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Missing Boot.ini ; booting from c:\winnt

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by ideafixer

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When I boot my Windows 2K SP2 desktop I get a flashing dos cursor in the upper left of the screen.

I have a boot disk containing ntdetect.com that allows me to boot into Win 2k. When using this disk, I get the message:

Missing Boot.ini
booting from c:\winnt

I went into the recovery console and copied a boot.ini over top of my existing c:\boot.ini file from a PC that is the same model and service pack.

When I boot up after copying the file, I still have the flashing cursor in the upper right. Does anyone have a suggestion as to how I can fix this?

1 reply

by dmiles

In Control Panel \ System \ Startup/Shutdown, you can set the default instance and the default timeout. To add/delete or change entries, you must edit C:\BOOT.INI. This is a Read-only, Hidden, System file so in a command prompt you must type

attrib -r -h -s c:\boot.ini

Now you can edit the file in any text editor such as notepad. You can delete unwanted entries (don't delete the "VGA mode" entry for an active instance), change the text (from "Windows NT Server Version 4.00" to "MyCompany Server") or add a missing entry. When adding entries, you must understand the ARC path:

multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(Z)partition(W)\
or
scsi(X)disk(Y)rdisk(Z)partition(W)\
where Z is the disk number (starting at 0) and W is the partion on that disk (starting at 1). If you look at the "Target Device" entry in %windir%\repair\setup.log you will see the "Z" and "W" entries for your booted instance of NT. The "X" and "Y" entries for "SCSI" are more complicated and are beyond the scope of this "Tip". For addition information, see KB article Q102873.

Don't forget to set the attributes back (attrib +r +h +s c:\boot.ini).

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