Looking for an os booter at start up

Vincent

just installed win2k after win98 but i'm not gettin the option to choose windows98, i know there's probably a way of doing this other than gettin a 3rd party boot loader, but i'd prefer it this way

LoGiE

I've got a simular setup with 98se on one HD and w2k on an other. I've used two boot managers BOOTSTAR and BOOTIT NG. The main difference between them is that bootstar lets you config everything from within windows.There pretty good, hope that helps

R. Daneel Olivaw

There's an option to add other boot parititions somewhere in the system setup Control-Panels, definitely, so the only way to do is manually. It should have been added automatically though..............

phaxx

ftp://ftp.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/releases/i386/4.4-RELEASE/tools/boot.bin

ftp://ftp.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/releases/i386/4.4-RELEASE/tools/bootinst.exe

Download both files, drag boot.bin onto bootinst.exe and that should be it. Nice free bootloader, no configuration, no hassle, end of story.

SantaHoe

I had that problem when I installed Win98 after Win2k.

Bashing the tìts off the F8 key on boot-up gave me the bog-standard OS choice menu...
If you can get it... get into Win2k.
Then right-click 'my computer', click properties... then head into 'advanced', where you should find 'Startup and recovery', where you can sort out the boot menu, so it'll come up on its own when ever you boot.
You can change the time out on the menu, change the default OS selection etc.

Vincent

i get an error message when i try to drag boot.bin onto bootinst, something about writing directy to the hardrive. I installed BOOTSTAR but i set it up wrong now i cant get anywhere when the pc is booting up. I cant get to the dos prompt even. Does anyone know the site where u can create win98 startup disks? i accidently wrote over the one i had . And Santa win2k is the only os showing up in start up and recovery. I had lilo installed when i had a copy of madraxe8, can i use that without linux?
(in college now btw, i'll have to create win98 startup disk here)

tribble

If you want the easiest (autoload on timeout etc), most flexable (63 primary partitions on one HD anyone?), prettiest (full graphical interface) OS loader then download XOSL.
It is highly robust (it doesn't need to be reconfigured unless you reinstall win9x)... oh and it supports booting of any os from anywhere on any (internal) harddisc, hiding, passwords etc...

I've used it for years with no problems.
Get it here - http://www.xosl.org/

SantaHoe

Hum, if only Win2k is showing up, then an fdisk /mbr may well sort you out there.
Other than that, did you see a 'Return to OS choices' option at the bottom of the list?

Vincent

right i misconfigured bootstar
and now i cant get into any os, i tried formatting the hardrive where i installed bootstar but that didn't work i still get the stupid fecking bootstar screen. I even set all the bios options to default hoping that might get rid of it, well that didn't work either. Im in a friends house now, bootstar is looking for my 4gb drive, atm i have stuff backed up there, i'm gonna install win98 on that now u in me friends house and go home install bootstar again and hopefully there's an option to disable it. Anyone got any idea's? i need to have my comp back up in the next day or two i've some college work to do

moist

The problem is that you don't have a book loader propely installed/configured, hence you can't boot
into any of the OS's installed on the machine.
You will have to download a bootloader of some description onto a floppy and boot from that,
then you will be able to boot your OS.

One that I know of that can work solely off a floppy and is very easy to configure is GAG

Mind you if your after reformatting, there would be nothing there to boot.
If thats the case you could just boot from a system boot floppy and do a "fdisk /mbr"
(or is it "format /mbr" ??) which will reinstall the default windows boot loader.
A fresh install should replace this, but still.

Spunog UIE

heh heh
but ya don't have a workin floppy do ya Vincent, muwahwhhahwhwah

Vincent

hey? me floppy is working fine, sorted everything all i had to do was fdisk /mbr! silly me anyway a few bugs i had with win2k have disappeared like not being able to listen to mp3's while surfin/dl'in and i wasn't able to connect to quake3 servers in win2k i think thats' probably fixed aswell but i lost quake3 and the latest point release when i formatted lost halflife/cs aswell but that doesn't matter cos i dont really like it