need to restore laptop

I

intensive

New Member
Hi,

I've accidentally erased boot.ini file on my laptop and can not boot now. what tool can be used to recover this erased file? the HDD is internal, formatted in NTFS.
 
just do a windows repair, that should recover the missing file. pop in your windows xp cd, it should boot to windows setup and just press R for repair.
 
Are you sure that's all you did? Windows XP can boot just fine without the boot.ini. I've deleted mine before to correct the boot menu sometimes displayed at the beginning...

But yeah, as AdmnPower said, run the repair option. That should fix it regardless...
 
well a windows repair install shouldn't reformat your hard drive, but you're right you should be careful if you're using the recovery discs included with the computer.
 
Hello,

Windows has a backup of the boot.ini file in the root directory of the Windows partition, named boot.bak. Usually when the boot.ini file goes missing, Windows recovers it using the boot.bak file, which is why sometimes Windows boots successfully after you've erased the boot.ini file manually.

Personally I wouldn't bother doing a Windows XP Repair. Instead, why not just rebuild the boot.ini file using bootcfg /rebuild command in the Windows XP Recovery Console? It's quick and easy to do.

This KB article shows you the steps: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/330184
 
Last edited:
Problem solved at last.. active undelete was able to restore the system.
my system repair cd would rather reinstall windows but also format the whole drive, with all my data, so i didn't used it.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top