andsome Posted March 10, 2004 Report Share Posted March 10, 2004 My computer appears to be running absolutely perfectly except for a message, which appears at start up. I have done a system restore to when I know that this message did not appear. I have also remerged a backed up registry. None of these eliminated the message so I ran sfc /scannow. The message is still there on start up.“INVALID BOOT.INI FILEBOOTING FROM C:\WINDOWS\”Does anyone have any suggestions please? In layman’s language.Running XP Home Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
expertec Posted March 10, 2004 Report Share Posted March 10, 2004 Can you find the boot.ini file and copy and paste/post the contents on here? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
expertec Posted March 10, 2004 Report Share Posted March 10, 2004 Run msconfig and see if it can read boot.ini. I've been searching on the net, it seems the way to fix this is to boot off the XP disc and do repair :mellow: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
expertec Posted March 10, 2004 Report Share Posted March 10, 2004 I know you haven't just upgraded but this should help How to rebuild boot.ini Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
andsome Posted March 10, 2004 Author Report Share Posted March 10, 2004 I know you haven't just upgraded but this should help How to rebuild boot.iniThis all appears to be very complicated to me. I do not know how to start up from the CD. I have put the CD in and restarted , but the computer just starts up the same, still showing the error message. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
-pops- Posted March 10, 2004 Report Share Posted March 10, 2004 You may have to change the BIOS to boot from the CD. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nellie2 Posted March 10, 2004 Report Share Posted March 10, 2004 You have to press a key to boot from the CD Rom.... you will be prompted to do that if you watch the screen as it is booting up.Here is another site... the instructions are more or less the same as in expertecs link thoughhttp://www.jsiinc.com/SUBM/tip6100/rh6138.htm Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
andsome Posted March 10, 2004 Author Report Share Posted March 10, 2004 Run msconfig and see if it can read boot.ini. I've been searching on the net, it seems the way to fix this is to boot off the XP disc and do repair :mellow:I cannot find any information Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nellie2 Posted March 10, 2004 Report Share Posted March 10, 2004 andsome what are you stuck on.... do you get the option to 'press any key to boot from CD' when you reboot? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
andsome Posted March 10, 2004 Author Report Share Posted March 10, 2004 You have to press a key to boot from the CD Rom.... you will be prompted to do that if you watch the screen as it is booting up.Here is another site... the instructions are more or less the same as in expertecs link thoughhttp://www.jsiinc.com/SUBM/tip6100/rh6138.htmI have printed this page, and tried to follow the instructions. I don't get any prompts at all. When the error message appears I have pressed the space bar as instructed and get the following message.This menu allows you to select a hardware profile to be used when Windows is started.If your system is not starting correctly, then you may switch to a previous system configuration which may overcome start up problems. IMPORTANT: System configuration changes made since the last successful start up will be disabled.There is a window underneath with the word PROFILE highlighted.. Then underneath the message continues.Use up and down arrow keys to move the highlight to the solution you want then press ENTER. To switch to the last known good configuration press L. To exit this menu and restart your computer press F3.If I press L as instructed, before I can press enter the message changes to . "To switch to default configuration press D"If I ignore this and press enter, the computer restarts. If I press D, then the message suggesting that I press L reappears. In either case pressing ENTER causes the computer to restart. After restart if I again close the computer down and restart I still get the error message.I have NEVER entered the Bios, and wouldn't know where to start.As the computer is running fine except for this error message, should I leave well alone, or will everything foul up one day? Should I alternatively take the computer to the local shop and ask them to fix it?Moving the up and down arrow keys as instructed does absolutely nothing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
andsome Posted March 10, 2004 Author Report Share Posted March 10, 2004 I have even now tried running the CD and selecting to install/upgrade. It got so far and then informed me that the installation could not continue, because the Boot INI file could not be found. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
expertec Posted March 10, 2004 Report Share Posted March 10, 2004 When it first starts booting up does it say something like "press del to enter setup"? Doing this this will get you into the BIOS, look at the top of the screen and see if it says "Award bios" or "American Megatrends Inc." or something like that, then exit the BIOS by pressing Esc, if it asks you if you want to quit without saving say yes (probably if it asks this you just type Y and press enter), reboot and post back the BIOS type so someone can give you instructions to set it to boot from CD Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
