Boot.ini / Boot Prompt / 2nd Install
Jun 19, 2005
A customer gave me an xp laptop that was horribly ridden with viruses spyware etc. Apparently, she had tried to fix it herself with the restore disk. I see two instances of xp at the boot prompt and one of the installs ask for activation. She must have chose the "install windows on the existing installation" option.
I cleaned out the original install, updated it, and it runs fine now.I figured I would just let the second install sit where it is and edit the boot.ini to allow just the original instance of the os at the boot prompt. However, rather than just presenting one option, it presents "Windows XP" and "windows default" options. Certainly I didn't put windows default in the ini file. I suspect the windows written mbr is picking up on the second install.
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Sep 1, 2008
I have windows XP Home installed on the computer. It will show the micropc page, go into the safe mode/normal mode/last good settings/boot with command prompt/ boot with networking screen, and no matter what you choose, it just resets again and ends up at the same screen..
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May 30, 2010
When I try to boot my computer, it runs through the "Windows Loading" screen with the progress bar. Then it comes to a prompt screen informing me that Windows could not be loaded and it gives me options that I must choose from.1. Boot in Safe Mode
2. Boot in Safe Mode with Networking 3. Boot in Safe Mode with Command Prompt
-Boot with last known configuration that worked -Boot Windows Normally
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Sep 6, 2006
I just upgraded my system a couple days ago and have been having several issues. First, Vista wouldn't recognize my onboard sound and LAN from a fresh install No available drivers, go figure. So, I had to install two copies of Win XP SP2, and then upgrade one of them to Vista. A pain, but the only way I could get everything to work properly.
I got everything where I wanted it, life is good. Then I'm booting into Win XP and I have two identically named Win XP OS's in the bootup screen. So as not to confuse my wife, I went into the Startup and Recovery options menu (Again this is in XP) and deleted, what I thought, was the XP I used as an upgrade to Vista. Turns out I got the wrong one. Now I can't boot to XP, but Vista is working fine. Basically, when I choose "Earlier Versions of Windows" I get HD activity for a moment, but then everything seems to halt. No responce from the keyboard, so I have to do a Hard Re-Boot.
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Jan 2, 2006
I was messing around with Ubuntu Linux and it installed GRUB on the master boot record and I want it gone. I was told to type 'fdisk /mbr' in MSDOS mode to get rid of GRUB. I dont know how do get into MSDOS mode.. command prompt doesnt work.
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May 21, 2010
I have done some searching and it seems that other people who have had this problem, have been installing ubuntu. I havn't managed to come to a solution. I installed XP(1) onto drive 1 , then reorganised all of my partitions to be in the correct order with the correct labels (I have been having a nightmare with volumue labels being incorrect!). Anyways got all the partitions exactly how I want them using partition manager (i.e XP(1) on C: with the intention to install XP(2) on D. Rebooted machine, pressed a key to boot from CD, it says 'setup is inspecting your current configuration' and then the screen stays black (I have to reset the machine). I turned off the computer and dissconnected drive 2 (int.) and drive 3 (ext.). Problem still exists.
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May 21, 2010
I installed XP(1) onto drive 1 , then reorganised all of my partitions to be in the correct order with the correct labels (I have been having a nightmare with volumue labels being incorrect!). Anyway got all the partitions exactly how I want them using partition manager (i.e XP(1) on C: with the intention to install XP(2) on D. Rebooted machine, pressed a key to boot from CD, it says 'setup is inspecting your current configuration' and then the screen stays black (I have to reset the machine). I turned off the computer and dissconnected drive 2 (int.) and drive 3 (ext.). Problem still exists. How do I boot to the blue setup screen for my second copy of XP?
