Invalid Boot.ini - Microsoft Knowledge Base Article -

[Jason Lau]

XP Professional can't boot up and I got the following
error messages as in Microsoft Knowledge Base Article -
330184 :

Invalid Boot.ini


Windows could not start because the following file is
missing or corrupt:

Windows\System32\Hal.dll

- I followed the instructions given in Article - 330184 to
try to rebuild bootcfg, but I got the errors that there
might be errors in my disks and asked me to do chkdsk. I
finished the chkdsk and cleared up the errors, but still
bootcfg /rebuild doesn't work and bootcfg /list outputs
nothing.

- The problem began after I tried to use partition magic
to relocate free space from my Win 98 partition to my XP
partition. Now I got 3 partitions: 1 for Win 98 which is
working, 1 is the partition that is supposed to have XP
running, and 1 new partition which contains the free space
that I want to move from Win 98 to XP.

Is that anyway I can have my XP restored without any loss
of data? How can I possibly check that my data is still
there in the XP partition? In the Recovery Console when I
did DIR, there is only 1 single file remaining in my XP
partition. Looks like everthring else was gone.

Thanks a lot.
..

 

[Alex Nichol]

XP Professional can't boot up and I got the following
error messages as in Microsoft Knowledge Base Article -
330184 :

Invalid Boot.ini


Windows could not start because the following file is
missing or corrupt:

Windows\System32\Hal.dll

Set the BIOS to boot CD before Hard Disk. Boot the XP CD and, instead
of Setup, take the immediate R for Repair.
Use
Attrib -H -R -S C:\boot,ini
DEL C:\boot.ini
to delete the bad one
BootCfg /Rebuild

to search for Windows installations and make a new one. Including the
deletion first should allow bootcfg to do the job - provided that there
is not in fact severe corruption of the disk, so it can't find any
instance of windows