Lost Windows 2000 master boot record

[FredRdr88]

Hi, I have a fairly simple problem. An old Windows 2000 machine that I will need to use for a project had been sitting around unplugged for many years and it's CMOS must have forgotten some BIOS settings. Not sure why, but this may have also corrupted the master boot record as now the computer boots up as Windows XP Professional. I'm sure that these two operating systems are almost identical to the dll but I would like the computer to now boot up as either 1) Windows 2000 or 2) a dual-boot of Windows 2000 and Windows XP Professional. I need the Windows 2000 for my work for a little while.
So can someone advise me as to how to FixMBR? Should I just download a FixMBR and load it to a floppy or CD? I will have to read up on this machine's BIOS and see if I can fix the bad BIOS setting (on my own). It's an old 550 MHZ eMachines 550R.
Thanks.

 

[mbarnes86]

Hi

Look for c:\boot.ini

If it was previosly dual boot it would have both operating systems listed

Do you have 2 hard disks?
Or 2 partitions on one hard disk?

one with xp the other with w2k?

If it boots up to xp then you can get to disk management to answer some of my questions

Fix mbr is not the answer?

Regards
Mike Barnes

 

[FredRdr88]

Wow, I had forgotten about that file.

It reads:
[boot_loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
mult(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft windows XP Professional"
/fastdetect

 

[FredRdr88]

It's hard for me to answer this at present but it's beginning to look like a machine I once had that booted up into Windows 2000 is NOT this machine. But I find it awfully odd that Windows XP Professional is so close an OS to Windows 2000. I still think that there is a 50:50 chance that this machine IS in fact a Windows 2000 machine (has that OS). Perhaps there is an easy way to convert it over to Windows 2000 from here? Like just some simple setting or whatever? I want to be able to run it as a Windows 2000 machine.

 

[FredRdr88]

I really need to answer this question. There might be another machine packed away some where that is the actual Windows 2000 machine, but if there is, I cannot find it.

 

[FredRdr88]

I now realize that I'm looking for a Dell L866r machine that I bought in August of 2012. It's a PIII 866 MHz with 256 MB of RAM. It had windows 2000 on it. I need to find where I put it.