Re: Boot.ini file help

Tech-Archive recommends: Fix windows errors by optimizing your registry

M.I.5¾ wrote:

"Mark F." <reply2group@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message news:468a6ab1$0$30594$4c368faf@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

M.I.5¾ wrote:

"Patrick Keenan" <test@xxxxxxxx> wrote in message news:%23m6p9nNvHHA.4736@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

"lonerlette" <lonerlette@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message news:06AE743D-BA6B-40E5-8AB7-C2056F08D089@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Boot.ini file was deleted from my laptop, I have no xp disk so don't bother
with that suggestion.

Why not? You can borrow any bootable XP CD to run bootcfg /rebuild from the Recovery Console.


Though generally true, it is not universally true. Some manufacturers customise the windows to such an extent that generic windows disks won't work. HP is an example that immediately springs to mind. Many HP models won't even boot from a generic windows CD and have to have a dedicated recovery disk.

Many of those affected machines will be rendered non bootable if you just try to do an error check on the system disk. This is because windows immediately re-writes the Master Boot Record to make the machine boot into a DOS based disk check - the generic MBR used not being valid for the PC. If you succeed in replacing the MBR from the HP recovery disk, Scandisk runs and then craps the PC again as Windows then replaces the MBR with the generic windows MBR which is, again, invalid.


I'm 99.9 percent sure that chkdsk does not write the MBR. That is done using "fixmbr". Also Scandisk is not available in Windows XP.



chkdsk does not nomally re-write the MBR. But if you try to check the Windows system drive (usually C:) or the drive that the swap file is on (if different), this cannot be done while Windows is running. Hence chkdsk writes an MBR that causes (or should cause) the machine to boot into a DOS mode; reboots the machine and runs scandisk. It then reverses the procedure once scandisk has done its stuff.

It doesn't touch the MBR at all, it simply writes an entry to the BootExecute value in the registry, in turn this entry is read when the computer boots and chkdsk will run if the entry contains instructions telling it to do so.

http://search.microsoft.com/results.aspx?q=chkdsk+BootExecute&qsc0=0&SearchBtn0=Search&FORM=QBME1&l=1&mkt=en-US&PageType=99

John
.

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