hi people,

ok here is what happened, i had winXP on my other machine and i wanted to downgrade to win2000 (which i consider as being upgrading). i would also be happy to run slack on the other machine but i need win for school so ...

well winXP does something to the MBR so that you can't boot win2000 anymore even if it is a bootable CD. from what i have read they said that i should wipe the HD with a tool called killdisk and win2000 should boot then. what i did was i wiped the winXP partition because i have a problem that i want to keep the other FAT partition on that disk with all my files on it. with just wiping the winXP partition.

so now what i did was to install slack on that wiped partition and i can view the files from the FAT partition. but problem is that i got a lot of errors with slack so none of the window managers work for some reason (i did full install).

so now i have to find a way to somehow nuke the MBR and find a way to get win2000 back on the other machine and still keep the FAT partition with my files in it.


any suggestions are welcome
thanks in advance

PS: i have slack on my lappy and i love it, so don't think i choose win over slack

Couldn't you just format the partition with slack on it and boot off the win2000 cd and install it?

i tryed that already,

i also installed lilo on mbr, first on slack install it gave error, but then i configured it later on so apparently mbr is overwritten by lilo now but the cd still doesn't boot.

yes the cd is good, i have installed with it on several machines and bios settings to boot from cd is ok too

I would approach this from a slightly different angle ....

I would boot from a Windows 98 disk that includes 'fdisk' and a few other tools; delete the partition (while keeping the one I wanted to keep); run 'fdisk /mbr' and reboot with the Windows 2000 CD.

That way, I have wiped everything clean including the '/mbr' ....

I also tend NOT to use NTFS for the simple fact I like to be able to write to my partitions from various OSes, and FAT32 works fine for this. Just a thought.

I agree with sankeny, however, if the mbr was first written to with XP, you might have to boot with the XP cd and use "fixmbr", the XP equivalent of "fdisk /mbr". If one method doesn't work, try the other

All the more reason to stay away from XP!

Booting from the XP CD and running 'fixmbr' might be the first thing to try. It would save time (if it worked) instead of the other process.

I guess one of the things I have learned about multiple OSes is prepare your partitions before you get started. Work from the lowest OS. And, have a plan on how you're going to do it (or how you're going to back out) before you start.

Good idea ....

No need to format anything.

1. Find either Windows 2000 or Windows XP install CD.
2. As instruceted above, go to recovery console.
3. Do a chkdsk
4. Do a fixmbr
5. Do a fixboot /scan
6. If above complains, about problems scanning, you didnt do fixmbr. Dont chicken out, unlike what it says, it should not make your data go poof.
7. Do a fixboot /rebuild

If you get a message of "missing" NTLDR or NTDETECT, on next boot,

1. Go back to Recovery Console
2. C:\copy CD:\i386\ntldr C:\
3. C:\copy CD:\i386\ntdetect.exe C:\

By the way, I am totally with you on the XP vs. 2000 thing. After a year of XP I simply couldnt take it and "downgraded" back to 2000. Autocad, Games (WolfensteinET - XP~39FPS, 2000~60FPS), almost everything runs better on 2000, and heck, it's even more stable.

I do however strongly recommend using NTFS. Dual FAT tables, bigger files, and the biggest + =Hell'o'a'lot more stable than FAT32. Just compile the NTFS into kernel. Also, you dont reallly need to write to your windows partition. Windows can read ext2(3)fs Search for "windows ext2fs read" on google.

that's the prob, the win2000 cd doesn't even boot, it checks to find bootable on cd and it skips it and moves to lilo screen.

This may be a dumb question but are you sure that your machine can boot the Win2k cd? I don't know that much about the different cd booting formats but some work on different systems and not on others. I've run into this particularly with older bios. The error you describe sounds like its just ignoring the boot sector on the cd. I'm not convinced that is related to anything to do with the mbr. IF it was that I would think that it would boot and then freeze while win2k examines the rest of the system and then gets confused by whatever in the MBR it gets confused by. Your description is failure while the BIOS is still iin control not Wn2k. Try booting with only your cd plugged in to be sure that it actually will boot.

Antoher possiblitity is to see if you can find a set of win2k bootup install floppies online and try booting from the floppy drive.

PS are you sure that your Xorg file is configured right in Slackware? That's the most obvious thing that will result in a bunch of errors and no windows managers.

Hmm. I was under impression you have XP install CD...

In light of that, please tell now what installation media you have. i.e Win98, 2000, Slack...

It that the computer we are talking about? If yes, than this is purhaps irrelevant. If it is not the system, please, elaborate on age of:bios/mobo, CD Drive.

I can concure AhYup's observation. Starting win2000 install CD was a problem for me once. My solutions was .... changed the CD Drive to newer one.

Please, dont take it personally, but, did you set CDDrive as 1st booting device in BIOS?

Boot floppies are the last resort. But if you dare here are some links for start:

http://www.answersthatwork.com/Downr..._bootdisks.htm

http://www.nerdlabs.org/bootdisks/index.php

http://freepctech.com/pc/002/files010.shtml

yes i did, set the CD to boot first. and i have 2 cd drives on the other machine, i tryed all sorts of combinations, using both, totally unplugging one and trying etc etc.

well i should a bootable .iso which has all sorts of hd fixing tools on it. it's called ultimatebootablecd
burning that now with laptop, hope it will help.

i have read tons of things over the past days about these types of problems. it has something to do with the win2000 cd i think. that if the partition table or mbr doesn't suit to it, it just doesn't boot.

well, i'll let you know if something works

ok i NEED your help guys,

i have a problem with floppy. and i was trying to get bootable floppy's to work (hoping that it would somehow boot the cd which is already bootable)

win2000 need 4 floppy's to boot, as i have a prob with the floppy, can anyone find a cd version for the booting of a win2000 cd? so i can burn it on my laptop (which has no floppy). it should be somewhere out there. i am STILL looking

i am infront of pc for 17 hours how trying to solve this problem and i feel é"'èà&ç!ç!à&çé"!à&ç

:d

thanks in advance

If it really is a MBR problem, you can boot with any linux rescue system, flopy or CD and easily wipe out the MBR just do:
dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/HD?? bs=512 count=1
This will zero out the first 512 bytes, 446=bootsector 447-512=MBR
The reboot with CD

I'd like to agree with the opinion that it's prolly the CD that's causing the problems. I had the same issue trying to install from a Windows 2000 CD, but the floppies worked fine. I could prolly email you the files on the 4 different floppies if you want. Just let me know if you think that'll help you and I'll email you them.



-zsejk

yes i guess so zsejk,

i can try to write them on cd's and pray that they boot
would be nice if you could mail them



thanks a lot in advance