Boot issues

[i2kdave]

I was running XP Home and Mandrake dual boot, and got rid of Mandrake. I had not yet gotten rid of lilo, and was using it to boot up windows for a few days until yesterday when I turned on my computer, the only thing that showed up was "L 99 99 99 99 99 99 99....." I used emergency boot (http://ebcd.pcministry.com/) to restore my MBR and now when I turn my computer on, it says "Missing operating system." The only way I am able to boot up windows is by using the smart boot manager on the emergency boot disk. Windows is located on the 2nd partition of my HD, so I'm thinking maybe the MBR got written incorrectly? I really don't know what to do.

[retired1af]

You can try this..

Take your XP installation CD and boot it all the way up. You'll get 3 choices at that point. Select R for repair.

You'll be asked which windows installation you wish to repair. Select it. Give the Admin password when prompted. You'll then find yourself at a DOS prompt.

Type: FIXMBR and when prompted type: YES

System will reboot and you SHOULD be good to go at that point.

[i2kdave]

I've tried this but nothing I enter for the admin password will work. I don't remember ever setting one, but leaving it blank doesn't work either.

[jamey112]

I am pretty sure the Admin account must have a password. Don't hold me to it, as I have never had this problem. If you still can't figure out the password, just re-partion and format.

[budman7]

I am pretty sure the Admin account must have a password. Don't hold me to it, as I have never had this problem. If you still can't figure out the password, just re-partion and format.

No, it doesn't, unless you put one in, there will be no password.

You could go to www.bootdisk.com and get a Win98 bootdisk, if you don't have a floppy drive, they have directions for putting it onto a cd.

[i2kdave]

do I not need the administrator password if I use a Win98 boot disk?