Choosing O/S HELP; please

Discussion in 'Software' started by stu2u, Nov 7, 2007.

  1. stu2u

    stu2u Private E-2

    I followed the CHOOSE OS GUIDE on my personal p/c with my Windows XP Home Edition and it worked. I was grateful, but then i tried it on my daughters Pentium 4 w/ Windows XP Home ED; and it failed, nothing i know worked on startup. I also tried different harddrives, nothing, i think it did to computer itself. Can someone assist me...... signed;:( father in fear of daughter chewing my azz out.....
     
  2. dlb

    dlb MajorGeek

    First: Welcome to :major MajorGeeks! :major
    Second: I'm not sure I understand exactly what the problem/question is.... I'd like to help, but I have no idea what you're talking about. :confused :eek:
     
  3. plodr

    plodr Major Geek Super Extraordinaire

    You'll have to explain what this is. (website, software, downloaded program?)
     
  4. stu2u

    stu2u Private E-2

    Re: Choosing O/S HELP; please info update

    Thanx 4 the welcome, what i mean is i followed member mcadam's advice he posted on 11/2/07 choosing between o/s's.... as follows...go to START>CONTROL PANEL>SYSTEM>ADVANCED TAB> SETTINGS>(under start up and recovery)>EDIT this presents (boot ini.) then told to pick and choose, then delete one. I did this on my Pentium 3 w/ Window XP Home Edition, it worked.... Then while fixing my daughters p/c, i seen she had 1 o/s installed on top of another, made start up complicated for her, so tried the above on hers system,,, DID NOT WORK !, Now i can't boot up at all, tried different hard drive, still nothing, think it did some thing else. Thanx 4 your reply, hope you can assist,
     
    Last edited: Nov 7, 2007
  5. stu2u

    stu2u Private E-2

    edited original question in post
     
  6. stu2u

    stu2u Private E-2

    edited original post, thanx
     
  7. scott_hayes89

    scott_hayes89 Corporal

    is your bios correct.
     
  8. stu2u

    stu2u Private E-2

    That i don't know, can you assist with that please? Learning from you guys ! Thanx for your reply
     
  9. scott_hayes89

    scott_hayes89 Corporal

    no prolbem helping when i can, make sure your hard drive is set correctly, and when u start up the computer hit delete while booting up and u will see a page opening up..set everything to default first and see what it does..
     
  10. stu2u

    stu2u Private E-2

    got your reply again; gonna log outta here and plug that p/c up, will try your recommendations, will get back to ya, thanx again....
     
  11. theefool

    theefool Geekified

    If the above does not work, then it sounds to me you wiped the incorrect path in the boot.ini file.

    The best way to fix this is using the recovery console.

    source: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/330184
     
  12. sach2

    sach2 Major Geek Extraordinaire

    Not to complicate things but do you get any message when you try to boot on the original HD? The BIOS screen is the quick flash screen that appears when you first start your computer (usually displaying the PC manufacturers name). After the BIOS screen does any message appear? Just a blinking cursor?

    ****
    Scott_hayes, my guess is that he probably deleted the wrong entry in boot.ini so it is now pointing to an invalid Windows folder. The trick would be to create a new boot.ini but I don't know how to do this w/o Windows starting.
     
  13. sach2

    sach2 Major Geek Extraordinaire

    Thanks thefool. I'm copying and pasting those instructions for my archives. :)
     
  14. stu2u

    stu2u Private E-2

    SCOTT; tried what you recommended, only thing i got was black screen with ( no boot device available) typed accross screen, it cannot find hard drive installed, i guess when i picked which operating system to delete, i chose the wrong one, i edited an update to my original post so you guys know exactly what i did, i see you've logged off, so for now i am going to see if i can find install software for this hard drive because i dont have the harddrive install cd for that harddrive, if that is possible....thanx again for your assitance hope to hear from you tomorrow,,,,STU
     
  15. sach2

    sach2 Major Geek Extraordinaire

    Stu, be careful! All your daughter's info is probably still on the original HD. The only thing deleted was a pointer telling your PC where to find the location of the boot up info on the HD. It is fixable without drastic measures. Unfortunately, I don't know exactly how to do it. While waiting for Scott, double check to make sure you don't have the Windows disk for that PC. I think Hiren's boot disk might be a possible solution in this case, but again, I've never actually tried it. I'm just mentioning it so that someone who has tried it maybe can give you some advice.
     
  16. stu2u

    stu2u Private E-2

    I want to thank everyone for their assitance, each one of you guys was a GREAT help in your own ways, i used everyones recommendations collectively which led me in the correct direction ending up @ http:\\support microsoft.com/kb/314477 which gave me 3 different solutions, but not one of the 3 gave me the right solution, but using all 3 of those collectively i was able to solve this problem. Again i want to thank each one of you for your assistance, you were a total blessing.... May each of you have a GREAT DAY....:dood...... LATERZ
     

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