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Invalid boot.ini file

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5 replies

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?

5 replies

by curlergirl

This definitely sounds like your boot.ini is not pointing to the correct partition. What is your hard drive configuration - IDE or SCSI? Any mirroring or RAID levels? Any special partitions on your boot drive, such as HP or Compaq EISA partitions? Also, please post the actual contents or your boot.ini along w/this info and we can probably figure out what exactly is causing the problem. Hope this helps!

by dmiles

If your boot drive (C:\) is NTFS, you may need this to boot into DOS:

http://www.ntfs.com/boot-disk.htm

After the DOS prompt screen appears, type:

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

Then go to Explorer and the boot.ini file will be visible.

After you've edited the boot.ini file, type the following to return the boot.ini file to its original attribute:

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

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