[Merc]

I am trying to use bootcfg to add my old HD with win2kpro on it to the boot menu. The old HD is installed and I have the recovery console installed. All I need to do is run the commands in recovery console. ...right?

BUT...

When I go into recovery console for the HD with XP home on it, it asks me to log in as the administrator and asks for a password. What appears to be going on here is, the company that I bought the computer from has installed XP with them as the administrator and set up another account for me as a user. So really I'm locked out of part of my own computer.... which really burns me up.

does this sound correct... or am I all wrong. I'm probably going to call the computer store and ask if they have the password in a file with my name.

Oh and does that sound like what I want to do to set up a dual boot?

 

[Merc]

I just sifted through a bunch of help files and found out that the password for recovery console needs to be changed in the %systemroot%/system32 directory using the command prompt.

Can anyone provide more insight into this?

 

[Merc]

Just tried the space default password no luck.

Here's what's going on.

There is a known bug with XP home that if the OS was installed using Sysprep, the administrator password in recovery console will not work even if you type it right. Service Pack one is supposed to contain hotfix q308402. Which fixes this problem. I obtained service pack 1 for network installations, because the service pack does not show up as an available update otherwise at the microsoft site.

So I installed service pack 1 and still no luck. The correct password does not work. I know it is the correct password because I logged on in safe mode and changed the administrator password.

Apearantly service pack one does not install hotfix q308402.

If I had XP pro and had access to security policies in safe mode I could enable automatic administrator log on in recovery console.

I'm at my wit's end. I am about to try editing my boot.ini file in order to get the second OS to show up as a boot option.

Anyone know any other ways to get my second hard drive with win 2k on it to show up as an available OS in the boot menu? I don't want to have to back everything up then reinstall both operating systems.

...although I probably could have done that by now with all of the time I spent looking into this crap.

 

[Merc]

I figured out how to edit my boot.ini file and messed around with it a bit.

[boot loader]
timeout=15
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition" /fastdetect
C:\CMDCONS\BOOTSECT.DAT="Microsoft Windows Recovery Console" /cmdcons

I found if I added the line

multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(1)\WINDOWS="win2k pro" /fastdetect

I get an error and it won't boot. It throws me back to the boot menu and I boot xp..... everything ok.

If I add

multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\f:\winnt="win2k pro" /fastdetect

I get an error message "<windows root>\system32\hal.dll is missing or corrupt.

there are some fixes for this posted on the 'net but they are a little beyond me.

do these boot ini lines look ok? BTW win2k is on a separate HD labeled as F: