Invalid boot.ini file cannot be opened

[figaro4]

On startup keep getting invalid boot.ini error, but boot OK. When I go thru
msconfig to the Boot.ini file I get message: TheC/boot.ini file cannot be
opened. Operating System and Timeoutsetting cannot be changed." How do I fix
the boot.ini?

 

[John John - MVP]

Do you actually have a boot.ini file?

What happens when you enter this in the Start menu Runbox:

notepad %systemdrive%\boot.ini

John

 

[figaro4]

John: thx for help: tried your ?, got this screen: "Windows cannot find
'C\boot.ini, Search for file usinf Search" Did that, got: boot.ini.backup, in
C;\WINDOWS\pss. What shud I do with that to fix the boot.ini problem?

 

[John John - MVP]

Let's make doubly sure that the file isn't there, at the command prompt
issue the following command:

dir /a %systemdrive%\boot.ini

If you get a message saying "File Not Found" then the file truly non
existent.

I'm not sure why you would have a copy of the file in the folder you
mention, to tell you the truth I'm not certain why you would have a
\WINDOWS\pss folder. I don't know what this folder is or where it would
have come from, I'm thinking that it may have something to do with
Microsoft Product Support Services but that is nothing more than a
guess. In any case...

The backup file may be usable but you will have to make sure that it is
a good boot.ini file, if the file is corrupt or if it doesn't contains a
valid ARC path it may prevent Windows from booting altogether. Windows
can boot without the boot.ini file but if the file has incorrect or
invalid entries the boot process usually chokes.

The file belongs in the root folder of the system drive, usually C:\
The file typically looks like something this:


[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP
Professional" /fastdetect


The file can be edited with notepad. You could compare the contents of
your backup copy with the above and see if the backup appears to be
valid. Or you could copy the above to a notepad document and then save
it as boot.ini and put it in the C:\ root folder. After you copy the
file to its proper location in the root folder try the Msconfig utility
again and have it check the validity of the boot path.

John

 

[figaro4]

Thx again John. Tried the cmd: dir entry, got File Not Found. Looked thru
C\Windows\Sys32 etc to locate proper place to notepad new boot.ini, but am
unsure, unsteady, and 80 years old. My pc runs perfectly all the time, and I
dont have the tech expertise to ensure success. So, as long as the pc boots
up ok as is, think I will let well enough alone. Much grateful for your time
and help.
--
figaro4

Let's make doubly sure that the file isn't there, at the command prompt
issue the following command:

dir /a %systemdrive%\boot.ini

If you get a message saying "File Not Found" then the file truly non
existent.

I'm not sure why you would have a copy of the file in the folder you
mention, to tell you the truth I'm not certain why you would have a
\WINDOWS\pss folder. I don't know what this folder is or where it would
have come from, I'm thinking that it may have something to do with
Microsoft Product Support Services but that is nothing more than a
guess. In any case...

The backup file may be usable but you will have to make sure that it is
a good boot.ini file, if the file is corrupt or if it doesn't contains a
valid ARC path it may prevent Windows from booting altogether. Windows
can boot without the boot.ini file but if the file has incorrect or
invalid entries the boot process usually chokes.

The file belongs in the root folder of the system drive, usually C:\
The file typically looks like something this:


[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP
Professional" /fastdetect


The file can be edited with notepad. You could compare the contents of
your backup copy with the above and see if the backup appears to be
valid. Or you could copy the above to a notepad document and then save
it as boot.ini and put it in the C:\ root folder. After you copy the
file to its proper location in the root folder try the Msconfig utility
again and have it check the validity of the boot path.

John

John: thx for help: tried your ?, got this screen: "Windows cannot find
'C\boot.ini, Search for file usinf Search" Did that, got: boot.ini.backup, in
C;\WINDOWS\pss. What shud I do with that to fix the boot.ini problem?

 

[John John - MVP]

If your pc runs perfectly fine just leave things as they are, I know
that you probably find it annoying to see the invalid boot.ini error
message when the computer boots but it hurts really nothing. If your
computer has a floppy diskette drive we can try another very safe way to
see if we can fix the problem. Let me know if you want to try this
other method.

John

 

[Jose]

Thx again John. Tried the cmd: dir entry, got File Not Found. Looked thru
C\Windows\Sys32 etc to locate proper place to notepad new boot.ini, but am
unsure, unsteady, and 80 years old. My pc runs perfectly all the time, and I
dont have the tech expertise to ensure success. So, as long as the pc boots
up ok as is, think I will let well enough alone. Much grateful for your time
and help.
--
figaro4

Let's make doubly sure that the file isn't there, at the command prompt
issue the following command:

dir /a %systemdrive%\boot.ini

If you get a message saying "File Not Found" then the file truly non
existent.

I'm not sure why you would have a copy of the file in the folder you
mention, to tell you the truth I'm not certain why you would have a
\WINDOWS\pss folder.  I don't know what this folder is or where it would
have come from, I'm thinking that it may have something to do with
Microsoft Product Support Services but that is nothing more than a
guess.  In any case...

The backup file may be usable but you will have to make sure that it is
a good boot.ini file, if the file is corrupt or if it doesn't contains a
valid ARC path it may prevent Windows from booting altogether.  Windows
can boot without the boot.ini file but if the file has incorrect or
invalid entries the boot process usually chokes.

The file belongs in the root folder of the system drive, usually C:\
The file typically looks like something this:

[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP
Professional" /fastdetect

The file can be edited with notepad.  You could compare the contents of
your backup copy with the above and see if the backup appears to be
valid.  Or you could copy the above to a notepad document and then save
it as boot.ini and put it in the C:\ root folder.  After you copy the
file to its proper location in the root folder try the Msconfig utility
again and have it check the validity of the boot path.

Sorry for butting in, John, but if that was happening to me it would
drive me crazy.

Try these easy steps:

Go to Start, Run, cmd <enter> to open a command prompt window.

Type: cd\ <enter> to get to the root directory of the C drive (you
should see C:\>)

Type: dir boot.ini <enter> and you need to be sure you get a file
not found message.

Type: notepad boot.ini <enter> and enter Yes to the do you want to
create a new file question.

From John's post above (or here) highlight the following text:


[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP
Professional" /fastdetect



Type CTRL-C to copy the highlighted text.

Switch to your new empty notepad window and type CTRL-V to paste the
text into notepad. Be careful of the spaces between the words within
the quotes - they need to be separate words. The last "multi" line is
all one big line.

Click File, Save then File, Exit. You will return to the command
prompt window and still see the C:\> prompt.

Type: dir boot.ini <enter> and you should see the file with about the
current date and time.

Type: exit <enter> to close the window.

Now you have a boot.ini file where it should be. Those settings are
the default basic settings and should be fine.

You will have to reboot.

If any of these steps do not work (and you want to pursue it) let us
know how far you get and what happens.

Jose

 

[pat]

Thx again John. Tried the cmd: dir entry, got File Not Found. Looked thru
C\Windows\Sys32 etc to locate proper place to notepad new boot.ini, but am
unsure, unsteady, and 80 years old. My pc runs perfectly all the time, and I
dont have the tech expertise to ensure success. So, as long as the pc boots
up ok as is, think I will let well enough alone. Much grateful for your time
and help.

Go to
start/run
type msconfig, then select Boot.ini tab.
Click on check all booth paths, this will highlite the bad path which
you can remove.
It will not bother the correct one.

Pat

 

[Jose]

ok. i have the same problem. It doesn't affect the way windows runs, but
its really bugging me and i have the feeling this may become a bigger
problem. Any way, i followed Jose's instructions and other tutorials
such as using the recovery console to enter the bootcfg command. All
were unsuccessful. However, the first time i reboot it does not give me
that error (after applying a tutorial such as jose's), but the second
time it does. I notice that after applying jose's tutorial on startup i
get to choose to boot either into Windows XP Professional or Windows
(default). As mentioned before if i boot into windows xp professional it
works the first time round and after the second reboot it shows the
error again. however, if i select windows (default) i get a different
error which goes something like: windows could not boot, because the
file C:\Windows\System32\hal.dll is missing or corrupt.
Could hal.dll and boot.ini conflict in anyway and could this be part of
the problem?
If nobody has a solution i'll either leave it the way it is or make a
.bat file to run on startup everytime.

Jose is smarter now than 2 months ago.

We seem to have some agreement that the Ask Toolbar components deletes
certain files on reboot.

One of them is the boot.ini file.

If you have the Ask Toolbar installed, there are silly workarounds but
no solution except to uninstall the Ask Toolbar until the authors fix
it.

Any error in the boot.ini file can result in the misleading hal.dll
missing or corrupt message, so fix the boot.ini first.

If this applies to you, uninstall the Ask Toolbar, create yourself a
good boot.ini and be on your way!

If you have the Ask Toolbar, it would be good to know about your
experiences.

If you need help with the boot.ini, holler.

 

[Jose]

Thank you so much Jose! I would have _*never*_ thought Ask toolbar was
the issue especially since i don't install any toolbars because i
personally think they are a pain in the neck. One more reason never to
install toolbars
That toolbar was installed with avg 8 where I usually untick the box
for it, but this time must have overseen. Disabling the toolbar doesnt
work, because it was disabled when i still got the error.
again thanks! I bet this will solve the problem for 100s of other
people as well.

edit: just as a side note, after uninstalling the toolbar i also put in
a fresh boot.ini like you said.

Good job!

Grrrrr... to the Ask Toolbar people.

 

[Steelercaz]

Hi all! Just stumbled across this thread after MUCHOS Googling, as got a problem I'm desperate to solve, but ran out of answers days ago. Saw this thread, and based on what I've discovered tonight hoping it is pertinent, and you guys can help. Forgive me, but I'm going to copy and paste my posts on a TomsHardware thread, where I've had no help yet, as it has all the info all ready:

"Post 1:
Very quick background, I built a new PC a few months ago. It is running 32bit XP Pro, I have a RAID 0 which my OS and Programs are on, a RAID 1 that my files/data are kept on, and a backup HD that I just keep whacking backups over to.

The problem started a few weeks ago, when Adobe Acrobat started having weird launch problems, to the point where I ended up deleting it, as the only part of Creative Suite CS4 that I don't really use as of now. I can't 100% remember the error, as figured I'd come back to it at a later date.

Next thing to happen, a week or so later, was that iTunes stops working after every turn off / turn on, or restart. i.e. iTunes is set up, all updated and working fine, until I turn my computer off. When I turn it back on again it hunts for some setup file, then says it can't find it, and refuses to open. I have to delete iTunes via Add/Remove, then install it again. At this point, on first opening it, all my music and settings are there fine, but once it's been turned off again same problem. This is a real pain in the ass even more so than usual as I have an iPhone now, so backing up is taking a while each week!

Finally (I think), Office is doing a similar thing - it has been installed since first building the PC and working fine, but now each time I open any Office program after a restart it goes through some stage of installation again, and asks me to to activate it over the internet, yet again.

I don't think I've installed any new programs, bar program updates, and it just suddenly happened over a couple of weeks. It was working fine for a few months beforehand!

I am relatively PC aware, but a long long way from expert, so have no idea where this problem is coming from - which has made Googling it impossible! It's like it forgets all its setup info at startup or shutdown, and has to start over again. NB, my AVG anti-virus is up to date and running Malware Bytes shows a clean system. Oh, that reminds me, I also had to turn off XP monitoring of my anti-virus, as around the same point as all this started XP started telling me it wasn't turned on or up to date, but it was running perfectly.

A PC 'dude' at work has recommended a repair install of XP, but reading so many scare stories I've chickened out.

Help, PLEASE!!!! This is driving me mad. I'm so desperate, it's eating up so much of my time!!

Post 2:
h, and the shortcut on my desktop to dial into my office VPN also stops working after a restart. In fact, it looks like all record the connection disappears completely, leaving a shortcut on my desktop which goes nowhere...

Post 3
Hmmmmm, some more thoughts....

I just followed these instructions found on another thread, just out of interest to see what my C

boot.ini file contained. I got 2 error messages:

1) "Right click 'my computer', click properties, go to advanced tab, click start up and recovery settings" - at this point I get an error message saying "The C

boot.ini file cannot be opened. Operating System and Timeout settings cannot be changed". The next screen still opens though. Then...

2) "Click 'edit'" - I then get another error message saying "Cannot find the C

boot.ini file. Do you want to create a new file?"

Ok, so I know nothing about the C

boot.ini file, but guessing this could have something to do with my problems??


It has also made me think of a problem I had when setting up the PC, referred to in another thread a while ago - see 2nd to bottom post (mine) in the thread at , but basically I had some problems with my RAID setup, and needed to install Windows to my backup drive to get in to change some settings. I fixed the problem, and now run Windows off my C

drive, which is the RAID 0, but the 'Windows' file remains on my backup drive. Could this have something to do with the problem cause? If so, not sure why it suddenly became a problem after 5 months of being perfectly fine...


Quick summary of my hard drive setup:

C

drive = Intel Matrix RAID 0 over 2 hard drives - has OS and programs on it
H

drive = Intel Matrix RAID 1 over same 2 hard drives - this is for storing all my files/data
K

drive = Seperate, non RAID, hard drive, just keep backing things up to this one, but still has the 'Windows' file remaining on it.""



Coming back to this thread, I have the Ask & Record Toolbar installed, which includes the Ask Toolbar also - they both show up in Add/Remove programs. Could this be where these problems arose? Or is it more likely the extra installation of Windows on my backup hard drive?

HELP, PLEASSSSE!! How do I put a new boot.ini file there, without a backup of the file??

 

[Steelercaz]

Further to above, if I go to msconfig, I have no BOOT.INI tab???

In addition, a Windows search for boot.ini, including system files and hidden files/folders, reveals nothing, looks like it has vanished!