boot.ini problems

The Mighty Dubs

I tried to upgrade from xp home to xp pro but my pc kept hanging when it tried to initialise the hard drive. As the upgrade was not completed, each time i started up the pc I was given an option to load xp home or xp pro. So i had to get rid of the xp pro half installation, so I tried to change back the bootsect.ini to its original state (this was done to remove the option of booting up the xp pro). naturally I made a pigs ear of it.

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So I read up on this and followed the instructions. (see link)

http://www.compphix.com/corrupthal.html

If you get an error regarding a missing or corrupt hal.dll file, it might simply be the BOOT.INI file on the root of the C: drive that is misconfigured.

Here's what to do:

Insert and boot from your Windows XP CD.
At the first R=Repair option, press the R key
Press the number that corresponds to the correct location for the installation of Windows you want to repair.
Typically this will be #1
Type bootcfg /list to show the current entries in the BOOT.INI file
Type bootcfg /rebuild to repair it
Take out the CD ROM and type exit

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I load up the xp home re-installation disk and follow the on screen instruction, when it comes to hitting R for Repair my keyboard freezes...

Anybody anywhere no how to fix this problem?

DonkeyStyle \o/

Ooh, that doesn't sound good.
My concern would be that the drive could be on its last legs... I suppose it could be Windows, but lockups like you describe make me very nervous.
I'd grab any important data off that drive if there is any.

A starting point here IMO would be to get a bootable-OS-on-CD (like Knoppix, Ubuntu, BartPE, etc) and check out the harddrive from there... at this point you're bypassing boot.ini and windows altogether, so it should give you some indication as to the general health of the drive itself and allow you to backup essential data just in case the drive fails or you need to give up the ghost and reformat it.

If you could get write access to the harddrive, I suppose you could try fixing the boot.ini manually in a text editor.
But as far as I know the NTFS mounting with non-windows OS'es often doesn't feature the ability to write to the drive.
But maybe things have improved since I last tried, or if you're using FAT32 on the drive it's not an issue in the first place.

The Mighty Dubs

cheers for that..will give it a lash later on tonight....

Capt'n Midnight

Copy someone elses boot.ini
many of the common options below


[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 Professional" /fastdetect
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional - Partition 2" /fastdetect
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Safe Mode Partn 1"
/safeboot:minimal /sos /bootlog
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT="Microsoft WinNT Folder" /fastdetect
C:\CMDCONS\BOOTSECT.DAT="Microsoft Windows Recovery Console" /cmdcons
C:\ = "Windows 9x/dos"

Capt'n Midnight

format a floppy
copy c:\ntldr c:\ntdetect.com and c:\boot.ini to it.