please select the operating system to start

J

jonmck

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I have three options to choose from when I boot the computer. It says: please select the operating system to start

How do I get rid of that??? I ONLY HAVE ONE OPERATING SYSTEM!!! THANKS!
 
Control panel> system> 'advanced' tab> startup and recovery 'settings' button> untick the option 'time to display operating systems.'
 
See, you got a quicker response here then you did by email me and pm'ing other mods.
 
HELP! I screwed up!

Hi! Before I did what you said, I had three choices and I had to always choose the third choice in order for it to load windows. If I chose one of the other choices, I would get an error message. So when I did what you said, I thought I should delete the other two choices from the menu also. I deleted the first two choices since I thought the third was the one I needed. NOW, when I tried to boot up, it DID NOT ask me to choose an operating system, but it goes to the error message. It says something about windows could not start because of a computer disk hardware configuration problem. Could not read from the selecting boot disk. Check boot path and disk hardware......
SO NOW I can't get into Windows!!!! What do I do??? thanks!
 
Originally posted by Lonman
Control panel> system> 'advanced' tab> startup and recovery 'settings' button> untick the option 'time to display operating systems.'
:rolleyes:
I don't see the word 'delete' up there.
Can you access the drive? Is it ntfs or fat32?
 
Go here: http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;Q307654

You want to use the 'bootcfg' command, read up on it.

This is what my boot.ini (that's the file you deleted those entries out of) looks like:

[boot loader]
timeout=3
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /fastdetect
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT="Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional" /fastdetect


XP is my default OS and on my D: partition. 2k is on my C: partition. From that you can tell by the partition numbers how you'll need to configure your boot.ini file.
 
Quick Question

As soon as I can get to the DOS prompt, I will try it. SO, do I HAVE to use bootcfg, or can I just edit the boot.ini file and save it? Thanks!
 
If you can access the drive you can access the boot.ini file directly after you remove it's hidden/system attributes. The recovery console route is actually probably the easiest.
 
Boot disk

I am sorry for all of the questions! Thanks for your help! I have tried to use the boot disk, but I can't get to the hard drive. WHen I type in C: it says Invalid Drive Specification. Any suggestions? Thanks SO MUCH!
 
I hope you say yes here... do you have the XP installation CD? Boot to it and go into the recovery console and do the bootcfg thing.
 
I do, but it is not bootable

I do, but it is not bootable! I can get one tomorrow maybe? (that is bootable) (i made a copy to keep at my house in case I needed it. The original is 3 hours away at my mother's house because, like an idiot, I left it. DANG!
 
If you have have enough floppies laying around, you can boot up using the XP boot floppies to access the drive.
 
HELP

I got into windows and I restored the system to yesterday's settings. So it was normal. Then I did what you said, and ONLY unchecked the box. I DID NOT DELETE ANYTHING. BUT, when I rebooted, it did not ask me which operating system, but IT DID give me an error and I could not get back into Windows. I will HAVE To delete one of the three choices in the edit menu. Because the correct operating system that it needs to use is NOT the first choice....it is the third choice. Thanks! What should I do?
 
Set the one that you boot to as the default and then untick the option.
 

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