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Nov 11, 2006
I am unable to boot my PC most of the times.Whenever I switch on my PC,I see the following message nine ot of ten times. DiskError/Boot Faliure Reboot and select proper boot device or insert Boot media in selected boot device If I press enter after this messages & keep pressing following messages appear from time to time (Not simultaneously). If just after making the switch on, I press F2 key to check the boot device preference
If just after making the switch on , I press f11 key to reach the boot menu I always find the 1.44 MB Floppy option highlighted as the booting choice.(though there had not been any floppy in the floppy drive, I dont have any really)I make the hard disk option highlighted & it solves the problem only a few times. But next time when I try F11 key to check the boot menu again I find 1.44 MB floppy highlighted.
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Dec 17, 2007
I haven't installed anything new on my computer but today after having my computer shipped to me via UPS I cut on my computer and where the XP load bar screen was I got: "reboot and select proper boot device or insert boot media in selected boot device".Seeing this I knew I went into the BIOS setup and tried to turn the system priority to look at the HDD. Instead I only had the option of the DVD drive and the CD drive.I have no idea how to solve this problem and don't have any of the recovery CD's. I DO NOT WANT TO REFORMAT because like a bad little boy I did not backup my 4 years worth of work.
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Sep 25, 2007
I have just installed a fresh copy of windows XP sp2 on 2 machines. Both Dell Optiplex desktops. Usually it prompts that it has found new hardware for each device it hasn't found drivers for. Device manager lists them with a yellow exclamation icon.Problem I have now though is that the fresh install of XP does not show these prompt at all, although device manager lists them and if i go in there and update driver the device works.The problem I have is that basically i usually copy a driver heirarchy to the systemdrive and point the registry at them, which results in automatic installation on boot. This no longer works and I assume they are related as it doesn't look like it's automatically trying to install these devices.Is there a setting somewhere, seems very strange, what with it being a fresh install?
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Jan 3, 2009
On New Years eve my PC was working correctly. It detected a Windows Update which was SP3 and I installed it. It then stated that 'in order to take effect it need to reboot', which i did.It shut down as normal but when it starts back up it goes in to a loop. There is a beep from the machine as the screen flickers in to life. The screen then shows it is attempting to start up and I can see the options to enter F8=Boot Opt F12=Set Up Esc=Skip Mem Test. It then shows it is detecting Pri Master, Pri Slave, Sec Master, Sec Slave (i think that is correct), or you could say it is seeing the HDD and CD ROM.At this point it restart and does the same boot sequence over and over again. I have had a look at the time in BIOS and that is fine. I have tried to boot from the Windows disk. When I boot from the Windows disk it gets to the point where it says 'press any key to boot from CD', at this point the keyboard is frozen, can't even turn number lock on or off.
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Nov 4, 2007
Alright, just finished putting together my computer, and I get to installing Windows. "Press any key to boot from CD" I do, then setup continues,etc. After the initial setup, it reboots (as it tells me it will). It then gets past the Logo for my motherboard and everything, and gets to "Press any key to boot from CD", now from what Ive read, Im not supposed to press any key, so that it can boot from the Hard Drive. But Ive been waiting here for many minutes, and it will not load. Ive reinstalled Windows multiple times (deleting the old partitions and redoing everything) and it still will not boot XP for the rest of the installation. Help!
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Mar 4, 2008
Recently I have installed a new motherboard, processor and ram. I have tried to reinstall XP from the CD rom which works, but on reboot to finish instilation the hard drive does not boot what so ever. I transferd my hard drive to my old computer and it boots just fine, does anyone know what could be the issue?
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Dec 30, 2007
Approx. 3 weeks ago my Toshiba A60 failed to boot. I have used several tools to try to recover the drive but it currently fails to boot or reinstall XP and I would appreciate your advice as to next steps. The problem started after the computer failed to boot one day. I had not noticed any particularly odd noises etc from the HD although it had always been a noisy PC (suspect the fan - it always felt a bit hot). On trying to boot into XP it simply hung. On trying to boot into the DOS prompt it would list the drivers, stop at atisgkaf.sys and then hang. (I understand that atisgkaf.sys may not be driver causing the problem.) I tried reinstalling XP to the C: drive but same result. (Programs are on C:. Data is on D:.)
