Booting up issues

Hey guys,
I'm having a boot problem I can't fix. I have 2 hard drives, the master with 2 partitions both running Win 2k Pro, and the second hd for storage. To make my life more interesting, I got a copy of Win XP 64bit, installed it on the master's first partition (erasing the first one) and then installed Win 2k Pro on the slave's first partition, and keeping another one for storage. Yes, I know, it was a stupid idea. The problem is that now XP 64 won't start, telling me that ntoskrnl.exe is missing or corrupt. I copied it from the OS's cd, and the boot.ini file looks fine. Still no go.
At this point, I'm looking for a utility that can manage the partitions and the boot sequence without me messing around, since I'm getting tired of this.
Any ideas, suggestions, comments are welcome.
Thank you all in advance.
 
Have you tried running the repair process from the 64bit XP installation CD? It may be able to fix the boot process.

Edit: Found this: http://searchwincomputing.techtarget.com/tip/0,289483,sid68_gci1206474,00.html

The most commonsense way to transition between 32- and 64-bit editions of Windows is to dual-boot between the two systems. However, even though both are versions of Windows (and in theory they're the same versions of Windows), they install different boot tools that may render dual-booting difficult.

The 32- and 64-bit editions of Windows use two files loaded at boot time to recognize Windows system files: NTLDR and NTDETECT.COM. The 32-bit Windows edition of these files only recognizes 32-bit editions of Windows—or, rather, it can only correctly boot 32-bit editions of Windows. The 64-bit boot loader can recognize 32- and 64-bit editions of Windows.

As a result, if you install the 64-bit edition on a given system and then install the 32-bit edition in such a way that the boot files are replaced, you'll no longer be able to boot to 64-bit Windows unless the boot files are repaired. This can be done from the 64-bit Recovery Console with the FIXBOOT and FIXMBR commands.
 
Quote from GTS:

Have you tried running the repair process from the 64bit XP installation CD? It may be able to fix the boot process.


Yes, I tried to run it but it needs the Emergency Disk Repair, which of course I forgot to make. I used the recovery console and tried to fix it manually from there, but nothing.
Guess I'll have to junk it...
 
Quote from 9999:

Yes, I tried to run it but it needs the Emergency Disk Repair, which of course I forgot to make. I used the recovery console and tried to fix it manually from there, but nothing.
Guess I'll have to junk it...
You dont need the ERD to run the processes I listed above (FIXMBR & FIXBOOT ) - did you try that?
 
Quote from GTS:

You dont need the ERD to run the processes I listed above (FIXMBR & FIXBOOT ) - did you try that?

A few min ago. Still nothing.
 
Install a second copy of 64bit XP in a small spare partition on the first drive - once that is up and working you will be able to edit the boot.ini file so that the original 64bit XP partition is available for booting
 
Quote from GTS:

Install a second copy of 64bit XP in a small spare partition on the first drive - once that is up and working you will be able to edit the boot.ini file so that the original 64bit XP partition is available for booting

Tried that too, I can edit the file from here.
The path looks correct, but it still doesn't work.
I'll try to change some values.
 
Back
Top