8 and simply delete the partition where xp is installed it will revert to unallicated space    and then useing pm8 if you select install another OS it will make another primary partition and prompt you as to where to place this partition      if you select after C but before D it too will think its being installed on C        pm8 will hide the other two installs from xp's view and for all purposes it will be installed to C and wont create a bootsect.dos file nor add the other OS's to its loader   (when xp is installed by itself you never see the loader in action )        after xp is installed you reinstall bootmagic and it will pick up the other hidden OS's          but be advised  this is where I lost my 9x installs yesterday somehow  ...like I said its tricky  and you really need another drive to experment on            my little thingy today was xp installed first but I did it all from the pm8 menu from within windows whereas I did it from dos yesterday and installed xp last without the pm8 windows menu     in dos its different and dont give the selection to install another OS     it only allows makeing other partitions and thats where I screwed up     from within windows the wizard prepares the disk for another OS and generaly wont let you mess it up but it will let you mess it up from dos
i'm pretty sure this way will correct your problem but just keep in mind     all mine was done without worry of loseing data    only time :>)   also keep in mind    murphy's law <grin>

Hi Lee, a quick post between rounds (*grin)
check out bootpart from winimage
http://www.winimage.com/bootpart.htm
Hi guys and gals, hope everyone is doing OK!

If we can get Lee going on this we'll all be doing great Steve.  ;-)


Is there any real reason that you need to use BM at all Lee?

AND have you tried this setup without it?  <mumbles something about an itchy trigger finger on the submit button>

Huntress, there is the following MS article about how to multiboot operating systems:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;306559
HOW TO: Create a Multiple-Boot System in Windows XP

However, the versions I have must have been installed in the following order:  98, then ME, then XP.  Moreover, there is the following quotation from that article:

NOTE : You cannot install both Windows 95 and Windows 98 in a multiple-boot configuration. Windows 98 is intended as an upgrade to Windows 95 and it will try to use the same boot file.

You have to install Windows XP only after installing MS-DOS, Windows 95, Windows 98, or Windows Me to prevent these operating systems from overwriting the Windows XP boot sector and the Windows XP startup files.

I had WinME on my system initially, then in order to install Win98 also I had to use BootMagic (part of Partition Magic), and after that I installed WinXP.  I have far too many programs installed under the earlier versions of Windows, particularly Win98 (probably over a hundred) to want to go the route of wiping my hard drive and doing it the "right" way according to MS.

The problem Sandi is the current configuration. He doesn't want to lose any data or reload software, so the boot loader is pretty much out of the question unless we move 98 to the beginning of C and put ME behind it. While it can be done, as the SYS files are where they belong according to Lee, it still isn't the easiest task to complete.

Incidentally, I "need" all three operating systems only because I make part of my living as a computer tutor and helping people repair their systems, and there are plenty of people out there with 98 and ME still.  I personally use XP most of the time.

Quite the quandry.  It's a shame you can't just wipe it all and start over as it certainly would be much simpler.

Lee.

I coulda swear I gave you the solution to your problem.
quit using pm or bm, it will error you out in the future.
if you gonna use MS product, then use MS softwares, it's made for and by MS.
red the post I posted earlier slowly and you will get the idea.
It is not that hard to do.


One, could you elaborate more on my methods for Lee.
cuz I think if I go into details step by step I'll be here all night.
Thanks.

and yes, XP is the last to be install.

Another route....Can you reinstall ME over the top of itself (after removing XP of course) THEN install XP?  This might do it and you shouldn't have to reinstall more than a few apps.

ok   I got it this time <grin>      the fact that you have xp boot files on both 9x installs should have told the story       when you installed xp  you should have had both 9x installs hidden       the first time it was installed it put its boot files on the me partition and the second install it put its boot files on the 98 install instead of placeing them on the xp partition so thats why when selected from bootmagic it goes crazy and also why you get the xp loader when 9x is selected      there are no xp boot files on the xp partition is the problem      now then the fix        i'm thinking there should be no risk in doing this     all you need to do now is with each install hidden from the other and the xp partition active and unhidden is place an edited copy of boot.ini with no reference of 9x  on to the xp partition  then run  fixboot with command consol on xp     after that bootup with 98 boot disk  and use pqboot to get into 98 then check the partitions to make sure  the others are hidden (as before they should be..just being safe and getting it right) now with the 98 disk  inplace reboot to dos and run sys C: command     then reboot with bootdisk and pqboot into winme    (check partitions again )  then sys C: with the winme bootdisk   and afterwards install bootmagic     it will pickup the installs and should boot directly into each OS         as to unhideing from each other later I'm thinking I would leave them hidden  because you use other partitions to install common apps anyway

Exactly Jim!

Jim and Dennis, I don't have much time at the moment, and probably won't be able to get around to trying out the last idea until this weekend, but I have a couple of questions:

1) what is the need for sys C: command?  I thought it only regenerated the command.com, io.sys and msdos.sys files, which are already present on both the Win98 and WinME parititions.

2) Are you saying I need to uninstall BootMagic and boot between partitions using PQBoot? Why can't I use BM?  Or would it do just to deactivate BootMagic rather than uninstall it, if for some reason I need to use PQBoot?

3) If I remember correctly, BootMagic has the ability to hide and unhide other partitions, so do I use that to boot to each partition and hide the others?

4) As I remember, when I installed WinXP in its partition and successfully booted into it, I was surprised to see that the Win98 partition was NOT hidden.  Are you saying that in XP I should have both 98 and ME partitions hidden?  I like having the 98 and ME partitions unhidden in XP, because I usually am working with XP but sometimes want to inspect the 98 or ME partitions for various types of info on those partitions.

