Re: Win2K Multi-Boot "Invalid BOOT.INI..."

[adrian15]

Web Clark (RR) wrote:
> Replies below interleaved with your comments, but let me state a new 
> question first just so it does not get lost.  (The question will make 
> more sense after you read my response to your comments and suggestion):
>
> Is there a way in a menu.lst to REMOVE the "active" or "boot" attribute 
> from a partition?
There's the makeactive command that puts a "boot" or "active" flag to be 
a previously rooted partition (root (hdX,Y)).

I think that its behaviour also removes the flag from the other 
partitions. So if you active number 2, 1,3 and 4 will be not active, 
even if before the 1 was active.

> Perhaps if NONE 
> of the Primary paritions on the first drive have active/boot set, then 
> mabe it would make C: the primary "boot" partition on the second drive.  
> Then I could get my 8-10 bootable Win2K systems by adding a second and 
> third hard drive, getting 3 or 4 each depending on whether I had an 
> extended.

Theoritecally I've made some menues on Super Grub Disk that work with 
map commands (for swapping virtually two hard disks) and the hide and 
unhide commands (for hiding and unhiding partition suposedly).

Check Hide and Unhide menu in Special boot option.


> I am not sure that I even need "Active" to be set, since grub boots 
> itself, 

No. You do not need the active to be set unless Win2k requires it to 
boot up himself. I am not sure right now. I think that yes... that it 
requires it.

> Yes, but it does not seem to matter, behavior is the same.  I can boot 
> from a hidden drive, and Win2K sees them all.

I am not very sure about this but I think the problem is that you have 
had the cloning of Win2k when these partitions were accesible 
(non-hiden) from Win2k.

So my advise is to do a fresh install of win2k to 1 partition when 2 and 
3 and maybe(Maybe the 4 partition you want to use it as an extended?) 4 
partition is hidden.

Then supposedly when cloning this fresh install there should not be any 
partition more than the partition where w2k it is.

> If the clone is a "logical" partition, C: becomes the second partition 
> on the first hard drive when the first is a 128MB dedicated grub 
> partition.  If the first is a Win2K partition that C: becomes the first.

That's normal behaviour of Win2K. The first partition with Win2k is the C:.

> > > I also cannot eliminate the paging file.  What Windows needs a paging 
> > > file for with 512MB of memory I don't know.
> >
> >
> > There are some option of Control Centre to disable the need of paging 
> > file or to move it to another place.

This option should be some where. So that you can disable the need of 
paging file. I am a linux user right now and I cannot dig into win and 
find for it. Can you investigate a bit more?

> I found something VERY INTERESTING.  If I set parttype to 
> "non-FS data" for all partitions except for the grub partition and the 
> Win2K boot partition, Win2K STILL assigned a drive letter and could see 
> and access them fine!  All of the primary, and the logical up to and 
> including the boot logical partition.  Perhaps it is seeing all of the 
> partitions that it had previously accessed (before I changed the 
> parttype), but this is a wild guess.

That's what I told you again. I suspect than you do have to do a fresh 
install after hiding 2,3,4 and unhiding 1.

> Thank you very much for the comments and suggestions.  Thank you also 
> for all the time you spend helping people here!

You're welcome.

I want a howto from you about how to build that... so that I can apply 
it to my Super Grub Disk.

Check the menu.lst files in the cdrom something as:

/cdrom/boot/sdg/S10en/S30_special_boot/S20_hide_and_unhide/...



adrian15