Multiple Boot

[shabbs]

I have 3 O/S installed on one PC, NT4.0 ws, Win2k Prof & XP Prof. Each O/S is installed on a seperate NTFS partition. The order of install was NT, XP,2000

The boot.ini file is displayed below:-

[boot loader]
timeout=10
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT
[operating systems]sos
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT="Windows NT Workstation Version 4.00"
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINNT="Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional" /fastdetect
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(3)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /fastdetect
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT="Windows NT Workstation Version 4.00 [VGA mode]" /basevideo /sos


Although I realise that 3 O/S on one PC is not ideal, it has to be! Can anyone explain why:-

1)On bootup, the menu that displays available O/S displays only:-

Win2000 Operating System (default)
Win2000 Operating System (default)

I would expect all 3 O/S choices to be displayed as they are in the boot.ini.

Can anyone explain why this is so?

2)Selecting either of the above two menu options allows you to boot into either WinNT or Win2k successfully. The only way I can find to make the XP operating system available is to boot into WinNT and change the default O/S in the boot.ini (see above) to partition(3). Although doing this still does not give WinXP as an option in the startup menu (menu still same as in question 1 above), it attempts to load WinXP if I let the O/S menu choice time out (because XP is selected as the default partition). The error message is then given:-

replace file Windows/system32/ntoskrnl.exe


Can anyone please provide me with answers to 1 & 2 above!

 

[smah]

The problem you're having is because of the order you installed - xp should have been last.

http://support.microsoft.com/defaul...rosoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;Q306559

See if this helps solve your problem

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;307061

 

[wolluf]

smah's correct about order - but I don't understand why you don't get 3 (4 - 2 NTs) operating systems displayed. One thing you need to do is reinstate the XP vesrions of ntldr & ntdetect.com in the root of your c: (boot drive). The last o/s installed will have put its version there - and XP won't boot from 2k (or NT) versions. They're on the install CD in \i386 - so you can just copy them from within 2k.

PS. Is your boot.ini as displayed or is there an 'sos' typo?

[boot loader]
timeout=10
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT
[operating systems]sos
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT="Windows NT Workstation Version 4.00"
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINNT="Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional" /fastdetect
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(3)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /fastdetect
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT="Windows NT Workstation Version 4.00 [VGA mode]" /basevideo /sos