C
Chris F Clark
I have a machine that has two disks and two copies of XP on it (each
in the 1st primary partition of its disk), and I used to be able to
boot from both of them (using system commander). Recently, I needed
to repair one of the boot partitions and ended up needing to restore
the partition from a backup copy I had made.
However, now, I cannot "boot" from that partition. If I try it gets
the "NTLDR is missing" message. I can still boot the partition, by
booting from the partition on the other disk, that is I boot the other
partition and then use the menu from the boot.ini on that partition to
boot with this restored partition as the "system" partition. However,
I want to boot such that this partition is both "boot" and "system".
Prior to the restoration, I could boot using either primary partition
as the "boot" partition and either primary partition as the "system"
partition.
I assume that somehow in the restore, one of the files, e.g. ntldr,
ntdetect.com, or something similar got "moved" to an incorrect disk
offset. The partition in question is an NTFS partition and fits in
the first 1024 blocks (it is just under 8GB). As I said, it was a
restore of a partition that was working when I backed it up.
I tried the instructions (on one of the MS web pages) to fix the files
(ntldr and ntdetect.com) from the recovery console, but that didn't
seem to help.
Any suggestions about how to "correct" the booting files on this
partition? I mean a backup isn't much good unless when you restore
it, things are back to the way they were, and so far this restore
isn't that way. And, I really want to restore this backup, because
over the years I have configured things just the way I like them and I
have no idea which "hidden" files contain those configuration
settings, nor how I would "merge" them into a fresh installation.
in the 1st primary partition of its disk), and I used to be able to
boot from both of them (using system commander). Recently, I needed
to repair one of the boot partitions and ended up needing to restore
the partition from a backup copy I had made.
However, now, I cannot "boot" from that partition. If I try it gets
the "NTLDR is missing" message. I can still boot the partition, by
booting from the partition on the other disk, that is I boot the other
partition and then use the menu from the boot.ini on that partition to
boot with this restored partition as the "system" partition. However,
I want to boot such that this partition is both "boot" and "system".
Prior to the restoration, I could boot using either primary partition
as the "boot" partition and either primary partition as the "system"
partition.
I assume that somehow in the restore, one of the files, e.g. ntldr,
ntdetect.com, or something similar got "moved" to an incorrect disk
offset. The partition in question is an NTFS partition and fits in
the first 1024 blocks (it is just under 8GB). As I said, it was a
restore of a partition that was working when I backed it up.
I tried the instructions (on one of the MS web pages) to fix the files
(ntldr and ntdetect.com) from the recovery console, but that didn't
seem to help.
Any suggestions about how to "correct" the booting files on this
partition? I mean a backup isn't much good unless when you restore
it, things are back to the way they were, and so far this restore
isn't that way. And, I really want to restore this backup, because
over the years I have configured things just the way I like them and I
have no idea which "hidden" files contain those configuration
settings, nor how I would "merge" them into a fresh installation.