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Jul 18, 2005
I just got done putting together my new computer, and now i am running into a problem installing windows. it starts the whole windows installation, does the formatting and copies the stuff into memory, but when it tries to restart and begin the windows installation process, it wont boot to the HD. I just keeps trying to boot to cd, even i i set HD as first boot, it will still boot from CD and begin the windows formatting part of the installation all over again. If i take the cd out, it will just sit there at "Booting from CD" and do nothing. There are 4 sata connectors (im using 1 sata HD) and i have tried all 4. Btw, this is my first time working with SATA.
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Feb 28, 2005
I am having problems with a new install of windows XP pro on a fresh HD/new computer. The systemboots OK from the CD and the O/S formatted the HD (137 gig only but I know this problem can be fixed with SP1...)and installed XP, but at the first re-boot (before the XP GUI setup) it would not boot from the HD and re-booted from the CD. i have been round this loop 3 or 4 times already with no luck - I've tried every configuration of Booting in BIOS setup. I tried XP recovery console but could find any way to fix this.
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Aug 26, 2008
After installing SR3 Win xp Prof will not boot. I had gotten a partial boot but as Win xp installs the system resets. I have tried a repair with the OS CD using the "R" option, but receive the message: "The system does not appear to have a Control set key.The system registry key may be damaged." I also have gotten the message: "Windows could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt windowssystem32configsystem " I hope I do not need to do a complete system reinstall with all my apps and drivers
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May 19, 2006
My system has been acting up for a while. I can not log to the net nor do much with out one error or another popping up. I did reinstallation of windows (xp-pro sp2) still did not solve the problem. I then partition the HD and install powerquest partitionmagic, and tried to delete the old partition after reformatting it has failed. I also change the format from FAT32 to NTFS. The whole operation went fine until when the system tried to reboot. All I have after then was a black screen.I then tried installing the xp after changing the BIOS to boot from the CD. The system then start booting from the CD, then my problem start because I have no clue on DOS commandsThe next thing that appears on the screen is:- The IBM Personal System/2 mouse Program.
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Jan 25, 2005
I'm having problems with my computer and I need some help desparately. My machine is basically unuseable, and I need to get it back up and running as soon as possible, so any helpful input would be greatly appreciated. Appologies in advance if I'm a bit verbose, but I want to be as clear as possible.I'll start off by mentioning that not all of the info in this story might be relevant, and that I'm just telling it in the event that it could be. A short time ago I bought 512 MBs of RAM and installed it, and it seemed to work fine. Also around that time, presumably through running a registry cleaning utility or something, I'd accidentally disabled a lot of Windows XP tools like Defrag or the Search function in Windows Explorer (some necessary files were missing in the System32 folder).
Shortly after this (lets say 2 days) I decided it was about time I reformat my computer, or rather, start a new XP install on a 200gb HD I'd bought some time earlier but never really used. However, this HD had two FAT partitions on it with a Win98 install, so I run Partition Magic to repartition/reformat it into a single NTFS partition - however PM seemed to have trouble with this - though when I checked it later on a friend's computer with the Windows Scandisk, it was ok. Anyway, shortly after this point, Windows starts acting all screwy. I mean resetting without warning, left and right. It had always done this once every few days, and I never found a cause so I learned to live with it, but now it was doing it after 10 minutes of running XP.
That was all background information that may not be relevant - now moving on the the actual problem. Removing all HDs but the 200gigger, I try installing XP on it (with the intention of partitioning/reformatting it using the installer instead of Partition Magic). However, the install does not get past the initial stage with the blue screen, freezing at a line saying "Starting windows..." or something to that effect, after it'd scanned my comp. I try this several times, no dice, freezes at the same point.
