Need to get rid of startup error: Please select the operating system to start
 

A while back I tried to install Windows XP on my computer. I was not able to because Windows 98 was already installed. Since then I changed my mind and continued using Windows 98. Now, because I started the install of XP I have this error message whenever the computer starts. It goes to the message "Please select the operating system to start" and if your not quick enough it will go through the whole XP setup thing again. It is quite annoying and would love to get rid of this thing that obviously contains some sort of setup data that stays on my computer. can anyone help me to REMOVE the setup data so I can just boot right to Windows 98 like I use to? Thank you very much!

Re: Need to get rid of startup error: Please select the operating system to start
 

wow ima hafta think about this....

last time i checked windows 9x serries didnt have a boot manager....

my best suggestion to you would be to try to find the isntall data on your hd and remove it...

however im not sure what type of damange this could cause :\

Re: Need to get rid of startup error: Please select the operating system to start
 

What about editing the boot .ini file !!Maybe I don't know

Re: Need to get rid of startup error: Please select the operating system to start
 

That's not an error message ,actually it is a boot manager when you install your windows XP(full install)
" when you see the prompt,upgrade (recomended). And
full install = that means it will install another version of windows in your PC."

Iam not sure how to get rid of it ,however if you still have restore disk of windows 98 . You can re-install it
and get rid of that boot manager.

LEX,

Re: Need to get rid of startup error: Please select the operating system to start
 

This is copy paste from another site ,the OS's are switched around but the cure should work for you

Give dual boot the boot

Q: I installed Windows XP on a new hard drive in my PC, but I kept the old drive containing Windows 98 SE as my D: drive. Windows XP apparently detected the 98 SE operating system on the old drive and now offers me the choice of dual-booting at start-up. How do I get rid of this option?

A: You'll need to edit the boot menu, which is controlled by the C:\boot.ini file on your Windows NT, 2000, or XP boot drive. This small text file contains various parameters that control the boot-up delay (Timeout=), the default operating system, and information about which drive and partition contain your two operating systems. Your current boot.ini file probably looks similar to this:

[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Home"
D:\="Microsoft Windows 98"

To access the boot.ini file, click Start, right-click My Computer, select Properties > Advanced, then click the Settings button under Startup And Recovery. In the Startup And Recovery dialog, click the Edit button under System Startup. This will open the boot.ini file with Windows' Notepad program.

To open the file without the long string of dialogs (using Notepad or another text editor), you must first remove the file's read-only attribute. To do so, click Start > Run and type cmd. Click OK, and you'll see a command-line dialog. At the command prompt, type CD\, then press Enter. Now type attrib -r -a -s -h boot.ini (note the spaces between command letters and the hyphen for the next letter) and press Enter. This will remove file attributes that would prevent you from editing the file. Next, type notepad boot.ini and press Enter to open and edit the file.

Now, to remove the Windows 98 boot option, simply delete this line: D:\="Microsoft Windows 98." Without the line, Windows XP becomes the default start-up OS. If you prefer to leave the dual-boot feature as is, but you want Windows to start the default operating system sooner, simply replace the number after Timeout= to something less than 30 seconds. (Windows will present you with a dual-boot option, but it will launch XP within the time you specify.) When you have completed your edit, save the file and close Notepad.

Re: Need to get rid of startup error: Please select the operating system to start
 

I see where that Boot.ini files exists and I tried modifying it. However, no matter what I change it to it always goes to Windows XP Setup by default. I did change my timeout to 50 seconds which is better because it gives you more time to select Windows 98 at startup. I checked another computer and notice that Boot.ini is not even in Windows 98 anywhere on the other computer. So apparantly, Windows XP setup put this in C: in Win 98. I was going to delete it, but am afraid to, might cause boot failure? But it seems if I would delete it, maybe it wont come on at all? I know the Windows XP setup files exist somewhere, but darned if I know where?

Re: Need to get rid of startup error: Please select the operating system to start
 

seems to me that with the probs you're experiencing you might want to do a comprehensive back up just to be save. btw, did you try runing scanreg /restore & selecting a date prior to the attempted WinXP install? make sure you know what that command does before running it.

Re: Need to get rid of startup error: Please select the operating system to start
 

if you know dos commands you could rename it boot.old and if it doesent boot up you could use a win98 boot disk and rename it back to boot.ini.

http://www.easydos.com/dosindex.html

Re: Need to get rid of startup error: Please select the operating system to start
 

What happened was that XP setup wrote a new boot sector, pretty much erasing any existence of a plain vanilla 98 installation.

You can't really do anything about it other than format and start over, along with an fdisk /mbr before you reinstall 98.

Re: Need to get rid of startup error: Please select the operating system to start
 

Restoring the MBR by running "fdisk /mbr" from a Win 98/DOS rescue disk might do the trick by itself; worth a try before you go for a full reformat.