hot restart?

[bikemadgrandad]

We are sometimes told "please reboot your computer" If I do this by closing down and then switching on again (a cold boot) all is fine, BUT if I do this by clicking restart (a hot boot), the computer shuts down tries to switch on again and after being given the option to go into bios the screen goes black and the message "error loading operating system" appears.

If I now cut the power and switch on again it boots up fine.

Windows XP sp3-Asrock k7s41 motherboard.

What is going on?

[bikemadgrandad]

We are sometimes told "please reboot your computer" If I do this by closing down and then switching on again (a cold boot) all is fine, BUT if I do this by clicking restart (a hot boot), the computer shuts down tries to switch on again and after being given the option to go into bios the screen goes black and the message "error loading operating system" appears.

If I now cut the power and switch on again it boots up fine.

Windows XP sp3-Asrock k7s41 motherboard.

What is going on?

I think I have found the problem!!

In my 'C' drive the OS folder is "WINDOWS.0" and the boot.ini file refers to "WINDOWS.0" so on cold start the computer boots up OK but on a Hot Restart I guess that the system will look in the 'C' drive for a folder "WINDOWS" does not find it and so gives the message "error loading operating system"

I have tried to rename the folder but am prevented from doing so although I could edit the boot.ini file.

Can the WINDOWS.0 folder be renamed to WINDOWS and if so, how?

[Alan2273]

How many entries are in your boot.ini, there should only be one, mine looks like this,

[boot loader]

timeout=15

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

[operating systems]

multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition" /noexecute=optin /fastdetect

If you need to edit the boot ini, below is how to do it but make sure you delete the right entry

Right-click My Computer, and then click Properties.

-or-

Click Start, click Run, type sysdm.cpl, and then click OK.

2. On the Advanced tab, click Settings under Startup and Recovery.

3. Under System Startup, click Edit.

[bikemadgrandad]

Thanks Alan, I can edit the boot.ini but what I need is to rename "WINDOWS.0" on my C drive to WINDOWS and because this is a system file, Windows will not let me rename this file.

Any more ideas. thanks again.

[Hb_Kai]

Windows doesn't allow the editting of some file and folder names because it is needed as priority to keep them as they are.

If you go renaming the file the boot.ini will be referring to a non-existent file.

Use the chkdsk to search your drive for errors and there should be some come up but don't do it in read-only mode or it won't solve the problems.

Or you can use a registry scanner which may find some things wrong.

Or if you've got a back-up of your boot files then re-install all that, or maybe MS will have the ones you need to download from their site.

(I've not been on their website in years! :S)