Duel Boot System - Lost First Boot OS Need 2nd OS To Work

S

SirReal

n00b
Joined
Dec 18, 2002
Messages
41
I had a duel boot system running 2 windows XP installs. The first boot OS was formatted and thus I can't boot my second partition OS. Are there a few files that I can place in the second part install that will allow it to boot? I tried installing windows again on the first partition and changing the bootloader file but i get an error \system32\hal.dll Any help is much appreciated.
 
You could try doing a repair install to the second partition, where XP is.

On a side note, why would you want/need a dual boot of the same OS? If it's for testing, or the "keep one slimmed down for gaming" profile, there are much better ways of doing so, and might have saved you from buying 2 licenses.
 
I was using one install as a work environment keeping everything at minimal. I will backup and try the repair install...
 
You can do that with one install, using user accounts or profiles. Or, you could simply install once and keep it optimized. Either way, it involves only needing one license. Since you already bought a second license (I'm assuming), you could always use that on another PC.
 
I resolved it by placing the hidden bootable files from the root directory of an existing OS. I was then able to boot without issue.
 
I'm not sure which ones exactly done the trick but they are..

AUTOEXEC.BAT
boot.ini
CONFIG.SYS
IO.SYS
MSDOS.SYS
NTDETECT.COM
ntldr
PCGWIN32.LI3

And these are hidden files located under the root directory.. example C:\
 
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