No OS Selection after Partition Magic Use

[DukeDiablo]

Dear Forum-

Here's the story and hopefully it's just a boot configuration issue that I messed up:

New HP-Compaq desktop computer for our office, Windows XP install, ~168GB HDD with two partitions from the factory.

The main partition is where Windows XP is installed. The second partition is just an HP Recovery 10GB partition.

I decided I wanted two separate Windows XP installations that I could go back and forth between so the Task Force and the Deputies could each have their own setup.

So I fired up Partition Magic 8.0, ran through the dual OS Wizard, split the existing big XP Partition into a 75GB and a 65GB and applied.

Partition Magic rebooted and began it's process. Finished and rebooted again. I then booted from my XP setup disk, and installed a new XP installation on the newly formed 65GB partition.

All went well, rebooted, and I noticed that I didn't even get the OS Boot Menu option... it just went straight into the newly installed XP.

That installation works great, but I can't boot back into the original XP partition now.

Using "Disk Managment," I can SEE all three partitions, 75GB, 65GB, and 10GB.

Disk management reports that the partition I'm trying to get booting again... is "Healthy" but "Unknown."

Both the recovery partition and the original XP partition are both apparently hidden, but still exist, so I think that's a good thing.

Is there a way to fix the boot configuration so I get the choice of which OS I want to use when the computer is starting?

Thanks for any help and yall have a Happy Holiday Season.

Sincerely,
Jim Kennedy
DukeDiablo@GMail.com

[DukeDiablo]

I also know that my boot.ini file isn't right, but I was worried that if I just added another line to it, my partition would still be hidden.

I was thinking of making changes like this:

Current setup, from memory, I'm not at work now:

[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(3)WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /fastdetect

Proposed changes:

[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(3)WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /fastdetect
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /fastdetect

The original partition is (1) and the newly installed, working partition is (3). The recovery partition is (2).

Thanks for any help or recommendations.

Sincerely,
Jim Kennedy

[DukeDiablo]

Well, I figured it out.

Used Partition Magic to "unhide" and "make active" the original XP partition. Then I just modifed the boot.ini file as I noted above.

All is well, and everyone is happy.

Yall have a good one.