Not having any ideas, I put back in my old 80GB XP HD. It refuses to boot. It gets to the point just before it shows the XP loading screen with the icon and freezes (I believe it's a horizontal bar of ascii blocks). So, I decide maybe to try installing XP on the 200GB using a friend's comp, and do so with much success (also reformatted and Scandisked it with no issues btw) - it boots fine on his comp and I was very much happy. I bring it home, and lo and behold, it won't boot - it gets to that same damn ascii loading bar. If I skip out on it with a reset, I do get the "Hey dude Windows couldn't load, do you want to start in safe mode or something?" sort of message, and nothing on that works. When I start in safe mode, it counts down to a file called pud.inf, or something like that (I'm writing this at work right now for obvious reasons, so I can't check it) - I'm assuming that's the last file safe mode loads up before running Windows. Basically, I can get to whatever is exactly before showing the graphical XP loading screen with the Windows logo - all my computer ever displays is made out of ascii text, no graphics of any kind other than the motherboard splash screen on bootup. The problem is probably with my computer and probably not the HDs, but what it is and how to fix it is beyound my understanding.
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Aug 17, 2005
This makes about the 6th time I have done the install. When it boots, it hangs for between 10 and 30 minutes at the XP splash screen. The blue bar just goes back and forth but nothing happens like forever. I had tried to replace my HDD as well with an WD SATA 320G HDD, but the bios won't detect it. I tried installing a 40G HDD that had 27G of free space on it. I had been using it as a secondary until my primary went TU last week. I kept running into the problem of it hanging on installation. It would get to the point where it was installing drivers and just stop.
Due to problems that I have been having I went out and bought a new motherboard. I am now running a 1.8G Pentium 4 on an Asis 848P motherboard with 512M DDR Ram. I removed both the 40G HDD and the SATA drive from the system. They are no longer attached. I took a 13G HDD that I had removed to put in a bigger HDD and decided to use it.I did a clean install on the 13G HDD. I formatted it during the installation. Because of the other problems, the only devices that I have connected is the video card, an ATI Raedon 7500, the HDD, keyboard and mouse.The blasted thing still hangs on booting! Because I wanted to know if it happened I activated boot logging and this is what I got.
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Dec 26, 2009
I am trying to get XP installed onto my old computer.I can boot into UBUNTU Live CD.When the XP CD starts to boot and I get the "press any key to boot from CD". When I press a key, the screen goes black and just sits there.I have tried to burning a new disk and even tried XP 64 bit instead.
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Aug 2, 2005
A storm knocked out my hard drive (through a surge protector). Dell sent me a replacement and I installed Windows XP on it. I hooked up my old hard drive to try to rescue stuff and, for a few hours, was able to see the corrupted old hard drive because, at one point during the evening among many reboots, the system did a diagnostic on the drive where it repaired sectors and index files, etc. Eventually I could not see the hard drive any more and I don't know how to get these diagnostics to run again since the drive is not even recognized as being there.
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Mar 27, 2010
Bought a new copy of XP with service pac 3 to put on a p4 with a western digital 300 gig hd. I came back to check to see if the formatting was complete and I had the message "a disk read error has occurred press ctl+alt+del to restart".And when I tell it to boot from cdrom xp disk, it starts "setup is imspecting your computer's hardware configuration" and the screen goes blank after a few seconds and it stops doing anything. I'm afraid the mistake I made was deleting the boot sector partition.
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Apr 27, 2007
I have recently cloned a drive containing an old win 95 installation to a new PC- reason being i need to retain an old MS DOS database program (service records for my firm). I want to install XP home in dual boot mode so that I can run current software/internet on the same rig...I've done it with Me before no probs...can it be done with Win 95?Also on the same hard drive is another data partition; can I have dual boot with additional FAT32 data partition i.e 3 partitions, two fat 32, one NTFS one of the fat 32 is bootable?
