NT Detect Failed

  • Thread starter Thread starter Moot
  • Start date Start date
M

Moot

Ok, I have a booting microdrive; however, I am not getting my XPe
image to boot. I am getting the following errors/messages:

Invalid BOOT.INI file
Booting from C:\windows\
NTDETECT failed

The boot.ini file is from the image directory. I have looked at it
several times and do not see a problem.

Any ideas?

Moot
 
Moot,

You saw the NTDETECT failed message, that means you made the drive bootable and ntldr gets loaded and launched.

Have you tried XP Pro on the target machine? Is the target hardware XP Pro compatible?

Could you post here the content of the boot.ini you are trying out?
 
Here is what was generated from Target Designer and ultimately used:

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

We have run XP on the platform, so it is capable of running on the
platform. It is Geode SC1200 based.

m00t
 
BTW, I see that you, Slobodan, also had the problem. There is no
follow up once some suggested LBA as a possible problem. What did you
do?

I also see a lot of problems with IBM Microdrives and XPe. Is there
something about this type of CF media that XPe does not handle well?

I have read a thread that has a post from IBM regarding a registry
key:
"NonRemovableMedia" REG_MULT_SZ

This should have IBM_DSCM and IBM_DMDM as entries?

Any further assistance is greatly appreciated.

m00t
 
Hi Moot,

Yup, I had this problem.
I had no option to use LBA :-( so CHS numbers were problem that I had to solve. (I have also updated BIOS at the same time so I
can't say what exactly helped).

1. Connect your disk.
2. Boot in DOS on your target device.
3. Use fdisk to partition your disk.
4. Use DOS format to format your partition.
5. Use bootprep to make in bootable for ntldr.
6. Copy XP version of ntldr.
7. Copy following boot.ini file
8. Do not copy any other files just boot.

[boot loader]
timeout=50
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Embedded Test 1" /fastdetect
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Embedded Test 2" /fastdetect

If you get multi OS choice then you have solved your problem and then you can copy other files. This problem is not XPe related. (No
registry, etc, just two files, (ntldr, boot.ini) and valid MBR and BPB )

Regards,
Slobodan
 
Moot,

No, I haven't had this problem before. At least I don't recall I did.
So I can't tell you if it is the problem with IBM Microdrives or not.

How did you prepare the media to boot?
I would suggest you to use DOS/fdisk to eliminate disk geometry problems.
Although, it does not see that you are having problem with it since you got to ntldr.
Btw, set some noticeable timeout in the boot.ini. It has been reported (with NT and 2K, though) that ntldr may have sometimes
problems with ntdetect if timeout set to 0.

Also, you mentioned you got XP Pro running on the target. Did you?
If you did, I'd suggest you to repeat the XP Pro installation on the microdrive. Then take the drive offline, clean up everything
except the files under the root and just copy files from XPe image directories (Windows, Program Files, Documents&Settings).
If XP Pro was bootable, XPe will boot as well.
 
Hi Konstantin,

Read first post again and take a look at:
"Invalid BOOT.INI file" line.

This problem is most likely geometry related. Since ntldr could be loaded because it is located physicaly before boot.ini on disk
and completely stay in same cylinder (probably bad guess but who knows).

Regards,
Slobodan
 
Slobodan,

Yes, you are right. It is one of possible explanations for the issue.
Although the "Invalid BOOT.INI file" does not tell me much. It could be an ntldr error handling chain error message while it is
failing in ntdetect call.

One thing we know for sure - ntldr gets loaded and launched :-)
I guess debug version of ntldr from DDK could be more helpful here.

Regards,
Konstantin
 
Well, It all came down to the friggin' microdrive. I used 256 CF and
it is working. Now I just need to figure out how to add the touch
screen driver and applications (IE).

Thanks for the help (so far).

m00t
 
Back
Top