Boot into DOS. Run FDISK. Set the XP partition (not DE partition) as active. Reboot.

 

If you have WinPE/Diskpart:

Run the following commands

 

diskpart.exe

select disk 0

select partition 2

active

exit

I ran FDISK and specified the XP partition.  It now tries to start XP but gets blue screen: autochk program not found; skipping autochk"  Then Fatal System Error, System Manager Initialization  system process terminated...

 

Any advice?  Thanks

It sounds like you may have formatted your disk instead of changing boot parameters. I do hope you backed up any important data. If your bios splash screen still comes up you may be able to press f12 and choose boot from cd rom. It really sounds to me like your drive has been erased. Good luck! -Bill

This is now fixed, w/ Partition Magic rescue diskettes.  No, the disk hadn't been formatted.  But FDISK alone didn't fix the problem.  After FDISK made the partition active, when booting it went to the Autochk error, about which there's a lot of info on the web, none that I saw helpful.  Partition Magic said the partition was hidden.  I Unhid it, then the PC booted normally, with all data files intact.

 

Tried the Recovery Console several times.  It refused to accept any Administrator password, so had to give up on it.  Understand this is a known problem too.

 

Thanks all for your help.

Good to hear you are back up and running! Those utilities are quite handy at times. -Bill