Second boot option, but no entry for that in boot.ini

Wolfram · Post by **Wolfram** » Tue Mar 18, 2003 5:04 am

Hi all,

I have a Win2K system I´ve been messing around with quite a lot. So I can´t remember when this phenomenon occured, but I´d like to get rid of it:

On booting I am shown 2 boot options for a W2K installation. But I only have one!

The first entry in the list is my W2K system on logical drive D: It is set as the only and default option in the boot.ini.

The second entry leads to a W2K that doesn´t exist (anymore?). Booting with this selection results in an error message (the one you get when you chose a wrong drive or partition in the boot.ini). But this option is not in the boot.ini. I have no idea where it comes from. I´ve had another W2K on E: some time ago, but as I said: It´s gone, and there is no entry in the boot.ini for it anymore.

All of this wouldn´t annoy me so much if the invalid entry wasn´t selected as a default when I boot up (though default in the boot.ini is the real W2K installation).

Any help would be really appreciated!

Wolfram

hyperspace · Post by **hyperspace** » Tue Mar 18, 2003 7:20 am

That's weird!

Oh, wait. I wonder. Have you checked in the root directory of any of the other hard drives for a boot.ini file that has the "wrong" entry into?

Wolfram · Post by **Wolfram** » Tue Mar 18, 2003 7:31 am

Good idea, hyperspace! Unfortunately the boot.ini on C: is the only one on the whole drive

(C, D and E: are all on one physical disk).

Wolfram · Post by **Wolfram** » Wed Apr 23, 2003 4:55 am

Today I tried to get rid of the phantom via the recovery console. Used fixmbr, then fixboot c:

Didn´t work, it´s still there

nullshark · Post by **nullshark** » Wed Apr 23, 2003 10:05 pm

Possibly another Hardware Profile in System Properties (Hardware tab)?

Also check the Environmental variables to make sure they all point to the current D: installation.

In XP, you can get to them in System Properties at the Advanced tab. Not sure if you can get there in W2K. If not, MS says to do this:

Go to Administrative Tools, and then Computer Management.
In the console tree, expand System Information, go to Software Environment, and then Environment Variables.

You can also check them by typing "set" in the command prompt.

That's all I can think of at the moment, hope it helps.

Wolfram · Post by **Wolfram** » Thu Apr 24, 2003 1:56 am

Hi nullshark,

nullshark wrote:Possibly another Hardware Profile in System Properties (Hardware tab)?

no, only one hardware profile present. That phantom boot option is shown together with the two (valid) options for W2K and 98SE specified in the boot.ini. At the same time.

Also check the Environmental variables to make sure they all point to the current D: installation.

They all seem to point at D: The %SystemRoot% itself seems to be specified correctly in another ("General") tab.

But thanks for your advice anyway. Any help still really appreciated!

Best regards,

Wolfram

Post by **Derek** » Thu Apr 24, 2003 11:44 am

In one of the tabs (after right clicking My Computer -> Properties) there is an option to display, or not display a list of operating systems to boot from.

I’m on a public Win98 machine right now so I can check, but if you take a look you can’t miss it.

Post by **Derek** » Thu Apr 24, 2003 11:45 am

Moved to “Dual Booting” forum.

Wolfram · Post by **Wolfram** » Thu Apr 24, 2003 12:40 pm

Derek wrote:In one of the tabs (after right clicking My Computer -> Properties) there is an option to display, or not display a list of operating systems to boot from.

Hmm... this seems to show the options from the boot.ini. Two entries here, but not the third (phantom) option that is chosen by default on booting.

Post by **Derek** » Thu Apr 24, 2003 2:06 pm

Wolfram wrote:
Derek wrote:In one of the tabs (after right clicking My Computer -> Properties) there is an option to display, or not display a list of operating systems to boot from.
Hmm... this seems to show the options from the boot.ini. Two entries here, but not the third (phantom) option that is chosen by default on booting.

Erm... Windows Bug!

Here's the window:

Wolfram · Post by **Wolfram** » Thu Apr 24, 2003 2:12 pm

Looks the same in W2K, only the "recovery options" checkbox and the "edit" button are missing.

nullshark · Post by **nullshark** » Sat Apr 26, 2003 2:46 pm

That edit button just opens up the boot.ini in notepad, anyway

It sounds like something is really gibbled in your boot process. I'd try this:

Boot with a DOS disk and then copy the ntldr and ntdetect.com from your Win2K CD to your root directory (ntldr is supposed to read the boot options from boot.ini but it sounds like yours isn't).
You'll probably have to change the attributes of those files in your root directory before copying over them. use (include the spaces):

attrib -r -a -s -h ntldr
attrib -r -a -s -h ntdetect.com

and then copy over the files. I'm pretty sure they're in the i386 dir on the CD.

If that doesn't work I'm seriously stumped.

Wolfram · Post by **Wolfram** » Sun Apr 27, 2003 5:35 am

Thanks nullshark, I´ll give that a try.

I had expected that thing to be fixed after using the recovery console with fixboot and fixmbr. I still have absolutely no idea where that phantom entry is read from.

Post by **Derek** » Sun Apr 27, 2003 12:08 pm

Wolfram wrote:Thanks nullshark, I´ll give that a try.

I had expected that thing to be fixed after using the recovery console with fixboot and fixmbr. I still have absolutely no idea where that phantom entry is read from.

