Rogue Tech. Tip #2 - Partition is there, just not recognized.

Windows XP: After system change, your partition is no longer displayed or detected in your boot list.

Perhaps this has happened to you-

After a major system change whether it be a service pack install or BIOS flash, you reboot and oh shizz, your main partition (usually C:) is booting automatically with no option to select your other partition.

The following will help you as long as you don't have a super-complicated drive set-up.

Basically, all you're doing is altering the BOOT.ini file which lists your currently installed operating systems for a multi-boot system.

1. Right click on My Computer from your start menu and select properties. This should bring up your system properties screen.

2. Click on the advanced tab at the top and then on settings, right under startup and recovery.

3. At the new window, click on edit.

You should now see your BOOT.ini file displayed in notepad. This is where we can edit.

This is probably what you see (what I saw too)-

[boot loader]
timeout=60
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /fastdetect /NoExecute=OptIn

The last part of the script is really the part we need to focus on. When you have created a secondary partition correctly and properly installed the OS, you should see an additional line with the secondary partition info. Since this is not the case here, we need to add it in.

*Again, this isn't for a super-complex set-up.*

The partition you added is most likely named D: or E:, maybe F: but, it doesn't matter.

The line for our main operating system reads as-

multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /fastdetect /NoExecute=OptIn

Notice the partition (1) part...

To get it to recognize our lost partition, simply add to the bottom:

multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS="Alt. Boot" /fastdetect /NoExecute=OptIn

And where it says "Alt. Boot", you can rename to anything you want - this is what you will see when you have your boot options back. Close the window, save the changes.

Your BOOT.ini should now look like-

[boot loader]
timeout=60
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /fastdetect /NoExecute=OptIn
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS="Alt. Boot" /fastdetect /NoExecute=OptIn

When you reboot your system, before you get to the welcome screen, you should see something like the screen below with your main operating system listed and whatever you named the reinstated one:



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