Thought I crashed--But I still need help

Turned on the computer this morning and recieved this message:

Strike F1 to retry boot
F2 for setup utility

Went crazy--thought my kid blew up the computer--

as a last resort i put my windows xp reinstall disk in and computer rebooted-Now when i shut down, i need the install disk to restart--anyone got a suggestion??? I am running a Dell with XP-- Everything seems to be working fine--just wont start without the disk

thanx
mailboxman

 

did you delete your original xp instalation and reinstal a fresh copy??

 

It is possible that the ntldr, NTDETECT.COM or boot.ini files are corrupt and it is relying on using these files from the CD.

Solution:

at boot hit F2 several times unitl the system setup screen displays.

Select Advanced CMOS Setup

Select 1st/2nd/3rd/4th Boot Device
Boot Devices in this order: CD-ROM, C:, FLOPPY, NONE

Save Settings and Exit

Now follow the below instructions:

1. Use the Windows XP CD-ROM to restart the computer.

2. At the Welcome to Setup screen, press R to repair the Windows XP installation.

3. Press C to repair the Windows XP installation by using the Recovery Console.

4. Type the number that corresponds to the Windows installation that you want to repair, and then press ENTER. For example, type 1, and then press ENTER.

5. Type the Administrator password, and then press ENTER.

6. Type map, and then press ENTER. Note the drive letter that is assigned to the CD-ROM drive that contains the Windows XP CD-ROM.

7. Type the following commands, pressing ENTER after you type each one, where drive is the drive letter that you typed in step 4 of "Method 2: Use the Recovery Console," of this article:

copy drive:\i386\ntldr c:\​

copy drive:\i386\ntdetect.com c:\​

If you are prompted to overwrite the file, type y, and then press ENTER.

NOTE: In these commands, there is a space between the ntldr and c:\, and between ntdetect.com and c:\.

8. Type the following command, and then press ENTER:

type c:\Boot.ini​

A list similar to the following list appears:

[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS

[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /fastdetect

If you receive the following message, the Boot.ini file may be missing or damaged:

The system cannot find the file or directory specified.​

9. If the Boot.ini file is missing or damaged, create a new one. To do so, follow these steps:

a. Use a text editor, such as Notepad or Edit.com, to create a boot loader file similar to the following boot loader file:​

[boot loader]​

timeout=30​

default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS​

[operating systems]​

multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /fastdetect​

b. Save the file to a floppy disk as Boot.ini.​

c. Type the following command at the Recovery Console command prompt to copy the Boot.ini file from the floppy disk to the computer:​

NOTE: If you used Notepad to create the file, make sure that the .txt extension is not appended to the Boot.ini file name.​

copy a:\Boot.ini c:\​

10. Type exit, and then press ENTER. The computer restarts.

 

WOW--Thats alot of info---and no, i did not reinstall windows, as soon as i put the xp disk in windows came up fine, i didnt lose any information and i didnt need to reinstall---I am not sure what happened, but i just finished running a ms beta full spyware scan and it picked up a trojan---I am running a full AVAST virus scan now and will post what it turns up

hey Shadow puter--if i follow your advice, will it reinstall windows?? will i lose all my info???

thanx

mailboxman

 

No it won't reinstall your system. Just fixes the boot loader. Finish you scans first might fix your problem without following my instructions.