[alphaguy]

ok I just bought me a new hard drive, and being smart, I was gonna partition it using the windows xp cd. Im an idiot, and i installed a new XP onto the hard drive accidentally. But then after that I just went back to the XP CD thing and deleted the whole partition. And now i made a new parittion with that drive and supposedly everything should be fine. However the stupid thing is now at startup, it keeps making me select 1 of 2 os' but clearly the 2nd one is already deleted...

oh yeah.. and the deleted, messed up, os is on top, so if i just leave it it will reboot itself -_- so i cant just leave it be

so yeah if anyone knows how to fix this, it'd be nice if you could tell me =D, i formatted the new disk again and it didnt work.. so yes im outta ideas

Edited by alphaguy, 24 April 2009 - 11:24 PM.

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The problem is not the second drive but the boot.ini file. Once you setup the second drive with an OS then the boot.ini had a second entry for which OS to boot to. That being said it's not a hard fix.
Please do the following in the exact steps. Failure to do so could make the boot.ini damaged and cause unstable or unusable results with your system.:

Save a Backup Copy of Boot.ini

1. Click Start, click Run, type sysdm.cpl, and then click OK.
2. Click on the Advanced tab, and then click Settings
3. In the Startup and Recovery area at the bottom click Settings.
4. Under System Startup click Edit. This opens the Boot.ini file in Notepad ready for editing.
5. In Notepad, click File on the Menu bar, and then click Save As.
6. First in here change the location in the top white drop down box to Desktop. Then in the file name change to Boot.old and save as Text Document(*.txt) and then click Save

Now you can repeat the steps to get back to step number 4

Below you will see a sample of a Windows Professional boot.ini file. Yours will look the same except it may say Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition

Please copy and paste all the lines in your next reply.


Sample Boot.ini File


[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 Professional" /fastdetect

Edited by rshaffer61, 26 April 2009 - 07:40 AM.

[rshaffer61]

The problem is not the second drive but the boot.ini file. Once you setup the second drive with an OS then the boot.ini had a second entry for which OS to boot to. That being said it's not a hard fix.
Please do the following in the exact steps. Failure to do so could make the boot.ini damaged and cause unstable or unusable results with your system.:

Save a Backup Copy of Boot.ini

1. Click Start, click Run, type sysdm.cpl, and then click OK.
2. Click on the Advanced tab, and then click Settings
3. In the Startup and Recovery area at the bottom click Settings.
4. Under System Startup click Edit. This opens the Boot.ini file in Notepad ready for editing.
5. In Notepad, click File on the Menu bar, and then click Save As.
6. First in here change the location in the top white drop down box to Desktop. Then in the file name change to Boot.old and save as Text Document(*.txt) and then click Save

Now you can repeat the steps to get back to step number 4

Below you will see a sample of a Windows Professional boot.ini file. Yours will look the same except it may say Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition

Please copy and paste all the lines in your next reply.


Sample Boot.ini File


[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 Professional" /fastdetect

Edited by rshaffer61, 26 April 2009 - 07:40 AM.

[alphaguy]

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

[rshaffer61]

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

Delete the highlighted line
"multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /noexecute=optin /fastdetect"
Save by going up to
File>>>>>Save
Then go to File>>>Exit


Reboot and your problem should be fixed. Please let me know how it works

Edited by rshaffer61, 25 April 2009 - 06:32 AM.

[alphaguy]

yep worked great! thanks man! extra space is gooood

[rshaffer61]

Congratulations. I'm glad it was truly a easy fix like I said.

You are very welcome. I'm glad we could help and please let us know how everything works out for you.
If there is anything else we can do to help please feel free to ask. I appreciate that you allowed me to assist you with your issue and for your patience. Thank you for choosing GeeksToGo for help.
This issue now appears to be resolved.


If other members are reading this and have a similar problem please begin a New Topic and someone will assist you as soon as possible

Edited by rshaffer61, 25 April 2009 - 05:52 PM.