Unusual boot problem

[Dave Patrick]

Boot.ini is corrupt and or invalid. Are we hung in a loop?

--

Regards,

Dave Patrick ....Please no email replies - reply in newsgroup.
Microsoft Certified Professional
Microsoft MVP [Windows]
http://www.microsoft.com/protect

 

[Tim Holland]

It's just an alternative to renaming one of your boot version files to
boot.ini, as I mention below.







This is a bit confusing. You are now saying the C: drive no longer
exists (ie it is not shown) and J: drive has replaced part of it
instead? What is the drive/s box top bar colour, ie is it indigo? If you
do not have any drive marked as 'System' under status then I'm surprised
you can boot up at all.

My 1st physical disk has 4 sections visible in disk management.
C: and J: (both coloured dark blue), the unallocated part which is
coloured black, and D: coloured medium blue. C: is marked System.

All 3 drives on my second physical disk are coloured medium blue.

All drives (except the unallocated part) are accessible, and all have
stuff still there. Nothing seems to be missing.

Drive J: (which appeared during the attempt at ghosting) has the
following on it:
AUTOEXEC
COMMAND
CONFIG.SYS
E.EX
E (APPLICATION)
E (CONFIGURATION SETTINGS)
EHELP
IBMBIO
IBMDOS
MBR
MOUSE (MS-DOS APPLICATION)
MOUSE (CONFIGURATION SETTINGS)

There's also a folder called GHOST. Inside this are:
applications called:
GDISK
GHOST
GHREBOOT
GHSTWALK
GHWRAP
and 3 txt files:
ARGS
GSCRIPT
imgdescp

C, D, E, F, G are NTFS formatted. J is FAT formatted.

All 6 of these drives have the word Healthy on them.
Only C has the word System as well.


What is shown under My Computer? Can you read D:

 

[Tim Holland]

Boot.ini is corrupt and or invalid. Are we hung in a loop?

Sorry. I don't understand what you mean. By the way, if you look at my
second reply to Frank Booth Snr, you'll see what is on Drive J:. This
might be relevant.

--

Regards,

Dave Patrick ....Please no email replies - reply in newsgroup.
Microsoft Certified Professional
Microsoft MVP [Windows]http://www.microsoft.com/protect

Here's what happens.

On booting up, the choice I'm given is:
Windows 2000 (default)
Windows 2000 (default)

Whichever I choose, it's the W2K on Drive C which loads.

But, if I go into Control Panel/System/Advanced/Startup & Recovery,
and change the order of O/S's, boot.ini is rewritten as follows:

[boot loader]
timeout=10
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(3)\WINNT="Windows 2000 1,3"
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT="Windows 2000 0,1"

If I reboot now, my two options are:
Windows 2000 (default)
Windows 2000 (default)

and both load the W2K on Drive G.

This is exactly what was happening before.

Tim

 

[Dave Patrick]

Boot.ini in the root of the system partition is invalid. You'll want to
replace it with the working copy from the floppy.

--

Regards,

Dave Patrick ....Please no email replies - reply in newsgroup.
Microsoft Certified Professional
Microsoft MVP [Windows]
http://www.microsoft.com/protect

 

[Tim Holland]

Boot.ini in the root of the system partition is invalid. You'll want to
replace it with the working copy from the floppy.

Success! Thank you very, very much.

My first physical disk used to be divided into just 2 drives: C and D.
Between the two there is now Drive J and 39.55 GB of unallocated
space. How can I get rid of Drive J and reaccess the unallocated
space?

Tim

--

Regards,

Dave Patrick ....Please no email replies - reply in newsgroup.
Microsoft Certified Professional
Microsoft MVP [Windows]http://www.microsoft.com/protect

Sorry. I don't understand what you mean. By the way, if you look at my
second reply to Frank Booth Snr, you'll see what is on Drive J:. This
might be relevant.

 

[Dave Patrick]

You're welcome.

Use Disk Management snap-in but beware of the effect on the other operating
system.

--

Regards,

Dave Patrick ....Please no email replies - reply in newsgroup.
Microsoft Certified Professional
Microsoft MVP [Windows]
http://www.microsoft.com/protect

 

[Frank Booth Snr]

Success! Thank you very, very much.

My first physical disk used to be divided into just 2 drives: C and D.
Between the two there is now Drive J and 39.55 GB of unallocated
space. How can I get rid of Drive J and reaccess the unallocated
space?

OK. The C: drive is the one which contains all the necessary system
files to boot up Win2k. Your J: drive is independent of the C; drive,
and can be deleted from within DM, after moving any files you wish to
keep to any other drive. You can then repartition and format the
remaining space on your disk.

You didn't answer my point about which other drive was used to boot
Win2k. It will be marked in DM as 'active' or 'boot' status.

 

[Tim Holland]

OK. The C: drive is the one which contains all the necessary system
files to boot up Win2k. Your J: drive is independent of the C; drive,
and can be deleted from within DM, after moving any files you wish to
keep to any other drive. You can then repartition and format the
remaining space on your disk.

You didn't answer my point about which other drive was used to boot
Win2k. It will be marked in DM as 'active' or 'boot' status.

Sorry. It's Drive G (the 3rd drive on my 2nd physical disk). It's not
marked as System. C is the only drive marked System.

Thanks for all your help.

Tim