How many OSes do you have installed?

nullshark · Post by **nullshark** » Sun Apr 27, 2003 11:19 pm

Also, try renaming the boot.ini to something like boot.bak and see what happens. ntldr is supposed to then just boot off the first installation it finds in the c: drive.

Wolfram · Post by **Wolfram** » Mon Apr 28, 2003 1:56 am

Derek,

I have Win 98 SE, Win2K SP3 and Mandrake 9.1 (via LiLo) installed.
The Win2K is about 18 months old, all OSes have been temporarily inaccessible because I fiddled around with the system. So I restored all boot loaders a few times. And I can´t remember what gave me that phantom entry.

nullshark,

I had been afraid of losing my working boot options by deleting/renaming the boot.ini. Because the bootsect.dos for Win98 SE didn´t work till I restored it last week. So´ll check that out tonight (local time in Germany), now I got some work to do on this machine;)

Wolfram · Post by **Wolfram** » Mon Apr 28, 2003 7:05 am

THANKS NULLSHARK! You´ve put me on the right path:D

I removed the boot.ini. Did not work, boot process stopped the same way it did with the "phantom entry". But before halting it said "now starting from c:\winnt". My Win2K is d:\win2k.

So I searched ntldr for the string "c:\winnt", replaced it with "d:\win2k" (with a hex editor- frhed- , didn´t work with notepad).

Now W2K boots without the boot.ini OR with the (formerly) _valid_ entry for Win2K _removed_ from the boot.ini (leaving the entry for Win98 on C:\ in it).

Since ntldr should not be system specific, this is obviously a workaround rather than a solution. But now it works the way I wanted it to.

I still wonder why I have to remove that formerly working entry form the boot.ini now. First I thought it might be a problem with the name of that entry and renamed it, but without success. Hmm...

hyperspace · Post by **hyperspace** » Mon Apr 28, 2003 7:08 am

Multiple OSes and boot loaders...

The plot thickens. If there are no hidden files on the root file systems, then one would think that there is something in the boot record. Wonder if the different boot loaders are tangled together some how.

Wolfram · Post by **Wolfram** » Mon Apr 28, 2003 7:26 am

What confuses me is that there seems to be some conflict between ntldr and the boot.ini. I thought ntldr would jump in and try to boot a default c:\winnt if there was no boot.ini. But I had a boot.ini with two valid options for Win2K and 98. And ntldr gave me a third (phantom) option, which didn´t work. I just checked that the phantom option really came from ntldr by editing ntldr with the hex editor and renaming the default boot option stored it there.

And now I have that phantom/ntdlr option working, but only with the valid entry for Win2K in the boot.ini removed. Strange...

Post by **Derek** » Mon Apr 28, 2003 9:45 am

hyperspace wrote:Wonder if the different boot loaders are tangled together some how.

Eek! I've had that happen before

No fun!

nullshark · Post by **nullshark** » Mon Apr 28, 2003 4:02 pm

Glad to hear it's booting the way it should

(even if it's a workaround)

I think you should call Ripley's Believe it or Not, though

Everything I've read on the NT boot process says that what you went through shouldn't happen, heheh.

Wolfram · Post by **Wolfram** » Thu May 15, 2003 4:14 am

Update: I just found that while the Win2K default boot ist still fine, my Win98 is now broken! I get a reboot each time I choose the Win98 option in the boot menu. Can´t even get to the next options screen to choose to boot into safe mode or to DOS prompt.

Post by **Derek** » Thu May 15, 2003 9:41 am

Wolfram wrote:Can´t even get to the next options screen to choose to boot into safe mode or to DOS prompt.

It freezes?

Wolfram · Post by **Wolfram** » Thu May 15, 2003 10:08 am

No, it reboots, without any (error) message. Worked fine after I found the workaround described above, and I haven´t changed anything since then.

Wolfram · Post by **Wolfram** » Thu Jul 10, 2003 4:01 am

Fixed the problem and got rid of the phantom boot option. With brute force

1. Boot from Win 98 SE boot floppy. At command prompt type sys c:.
2. Boot from Win2K CD. Select "new installation".
3. Specify a different folder for Win2K on the same partition Win2K already exists. This is most important. If you specify a different partition or the Win2K folder that already exists, things will be screwed up.
4. Quit the installation on the first reboot. I achieved this easily by having set up the BIOS boot order to 1. Floppy 2. CDROM 3. HARDDISK and putting the aforementioned 98 SE boot floppy in the drive before booting 2K from CD.
5. At command prompt, change to c:. Then type attrib boot.ini -r -s -h to edit the boot.ini. Type edit boot.ini. Remove the boot entry for the new Win2K installation. Save the boot.ini. This is for safety purposes. You now cannot continue the Win2K setup and screw things up.
6. Remove the floppy and the CD and boot from harddisk. Everything should be fine now.
7. Delete the folder for the new W2K installation, it´s obsolete.

I found this to be much easier than using the recovery console. But that may be a matter of taste. The method descibed above also works fine with XP.

I had done all that a month ago on my BP6 system. Now I had to move a Win98SE/XP dual boot on another machine to a new harddisk. Did that with Partition Magic, which also resolved a problem with the XP product activation (just partitioning the new drive and copying all files DOES NOT WORK. XP obviously stores the activation information somewhere outside the files on the disk). While that could be overcome with Partition Magic, I got a phantom entry like I had on the BP6 machine before, but this time for 98SE. Argh...

BP6.Com

Second boot option, but no entry for that in boot.ini

Second boot option, but no entry for that in boot.ini

I like puzzles :P