Help Me! Win 98 CD Disaster - Win XP OS Not Booting

[WARLORDTF]

HEEELP!
I was burning a Win 98 CD (Legitimately) and unfortunately i left the cd in my laptop during restart...
most of the setup had completed but i fortunately canceled it before it could format the drive and install Win 98.
It detected my windows XP home Edition SP2 OEM Edition as a "non MS-DOS OS" and as I took the cd out the computer cannot boot from HD. Claiming 'Not A Valid System Disk, Please insert and press any key to continue' OWTTE. Win XP Wont load, Linux Live CD Will.
I tried my install disk under the recovery console but it brought up boot MS-DOS using A: as the subject Drive.
So I assume that it has replace the D: Drive To A: and Caused My OS not To Work. I Have important files on my computer, and many programs I cannot afford to lose these.
Please can you help?

 

[Duncan]

Hello WARLORDTF,

most likely the Windows 98 changed the master boot record(MBR) on the hard drive. This is the place on the hard drive where the BIOS assumes is the starting point. In the MRB would normally be a boot loader to point your computer to the OS you use.
To fix this for windows XP try this:

Boot from the windows XP CD, press the "R" key in the setup in order to start the recovery console. Select your windows XP installation from the list, and enter the administrator password (if you have one).
Type "fixmbr" (no quotes) once you are in the recovery console and confirm("Y").
Take out CD :)
Then reboot.

 

[WARLORDTF]

I got impatient and tried to reinstall windows in a different directory I found out how the main (Normally) C: drive became the mysterious D: Drive, and deleted the partition using the recovery console. But now i have two versions of windows on one drive one on C:/WINDOWS and the other on C:/WINDOWS2 However I have not completed the installation process as i currently don't have a working key (As the last installation was the last time i could use it). i tried FIXMBR and it worked but didn't make the Boot Correct. Unfortunately I think i made it worse. :(

 

[wxrocks]

If I were you at this point -- I would Boot off the CD -- then I would get all of the important info backed up somewhere -- Because the more you mess with it -- the more you are possibly overwriting the stuff that was on there.

 

[WARLORDTF]

I've fixed it!
i installed WIN XP onto an external Drive and the mbr and the bootcfg must have just sorted itself out.
Thanks all you guys for helping!