XP cannot find boot sector after upgrading to SP1a

[kwilliams]

help,
i am loading XP pro on a new machine. the initial
install goes without a hitch, however, when installing
sp1a, after first reboot, machine can not see boot
sector. this is a software issue, i have tried on two
different hard drives and have gotten same problem

 

[Pegasus]

help,
i am loading XP pro on a new machine. the initial
install goes without a hitch, however, when installing
sp1a, after first reboot, machine can not see boot
sector. this is a software issue, i have tried on two
different hard drives and have gotten same problem

- Describe the boot process in detail. How far does it exactly go?
- What exactly is the error message (verbatim, please!)?

 

[Guest]

- Describe the boot process in detail. How far does it
exactly go?

- What exactly is the error message (verbatim, please!)?

single system beep
sees all drives
sees all memory
looks for primary and secondary boot devices (floppy and
CDrom)
"BOOT DISK FAILURE, INSERT SYSTEM DISK AND PRESS ENTER"

this only happens after sp1a is loaded onto the machine
on initial install of XP i can reboot as often as is
necessary

 

[Pegasus]

single system beep
sees all drives
sees all memory
looks for primary and secondary boot devices (floppy and
CDrom)
"BOOT DISK FAILURE, INSERT SYSTEM DISK AND PRESS ENTER"

this only happens after sp1a is loaded onto the machine
on initial install of XP i can reboot as often as is
necessary

Here is a way that should get you going again: by manufacturing a
WinXP boot diskette:

- Format a floppy disk on some other Win2000/XP PC.
Don't do it on a Win9x PC - it won't work.
- Copy these files from the \i386 folder of your WinXP CD
to A:\
ntldr
ntdetect.com
- Create a file a:\boot.ini with these lines
[Boot Loader]
Timeout=3
Default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT
[Operating Systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT="Microsoft Windows XP
Professional" /fastdetect
- Boot the machine with this floppy

And here is what you can do to fix your problem:
- Boot the machine with a Win98 boot disk from www.bootdisk.com
- Run fdisk.exe, then set the WinXP partition to "active".
- Reboot normally. Did it fix the problem?

 

[Hans-Georg Michna]

I've had this on a somewhat older laptop whose BIOS apparently
had problems finding one of the boot files when it got relocated
farther down the disk.

My solution was to create a very small partition (20 MB) at the
very end of the disk, mark it active, and put the boot files
there.

Hans-Georg