Booting troubles

[Tanner31593]

hey,
i already have a thread about this, but due to unforseeable reasons ive been away for a while.


heres whats up,

i have 2 hard drives in my pc.
my primary, 13g, the whole drive was windows xp but 8mb.
the other 9g has ubuntu,
my plan was to uninstall ubuntu and replace it with windows 2000,
everything was going well,
i deleted ubuntu,
then did the first segment of the windows 2k setup,
i picked the disk for win 2k, got the partition set up and stuff,
it hadnt actually installed yet,
then it asked me to restart,
i restarted,
now my downloaded win2k cd quit,
now when i try to boot,
the bootloader shows,
but it wont let me select windows xp,
it goes right to 2000,
but since it wasnt a full install 2000 doesnt start,
even when i take out my second 9g hd where win2k was supposed to go i still cant boot................

bottom line,
i cant boot but its very important that i can get my virtual drives and other stuff recovered from xp,
thats all i want to do,
should i try a recovery software?
its really important that i recover the windows 2k image off my hd cuz thats all i got os wise since my dad brought my xp cd to work and lost it

[midna]

the easiest would be just to boot into your windows xp install disc, select install and when it says it found a windows installation (or didn't and presents you with partition info) select repair. Than login. Type help and run anything that has the word fix in it (fixboot, fixmbr, i think there is one more)

[julie54]

when you install any windows , xp , 2000, or vista , as it progresses you see on the screen reboot come up many times, it does this automatic, seems what you have done is rebooted thinking as it has finished and taken the install disc out, that is why it will not reboot,because you have stopped the install half way. i agree with midna the alternative is put your xp disc in and somewhere along the line it will tell you as you have another version running and give you the option to repair or install the new copy. good luck.

[lynx]

the easiest would be just to boot into your windows xp install disc, select install and when it says it found a windows installation (or didn't and presents you with partition info) select repair. Than login. Type help and run anything that has the word fix in it (fixboot, fixmbr, i think there is one more)

its really important that i recover the windows 2k image off my hd cuz thats all i got os wise since my dad brought my xp cd to work and lost it

You probably need to download or borrow a disk. It doesn't matter about the serial number, or even what level of SPs it has installed, since you won't be installing from it.

Copy NTLDR and NTDETECT.COM from the installation disk to the C drive. Attempting to install win2k may have overwritten these files with the win2k version, and that version may not recognise XP as a valid system, so restoring the XP version may be all that you need to do.

Next, try fixmbr or fixboot.

If that does not solve your problems (and I doubt that it will), you need to modify the boot.ini file. First of all, make a backup of it. You don't want to screw it up even more. Next you need to edit that file.

I'm not sure if the edit command is available from the recovery console. If it is, you can edit the file in-situ. If not, then you will have to copy the file to a floppy disk (who told you that they are no longer necessary), edit it on another system, then copy it back.

[Tanner31593]

ok,
sorry i havent updated,
my brother has been online all day every day (im not even joking)
But anyway,

I made my dad go find my xp cd,
And i ran recovery and did the fixboot stuff and none of that worked.

So how do i copy the files to the C drive when i cant boot and im just stuck at the boot screen?

Is there an option with xp where i can start xp with the cd rom like there is with 98?

--so confused.......


I try to get online every chance i get but i only get to go on about once every other day so bear with me please.
Im just thinking about reinstalling xp and finding a recovery software now that i have the xp cd back,
But is there any way i can recover the windows 2000 file?
It was on a virtual drive used with magicdisk.
The windows 2000 file is all i care about,
This doesnt seem worth my while, you know?
Any advice on how i could download a recovery software?