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Sep 25, 2007
I have a notebook computer which the hard drive is dodgy in.I have restored to the HD and after a while it Windows XP corrupted again. I don't want to spend any money on it but I would like to keep using the computer so I looked at swapping the HD with another HD (from a USB case) but one was SATA and the other PATA.So the only option left (short of spending money) is installing and booting from the USB drive? Is this possible?
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Aug 18, 2005
My C: drive crashed and I used that excuse to buy a WD3200 320G SATA drive. My old MB wouldn't support the SATA so I bought a ECS 848P-A and a 512M DDR memory.I tried a new install of XP (Home) onto a 40G drive as primary which had 27G free space. It would only install to the point where the screen was saying installing devices and there was 33 min left on the install. At that point it would stop. The little bar on the lower right would freeze. I left it like this for over 30 min to see if it would clear, it never did. I figured that there might be a problem with stuff on the drive so I removed it and installed a 13G that I had laying around. I formatted it during the install so it should have been clean. It would install and ran until I installed the motherboard and video card drivers. When it went to reboot it would quit. It would go to the XP splash screen and stop. The blue bar would keep cycling but it would never proceed.
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Apr 18, 2006
I have wanted a new PC for so long, almost 8 years since my last IBM desktop
Well my last child is a smarty and she got a ("full boot") paid scholarship to college for upcoming Sept. So wife said go ahead, I bought a Dell, the PC desktop I have always wanted. Now my question, I have had the Dimension E-510 for about a month, I love it, really, from day I took it out of box just perfect! It has XP's Media OS on it. It also has so much "junk" I'm wondering if I should do a Clean Install of the OS. I bought the Operating System on a CD when I purchased the PC. Am I nuts or should I just leave well enough alone? I didn't get a Floopy drive so I guess I would just Boot with the OS CD in it.
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Apr 2, 2005
My company was messed up so I decided to clean reinstall xp pro, my hard drive was split into 3 partition, C, E backup and L photos and bits, at the point of the install were you decide,delete our make partitions, I decided to delete L as it was not needed and clean install onto C, leaving E with my docs and data
The install went fine, when I looked at my drives in admin tools the C is marked boot and E system, I was going to delete E and make new partitions, but because it marked as system, can not delete it.How did I do this and is there away to put it all back onto C, without reformatting
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Dec 1, 2008
how to boot from CD on a Travel mate 2410 so I can install a fresh copy of Win XP, the problem is Ive changed / unchecked some of the start up settings in MS Config, re-booted and now the laptop loads with missing files such as: winlogon, dlls missing etc, then re-sets, Ive tried safemode but still show missing start-up files, F2 for (Phoenix Recovery Bios Utility) but dont know the password, tried comos, phoenix, 000000 and bios as the password but with no luck.
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Oct 15, 2008
My brother got a virus and ended up deleting too many files. His computer wont boot except in safe mode and is completely useless, becuase his anti-virus deleted everything. He go the computer from a friend but didn't recieve a copy of the xp install CD. I have been trying to install xp using an ISO burned onto a CD but so far I have waisted 4 CDs becuase the ISO were just Service pack 2 updates and not the install version. Does anyone have a link to an install ISO or something similar that will allow me create a Install Disc.
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Apr 17, 2007
Couple of days ago I installed sp2 from an old magazine CD and the installation failed for some reason. Did system restore and had another go today. Went to download sp2 from MS site and had to install 61 updates for SP1 first. all ok so far. Then downloaded sp2 and apparently succeeded but once again - as before- the machine fails to boot.Initial windows flash screen runs for a few seconds then reboots. "windows failed to load" message" appears. Choose safemode and it runs ok. Disable loads of hardware in device manager..still no luck. Ran msconfig and tried "diadnostic mode" loading only basic drivers and services. No change.
So decided to use "sytem restore" to at least get it running again but all the system restore points have gone http://images.techguy.org/smilies/eek.gif
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