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Boot.ini has disappeared

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by cou2rier 1 view

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Hello, Everyone. I have a problem and hope someone can help. A storm knocked out my electricity and caused an "unmountable boot volume" error. I only have a recovery console disk, but I've run chkdsk, fixboot, and fixmbr to no avail. Then I ran bootcfg and no boot file is found.

I'm at work now, running (I think) the same version of XP. Any chance it's going to work if I burn a disc from here? Can I use a cd or do I have to use a floppy? Any advice would be appreciated. I've been at this for two days now and am about to lose my mind. Thanks.

5 replies

by nepenthe0

You violate the license agreement if you attempt to install your office version of XP on your personal computer. Even if the installation succeeded, I doubt you could [i]activate[/i] the installation.

So I would suggest that you [i]wipe[/i] the hard drive with a free utility called Darik's Nuke and Boot:

http://dban.sourceforge.net/

Burn the [i]iso[/i] file to a CD with the free utility CDBurnerXP:

http://cdburnerxp.se/

Follow these guidelines to create a bootable CD:

http://tinyurl.com/4f3coa

Then, attempt to reinstall the operating system from the installation/recovery CD that shipped with your personal computer.

Rick/Portland, OR

by boxfiddler

the OP would like to recover his data before restoring from his partition?

by ic-it

When you ran Bootcfg did it report no windows found?
Did you run Chkdsk with the /R option?

If not run the Chkdsk /R until it reports no more errors found and repaired.
Should that not recover the drive you should download MHDD32 or the entire UBCD ISO.
Be sure to read the instructions on how to do a loop and repair, let it run for at least 3 complete loops (preferably overnight). That program has recovered many drives for me.
Post back if you need further assistance.

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