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Boot.ini deleted entry?

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by peachcobbler

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I hope someone has a remedy for this problem, I deleted one of the entry's in my Boot.ini file and was unable to undo it. That copy of WinXP is still seeable on the C: Drive but I'm unable to boot into it anymore. Don't ask why I had three copies of WinXP on my C: drive because I can't answer you.

It happened some time ago when I first started Windows XP. There was a glitch in the program that was pre-installed by IBM, and I was unable to log-on to the net. After following their instructions on how to fix the problem, I ended up with three copies of windows XP on C: and they were all bootable, until recently.

This program, Buffer Zone caused a fatal crash on my computer and I was unable to boot into that copy any more. It's still there, it's just that since I deleted it from the boot.ini file when I try to boot into it upon login I still get the fatal crash screen.

This XP security program shuts it down every time. Any one else had a similar problem before, if so, spill it while I try and stop my head from spinning. This has worn me out and usually I won't give up, but this is one of those monitor throwing situations, or Hammer Time! :-)

4 replies

by hal 9000

What you have done here is similar to removing the Auto.exe file from DOS or the early Windows.

The reason that you have 3 copies of XP on your system is that instead of installing into the Windows folder you have chosen different folders for each of the subsequent installations of XP so if you look at the HDD you should have folders named something like Windows, Windows1 & Windows 2 or something similar though the names might be different they can not all be in the one Windows Folder.

Now you need to do some house work and clean up this mess unless of course you want 3 installations of XP on your HDD. If you have one working installation of Windows I would move all of my data into that by booting into it and transferring the data from different installations across you'll most likely need to take ownership of the files so follow these directions.

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;308421

If you have no working installations of Windows remove the HDD and fit it to a USB Caddy and save your data from the 3 installations into a folder and then wipe the HDD and reload Windows after reinstalling the drive back to it's original computer.

Once you have this done you can then move your data back to the drive and work as required. It would be a very good idea to start some form of DR Plan now as well so that you never loose all of your data if you have a hardware failure so you'll need some form of Backup that is both fast and reliable and perform the backups regularly the frequency all depends on how much you use your computer and what it is used for.
You have no idea of the number of PHD students who come to me wanting DATA recovered off a dead HDD because thy have no copies of their work and they end up spending up wards of 5K to recover the data when they could have bought a removable HDD and a new NB for far less than the cost of recovery and even they they are still up for the cost of a replacement HDD.

Col

by peachcobbler

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I deleted one of the entries from the boot.ini list and am unable to boot into that copy. I really like having the three copies because each works independently. I want to get the deleted copy back, not combine any of them. Thank you for your response HAL 9000.

by hal 9000

Well in that case just copy the deleted file from one of the other Windows installations to the one where you deleted it from either using My Computer or Windows Explorer.

It should then just be a simple matter of replacing the deleted file and rebooting into that installation of Windows.

Col

by peachcobbler

Sorry, that was the first thing that I tried before posting my question. I now have two sections that doesn't boot into anything except a blank screen with a blinking cursor.
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