Odd XP ?

[philo]

My neighbor gave me a bunch of left-over parts from an upgrade...

(An AMD_64-3200 mobo and a few HD's 100 & 250 gig.)

I built a machine from them and decided to see if the machine would boot
from either of the drives.

One of the drives started to boot to XP...then crashed.


I slaved the drive to another machine to see what was on it...and there was
no Windows (or Winnt) folder...
but oddest of all...*no* root directory files...which means boot.ini is not
even present...

How the heck could it have started to boot XP?



BTW: No .chk files were written nor did chkdsk find any problems

 

[Guest]

I've had this happen for 2 reasons:

1. The OS was set to only connect to a server and to pull files off, at
which point without the server connection (which may be inside a LAN) it
wouldnt boot. Solution: Delete all partitiions and reformat.

2. The OS on the drive came pre-packaged with an OEM machine (IE: Dell, HP,
Compaq, etc) and the OS was built to validate the Motherboard BIOS (which may
or may not match depending on if they came from the same computer). If this
is the case you will need a new copy of Windows or the old motherboard that
came with the OEM machine.

All in all, when in doubt reformat. If the format doesent take then you
likely have a bad drive.

 

[philo]

I've had this happen for 2 reasons:

1. The OS was set to only connect to a server and to pull files off, at
which point without the server connection (which may be inside a LAN) it
wouldnt boot. Solution: Delete all partitiions and reformat.

2. The OS on the drive came pre-packaged with an OEM machine (IE: Dell, HP,
Compaq, etc) and the OS was built to validate the Motherboard BIOS (which may
or may not match depending on if they came from the same computer). If this
is the case you will need a new copy of Windows or the old motherboard that
came with the OEM machine.

All in all, when in doubt reformat. If the format doesent take then you
likely have a bad drive.

Well I'm going to of course format the drive before I use it...
but I was trying to figure out where the boot info was kept on the drive if
not in boot.ini

 

[Gary S. Terhune]

Boot.ini probably WAS present. It's a "Protected Operating System file", one
that is hidden unless you expressly unhide those files in Folder Options. I
recommend against leaving those files unhidden. Only leave them visible as
long as absolutely necessary.

 

[Gary S. Terhune]

Have fun!

 

[philo]

Boot.ini probably WAS present. It's a "Protected Operating System file", one
that is hidden unless you expressly unhide those files in Folder Options. I
recommend against leaving those files unhidden. Only leave them visible as
long as absolutely necessary.

I guess I should have mentioned that I had windows explorer set to view all
files...
I could view boot.ini OK on the boot drive....
but the drive I had slaved had no root directory files.

Guess I could put it back in and try again...
I'd have expeced a "non system disk" error though

 

[philo]

I guess I should have mentioned that I had windows explorer set to view all
files...
I could view boot.ini OK on the boot drive....
but the drive I had slaved had no root directory files.

Guess I could put it back in and try again...
I'd have expeced a "non system disk" error though

Well I tried booting from the drive again and this time I did get the
"non-system disk" error...
which leads me to conclude that boot.ini must have somehow disappeared...
anyway I'm going to run the mfg's diagnostic on the drive before I use it...
and if it tests good...will of course format it

 

[philo]

Have fun!

Yep...it will be fun...
I also think it interesting to note that the used parts I received from
someone else's upgrade...
are newer than anything am currently using!