andsome Posted March 10, 2004 Author Report Share Posted March 10, 2004 This shows up without pressing DELAward V6.00PG Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
expertec Posted March 10, 2004 Report Share Posted March 10, 2004 Press del to enter setup, use the arrow keys to select "BIOS features setup" press enter. Then scroll down to "boot sequence" use the Page Up/Down or the -/+ to modify it untill CD comes first e.g. CDROM,A,C,SCSI, press esc to go back to the main BIOS screen, then press F10 to save settings and exit, it will ask you to confirm this so press Y and then enter Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
expertec Posted March 10, 2004 Report Share Posted March 10, 2004 After that if you reboot with the Windows XP CD in the drive, it will run will run setup so you can do the rebuilding boot.ini Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
andsome Posted March 10, 2004 Author Report Share Posted March 10, 2004 I got the blue screen. There was no entry on there which said Bios features setup. So I scrolled down to Advanced Bios Features, and pressed enter. There were entries for start ups, one of which was 'Third boot device CD ROM'. I selected this and another smaller window came up with the same things on it. If I selected CD ROM again, it reverted to the previous window. So I tried again and selected 'Third Boot Device CD ROM' and pressed enter. On the right hand side of the screen is a message which says. MENU LEVELSet the priority level of the boot devices. NOTE: If ATA Raid is selected as a boot device, SCS can not be a boot device and Vice Versa.I just pressed enter then escape, then F10, then Y enter. The computer just booted up normally still displaying the error message. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
andsome Posted March 10, 2004 Author Report Share Posted March 10, 2004 I will have to leave this for today. Maybe someone will tell me what I am doing wrong when I try to get the computer to boot up with CD. (Please) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest ellas Posted March 10, 2004 Report Share Posted March 10, 2004 http://www.phoenix.com/en/customer+service...s/bios+faq/#Q24 If the CMOS setup is not properly setup the computer may ignore or not look at the CD-ROM as a bootable option. Verify in the CMOS that your settings are properly set to boot from the CD-ROM drive.Generally these settings will be under the boot options. You should have setup so the computer looks at the following options when booting:1 - Floppy / LS1202 - CD-ROM3 - Network (if available)4 - Hard Disk Driveas long as the cdrom is before the harddrive it will boot from a cd. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
expertec Posted March 10, 2004 Report Share Posted March 10, 2004 What you need to do is set First boot device to CDROM, Second Boot Device: floppy and Third Boot Device: HDD Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bvw Posted March 10, 2004 Report Share Posted March 10, 2004 [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 Home Edition" /fastdetectIf you copy the above into notepad and then save it in C:\(nowhere else andsome, just double click My Computer and then double click Boot C ..that's where it has to go).Shut down, not restart, shutdown.Reboot and it should solve your problem. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris Posted March 10, 2004 Report Share Posted March 10, 2004 TUT TUT! How to boot from the CDSearch for boot.iniIs it found? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
andsome Posted March 11, 2004 Author Report Share Posted March 11, 2004 TUT TUT! How to boot from the CDSearch for boot.iniIs it found?My Bios is Award V6.00PG . The screen is not quite like yours. When I scroll down and open Advanced bios the CD ROM is listed as third boot option. I cannot see how to make this the first. All attempts just fail. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
andsome Posted March 11, 2004 Author Report Share Posted March 11, 2004 At last I managed to get the computer to start with CD. Infortunately I got as far as it asking what I wanted to repair, but I then got lost again. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
expertec Posted March 11, 2004 Report Share Posted March 11, 2004 Is there a first boot option set to Hard disk? If there is you need to set that option to CDROM and set one of the others to hard diskHave you tried what bvw suggested? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
andsome Posted March 11, 2004 Author Report Share Posted March 11, 2004 Is there a first boot option set to Hard disk? If there is you need to set that option to CDROM and set one of the others to hard diskHave you tried what bvw suggested?Got as far as starting with CD. Got to press R for recovery console it would then go no further. It wanted to know which Windows install I wanted to log onto. There was no where to enter anything. Tried again and entered setup, and it offered to reinstall Windows. I cannot find anything to do with recovering the lost file. As I have said the computer having told me that the Boot.INI file is invalid, it goes on to boot up in Windows. Obviously though I would prefer it if everything was normal.Tried what bvw suggested and nothing appeared to saveI can do no more now until tomorrow morning Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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