Boot.ini

[Helevitia]

Hey folks, yet another question.

I have win2k and winxp on my 2nd computer but the boot.ini file on my root drive(c:\) does not match the menu upon boot up. How do I find the correct boot.ini file??? I am going crazy as I can't boot Winxp until I make changes in that file. Please help.

Thanks,

Dave

[Sasq]

Sorry this is no help, but my system has win2k on C: and XP on F:

The only place I have a boot.ini file is on drive C: and that is the correct one for my system

just for reference

[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(4)\WINDOW S
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(4)\WINDOWS="Micro soft Windows XP Professional" /fastdetect
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT="Microso ft Windows 2000 Professional" /fastdetect

Dan

[Helevitia]

Thanks Sasq, but yeah, my menu is different than the file which is really wierd. Anyway, maybe someone knows....

Dave

[Sasq]

if you have partition magic installed it creates its own boot.ini file - don't know where that lives tho.

Maybe tey a full hdd search for boot.ini and see what comes up

Dan

[Helevitia]

Tried that already. Nothing even close, I thought I might find boot.bak or boot.xxx or something like that, nothing....

Maybe I'll find the answer on MS's website.

Dave

[DGhost]

can you post the boot.ini and what the boot menu is? can you use the device manager to tell us how the drives are partitioned and named (Note: partition 1 does not nessicarily mean its C: in NT/2k/XP... i had my computer trying to install XP onto drive F which is the only hard drive in the system this weekend...)

[Paddy]

If you know what disk/partition the installation is on you can recreate your own boot.ini...

------

multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS

This is what the boot.ini should say if you XP on the first/only partition of the primary master disk.


multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS

This is what the boot.ini should say if you XP on the second partition of the primary master disk.


multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(1)\WINDOWS

This is what the boot.ini should say if you XP on the first/only partition of the second physical disc etc...


if all else fails (and it usually does ) you can try one of two things... either use the recovery console to recreate the boot partition, although i am not sure off the top of my head what the command is.... or you can use a work around. This has always worked for me in 2K many, many times, although I have never had to try it in XP yet.

Simply reinstall windows to the same drive and when the installation finishes copying files and performs the first reboot, F8 out at the start up, and it will have re-written the boot partition and boot.ini.

Just make sure you dont wipe all of your data!

[Helevitia]

Greetings all,

Thanks for the help. For the record. I have tried everything you guys have mentioned in these posts before posting. When I change the boot.ini file that exists, it doesn't change the menu upon boot up.
Secondly, I gave up and installed XP over Win2k and decided to have multiple users with one OS instead of two OSes. Thanks for all the help

Dave