Had something interesting happen tonight. I Duel Boot with Win2K/WinME. Has worked perfectly up until now with the Boorloader presenting me with 3 options, Win2K, WinME and Recovery Console. I defragged C: with Norton Systemworks 2001 (WinME Resident) and rebooted. Upon selecting WinME from the Bootloader it responded with the 'Invalid System Disk - Insert System Disk....'. Even from DOS C:\Windows\Win WinME refused to load. I formatted the Win2K partition (Only using it for test at the moment) and tried again. Still the same message. I reinstalled WinME from DOS and interestingly the Bootloader was still coming up but not only that after the WinME reinstall the Bootloader now worked and took me into WinME as normal.

I understand Win2K puts it's startup files on the Active Partition (In this case C <IMG SRC="smilies/smile.gif" border="0">. I also noticed that NTLDR was 'Not Detected' when I tried Recvovery Console right after the defrag (Not after the WinME reinstall).

The question is why would a simple optimisation and defrag with Norton Systemworks corrupt the Win2K Bootloader? Further, what files (exactly) are installed on C:\ by Win2K installation in regards to the Bootloader program. If the path is lost to WinME (As was the case here) what file can I edit to check the path to WinME from the Bootloader? Is NTLDR the Bootloader program? I just want to get a handle on what files Win2K boots on C:\ to allow Duel Boot as then if it gets corrupted I can either edit and/or replace the corrupt file(s) and get the Boorloader working again.

Sorry for the long winded explanation. If anyone has encountered a similar problem whilst Duel Booting let me know how you resolved it. Or, if you have heard/experienced a Defrag making the Bootloader malfunction. One more thing - the Botloader still worked for Win2K after the defrag, just not WinME.

If you can assist/suggest/advise that would be great.

Kind regards.