need my multiboot screen back

[cassy309]

ok will do that and see thanks so much

[cassy309]

i re-installed windows xp home on the c: drive and now i cannot multiboot at all here is what my drive letters are now local disk c:

local disk d:

3 1/2 floppy a:

cd-rw drive:e

dvd drive :f

so i am back where i started accept that the drive letters have changed

[jrzycrim]

Okay, do this:

Go to Start -> Run, enter notepad c:\boot.ini. Copy what's displayed and post it here.

Also, which drive (os) are you able to boot into? Does your other drive still contain your XP installation?

[cassy309]

i am on the c: drive right now the fresh install side i can't boot into the d: drive which was the f: drive before

[cassy309]

i am going to open up the boot.ini right now and copy what is posted here

[jrzycrim]

We're talking about 2 different hard drives and not partitions, right?

[cassy309]

i'm sorry yes the other drive still contains the windows installation here's what the boot.ini looks like now

[boot loader]

timeout=30

default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS

[operating systems]

multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition" /fastdetect

[cassy309]

yes i have two different drive the first one is a 20gb wd and the 2nd one is a 160gb wd

[jrzycrim]

Okay. Close notepad

Go to Start -> Run, enter attrib -r c:\boot.ini

next, go to Start -> Run, enter notepad c:\boot.ini

Now, don't change anything that's currently in this file. Just add the following line to the end. Again, don't change anything else:

multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Pro Edition" /fastdetect

Now save the file. Hopefully, it will let you boot into the OS on D:. If it doesn't, you will still be able to boot again into C: and we can go from there.

You should end up with this:

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

Originally, you had XP Pro on one drive and Home on the other. I'm thinking now that XP home might be on both drives now. Is that correct?

[cassy309]

ok i am back and i am logged in on the d drive thankyou so much but something is weird when i open up my computer the driver assignments are not like they are on the c: drive side they are as follows local disk c: and f: 3/ 1/2 floppy a: then the dvd drive e: and cd-rw drive d: this is the way i had it before i got myself into this mess. i thankyou again for walking me through this even though i am not done yet because i have to upgrade the xp installation that is on the c drive to xp pro i forgot that i didn't upgrade it yet so now i have 2 xp home installations and my boot.ini files says home and pro but thats fine.

[jrzycrim]

Great! glad you got it working. I wish I could have made it less confusing earlier.

Drive lettering is strange. It's different when you are in dos and during the initial phase of installation then when you are actually logged into the OS. I only have one OS installed so I haven't quite grasped how that works. It sure can make things confusing.

Anyway, Glad you got it going.

Cheers,

[cassy309]

everything is working fine thankyou all except for that strange drive assignment thing i am logged into my c: drive on the xp pro side which i just upgraded it was xp home before. the drive lettering on this side is local disk c: , local disk d: , 3 1/2 floppy a: ,cd-rw drive e: and dvd drive f:

and on my xp home side local disk c: , local disk f: , 3 1/2 floppy a: , cd-rw drive d: and dvd drive e:

strange i wasn't like that before but hey it works and i can't complain. i would like to thank jrzycrim for sticking by me through this whole ordeal cheers to you.

i don't think the driver assignment will make the system upstable since they are two different hard drives.

[cassy309]

now for all those updates

[cassy309]

well these past fewe days are not goig well for me i should of installed sp1 before i upgraded but i did it after and i did not archive it and it did not install correctly now it's telling me to do a reapair

[cassy309]

update: i had alot of problems with my c drive so i out it through tests and come to find out the drive was in terrible shape it had to be replaced i wrote zero's to this drive to erase everything and that didn't even work thank goodness i was still under warranty i got a new drive.