Subj : Win98SE install?
To   : Jeff Guerdat
From : Christer Jacobsson
Date : Fri Jun 23 2000 03:08 pm

Wednesday June 21 2000, Jeff Guerdat writes to Christer Jacobsson:

 JG> On 06-21-00, Christer Jacobsson said to Tom Laermans:

 CJ>> I COULDN'T boot into my NT4 installation any more! When I Xcopied my C:
 CJ>> drive to a "staging" area on another FAT drive, I missed copying
 CJ>> the hidden, system and read-only files that existed on my
 CJ>> C: before the format. these files are now utterly GONE! My
 CJ>> NT4 is setup so that the bulk of NT4 sits on a separate,
 CJ>> NTFS partition while some necessary files sits in the root
 CJ>> of my DOS C: partition. Worse, I *dont have any NT4
 CJ>> emergency disks!* The *only* thing I have is the NT4 Server
 CJ>> CD and the installation disks!

 CJ>> Is it possible to revive my NT4 installation, and if so, HOW?

 JG> No problem - boot from the NT CD or floppies and choose Repair.  When the
 JG> prompt comes up, choose to check the boot/startup environment and boot
 JG> sector. Even if you don't have the rescue disk, the files will be copied
 JG> into place from the CD.

I did just that, fortunately my CDROM & BIOS supports bootable CDs. I have my 
NT4 on 2 partitions: the files ntldr, ntdetect.com, boot.ini and bootsectors 
sits on my primary DOS (C:) partition while the NT4 OS itself sits on a 
NTFS-formatted partition which in my partition setup gets the drive letter J:
As OS/2 can't access NTFS partitions, I hide the NTFS partition whenever I run 
OS/2: when I want to run NT4, I first unhide the J: partition and then boot it 
via the boot menu on the DOS partition. So when I tried to correct the NT4 
installation via the Repair function I first unhid the J: and the DOS C: 
partition (primary) which automagically hides the primary OS/2 partition. Then 
I put the NT4 CD in the reader and rebooted. NT4 Installation booted, sweet as 
sugar and after a while presented me with the choices Install, Repair och Quit 
installation (F3). I chose Repair->check Startup and declined having a 
emergency diskette.

Wham!

NT4 Install threw up a screen stating that it could *not* find my NT4 
installation! I was again asked to supply a emergency disk. I again declined 
and again NT4 setup stated that it could not find any NT4 installation. Mark my 
word: the NTFS (J:) and DOS (C:) partitions was *visible*, i.e. unhidden. Still 
NT4 Setup couldn't find my installation.

The curious thing here is that when I restarted the NT4 Setup and chose 
Install, *THEN* Setup could find my old NTFS partition! The CD is at fixpack 
level #1. I decided then and there that enough is enough. I re-installed my NT4 
into the NTFS partition. Now I'm pulling home Netscape 4.73: then I'm going to 
install it in NT4 so I can log in to my ISP over my ADSL "modem", and from 
there install FP #6a.

But on another tack.... When I've installed NT4 anew and brought it up to 
fixpack #6a level. I'm about to get a new box here. Is there any way that I can 
"lift over" my NT4 installation onto the new box without doing a total 
reinstall from scratch?


/GAIA (Insulin User - 4th Anniversary & 19th Wedding Anniversary :-) )
       Team OS/2      E-mail: cribo.jacobsson@gaea.se

--- GoldED/2 2.50+ 16SW2
 * Origin: Team OS/2 - E-mail: cribo.jacobsson@gaea.se  (2:205/104)

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