Hi,
I get the following error when trying to startup my system:
Invalid BOOT.INI File
Booting from C:/winnt/
NTDETECT Failed
I tried to repair the installation with my win2k pro cd, I tried to install again over the current installation, and I tried putting this drive as a slave and try to backup the files, with no luck. The data is very important to me, months worth of work. Once I get the data extracted I can just format and install the OS again.
Help is much appreciated.
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Take a floppy disk, and from a working system with a similar hardware configuration (drive type, partition), copy boot.ini, ntdetect.com, and ntldr from the root of C to the floppy. Then boot the downed system with this floppy. It should boot if the configs match on the 2 systems. If not, you may need to modify the path in the boot.ini file.
Sometimes it can be difficult to copy files that your system is missing from another PC, using recovery options can also be a bit puzzling
From what you have said, you might just want to connect the duff drive to another system (Any, as long as it is the same file system) and transfer all your stuff on to that PC, then burn it onto a CD. and get a new HD, or format the original and re-install windows, then transfer all your stuff from the cd! *when you are doing this you might want to copy your profile across also, this will save you having to re-configure your environment again.
if nothing else works, such as modifiying the boot.ini file which is what I would try out, try getting a copy of knopixx. Its a Live OS. You just pop in the CD, and you computer will boot up from CD. Not the HD. You will have access to the HD and can safley bakup any information you might need.
Cheers!
http://www.knoppix.org/
DVation191, I would submit to you that if noobie was proficient in using the Recovery console he would not be asking us for advice on what I would call a very basic task for an IT Professional (getting a system that won't boot to boot).
After all said and done, it would be nice for him to come out of this situation with a nice freshly installed O/S and his Data on a cd ready to copy back to his own directory.
*and a valuble lesson regarding Backing up your data can be heeded*
yes i know, i realized i made a huge mistake by procrastinating my backups..
well some good news here, i am currently on knoppix and i am actually typing on my broken machine, although an expert said that my hard drive is about to die.. i am not able to find my stuff though, i found some of it but im not used to the way linux arranges folders/drives, could someone please help me navigate to my stuff?
thanks a bunch
also, how wouldi go about burning my stuff to a cd from linux?
It is actually pretty complicated burn info on a CD from knopixx if you do not have Linux skills and experience. I would recomend one of two ...
Either pop-in another HD and copy over the information or partition the HD and copy the information to the second partition. The second suggestion could be pretty risky specially if the HD is about to fail. In this case I would recomend doing the first.
I also at first thought about suggesting maybe using a USB drive. But knopixx might not thave the correct USB drivers for it and you might not be ablt to use it.
But, basiclly answering your question, all you woul dhave to do is install a CD burning application that runs in linux. Such as ... GEARPro ...
http://www.burnworld.com/s
Now if you want to check out more info on how to use knoppix just go over to:
http://www.knoppix.net/for
Theres alot of info there on how to actually configure everything.
exactly what I thought. Thats why I recomended buying another HD. Your current HD is failing anyways, so your bound to buy another one anyways.
Knoopix will recognize the HD just like it recognizes your current drive. Just make sure you Setup your new HD with the diskette it comes with, since you won't be able to format it through windows ....
So I would basiclly go that way. Get a new drive, pop it in, set it up with the HD installation diskette, and boot into knopixx. and your all done. No special settings or configurations ...
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by: DVation191Posted on 2005-05-26 at 12:11:10ID: 14089139
noobie,
If you boot to the recovery console, you should be able to run bootcfg /rebuild
That should recreate a valid boot.ini file. Let me know how it goes!