5. You say I should modify a boot.ini file (excluding any references to other Win versions) and put it on the XP partition.  How about also copying over other files, such as NTLDR, ntdetect.com, and bootsect.dos?

6. When I reinstall BootMagic (assuming I have to uninstall it), I think I'd like to put it under Win98 since I have so much more room there.  Can you think of any reason against this?

That's all for now.  Gotta go.  Hope to revisit this question later tonight.

1) what is the need for sys C: command?     this will simply get rid of the xp loader on that partition so bootmagic can boot directly to the selected 9x install  (if you like haveing the loader show then disregard that step )
2) Are you saying I need to uninstall BootMagic and boot between partitions using PQBoot?  yes    remember each install at this point are hidden from each other and we are treating each install as if its the only OS installed    after you fix the xp partition the others are not visable and you dont want bootmagic installed until the last OS is fixed thats why you need to uninstall it from the start   (pqboot marks the selected OS"s partition as active and hides the others whereas BM wont )
3) If I remember correctly, BootMagic has the ability to hide and unhide other partitions, so do I use that to boot to each partition and hide the others?  sure  why not    all you are doing is booting to an A:prompt so you can give the pqboot command    the bootmagic rescue disk will be fine for this especialy considering the pqboot.exe is already on it
4)  yes  until this problem is resolved hide all non active partitions    you can unhide later if you want  but I would do as recommended by PM   keep hidden

5)   you can copy them over but the fixboot command will simply rewrite them so its not really necessory but i'm thinking the edited boot.ini is necessory

6) bootmagic can be installed  whereever you want but I would install after the last 9x sys command fix assumeing you do the sys fix     as said that is simply to get rid of the xp loader when 9x is selected but you can boot to whatever version OS you want and install..
if your  ok with haveing the loader show when 9x is selcted  then the only thing you really need to do is hide the 9x installs and fixboot the xp partition  this alone should correct your problem  but I would uninstall bootmagic before doing so   then reinstall afterwards

after playing with pm8 a little   this is really a fairly easy problem to correct as you will see later
tell you what Lee    just to simplfi this    why dont you go for the last part    just hide the 9x installs and then copy the edited boot.ini to the xp partition  then  fix boot... problem solved    then if you want   do the sys thingy on the 9x partitions to get rid of the loader if you want     just remember  as long as you have the others hidden the active partition is the only one you are working on   the others are hidden and wont be effected        pqboot by default marks whatever selected partition as active    but it doesn't hide them     this is done with pm8 or bootmagic      (but you dont want BM installed while working  on these partitions    only install this last       hope this makes a little sense:>)        James

2  )   should read pqboot marks the selected OS"s partition as active but doesn't hide them   its just for booting the active partition

Geeez Jim, you don't give a guy a chance ROFL.

LOL  you da man :>)             Lee just to clairify something here.....   you basicly know how the pqboot utility works right?   it simply marks the selected partition as active and procedes to boot useing that partitions boot files...ok bootmagic works the same way  whatever OS (partition) is selected it marks it active and then looks at the boot files on that partition    as in your case  the xp loader is still in control of both 9x partitions and also points correctly to the xp install/partition     and that part is working correctly     now when you select xp from the BM menu it marks the xp partition as active and looks but doesn't see any boot files so   you get an error    blank screen / whatever

I hated the fact that I was so busy these past few days that it took me so long to try out the suggested solution, but finally, I have done it.  And the results are as follows:

All RIGHT, everyone.  The problem is now solved!  Trekie ALMOST got it right as to what I needed to do, and it was so close that I am awarding him the points and an A (also increasing the points to 400.)  What I decided to do was not uninstall BootMagic, but just deactivate it, because I figured that would be sufficient.  Of course, before doing the deactivate, I used it to specify that for my WinXP line in the BootMagic menu, the Win98 and WinME partitions were hidden.  (I kept the visible partitions the same for WinME and Win98, since that has been working fine all this time.)  Then I changed the BIOS boot order so I could get into the Recovery Console on the XP CD-ROM and booted to it.  The first screen showed that the only windows partition was G:, which was XP, so the hiding of other operating systems was just fine.  So I issued a FIXBOOT G:, clicked OK on the confirmation message that came up, and then issued EXIT.  I booted back into WinME and reactivated BootMagic, then rebooted and tried to get into XP from the BootMagic menu.  It gave me a "NTLDR not found" message, so I booted back into ME and copied both NTLDR and NTDETECT.COM from the ME partition into the XP partition.  After rebooting and choosing XP from the BootMagic menu, everything was hunky-dory!!

I decided to leave the NT bootloader on the 98 and ME partitions as a second backup way of getting into XP if the BootMagic entrance into XP ever screws up somehow, but edited each BOOT.INI on the 98 and ME partitions to change the timeout value to 2 seconds and the default partition to be the appropriate operating system, namely 98 or ME.

This has been a very educational problem to solve.  Thanks everyone for their comments, but thanks especially to Trekie1 for giving the explanation of what had caused my problem in the first place and how to solve it.

thanks Lee      ok now i'm in learning mode here :>)     why didn't the fixboot command write these files to G: ?  am I mistaken or doesn't the fixboot command do basicly the same as sys command on win9x  and rewrite the bootfiles (made a  comment in another thread that I may need to retract :>)

Well, here's what Microsoft says:

https://www.microsoft.com/technet/treeview/default.asp?url=/TechNet/prodtechnol/winxppro/proddocs/bootcons_fixboot.asp

Well done trekie1 <or is that trickie 1 <BSEG>

trickie for sure     and learned/learning  from the best :>)          only thing is maybe I should start makeing notes as my harddrive is failing          

ROFL