There's your problem.

quote:

Originally posted by neoh There's your problem.

if i make D visable again, it will work? how is this so when D booted fine for some time?

try it.

ok. i went into PM, and it said that C was active and not hidden, but D was (for some reason, because it wasnt before) not active, and hidden. so i changed D to active, and unhidden, and rebooted. the pc frooze on the boot up stage where it says 'verifying DMI pool data'. it would not boot. i tried loads of shit with my limited options. i booted the comp via my PM emergency boot discs. (the comp now responds to booting via cdrom or floppy), and got into PM. after. if i change C to active, it sets D to unactive. if i set D to active, it sets C to unactive. the following vice versa principle also applies to hidden, it seems one has to be hidden and one has to be unhidden. (i think). (while in DOS PM, i could make these changes without rebooting and see visable effects)

i need both partitions to be active for this to work, yet, it will only allow one, and if i set D to unactive, it doesnt boot.

Like lets say you are gonna pistol duel someone and you suddenly realize that the other person has a bigger gun than you and you want out , and you were the person that started the match, then you can duel boot him and not die

You need to rewrite your master boot record

Boot from the 2k cd and go into the recovery console

then type fixboot
then fixmbr

then exit

I've been running a multi boot system for nearly a year now, having separate OS partitions for Video editing, Music Production, and everything else. Someone recommended OSL boot manager to me although I haven't checked it out yet. I currently use the method decribed above for editing the master boot record to bring up a list of OS at boot up.

Through constant trial and error I came up with a system that suits me and has worked well for me, following a few simple rules.

PC's (especially newer ones, and ones that get pushed to the limit of their capacity) will probably at some point need reformatting, so you HAVE TO make your life easier by doing the following:

1. Get comfortable with using Norton Ghost and learn how to use it to reformat your OS, make a ghost copy of your OS as soon as you have got it set up the way you want, and store it in a place where you will be able to find it again

2. ALWAYS keep your OS and your personal data on separate partitions/drives from each other to make reformatting less painful, and to protect yourself from viruses

3. Don't bother with Anti-Virus software! I know this sounds odd, but most of them are extremely intrusive. You can use a simpler app such as Mailwasher which will identify emails that contain viruses before they even get downloaded to your computer. you can use a spyware app to periodically scan for trojans and diallers, AND if the worse came to the worst and you got infected, so long as you've done the first two suggestions, you can simply install the ghost image back over your OS in minutes, and you've haven't lost a sausage.

If you are using your computer for music, either use a separate OS for this purpose or at the very least install as few apps as possible (and try and avoid apps that use the internet), even if you have a really powerful machine.

I have also tried a very good program called HyperOS that only requires a double-click to instantly back-up, copy or switch Operating Systems. The main drawback is that it automatically boots up the last OS that was used, which is why I don't use it.