boot failure using win xp URGENTLY need help

  • Thread starter Thread starter mdooly
  • Start date Start date
M

mdooly

This may be the wrong group, if it is I apologize. I am
new to XP and have a problem. A computer that has been
working just fine has taken a big crap. This A.M. when I
attempted to boot up it was gracious enough to report to
me that it has a boot failure. It seems as though the unit
thinks the bios has a setting to boot from the CD rom. I
double checked the bios and the first device is a HDD, the
second is a HDD and the last is a CD ROM. Is this an
idication that there is a virus, possibly? What type of
tools should I use to look at the disk. I believe I
understand that a ms dos boot disk will not allow me to
view the disk in anyway because of the file structure, or
so I think I understand. Anyone have any good feedback for
me?
Anything would be appreciated.
Thank you in advance
Respectfully
mdooly
 
XP class computers should be set to boot from a CD/DVD drive
first and a hard drive second.

The XP CD is bootable and can be used to boot the computer
and get into repair tools which are built into the CD.

If your computer file system is FAT32 a MS DOS floppy can
boot to DOS and you can access then hard drive. There are
programs that can be run from a floppy that will allow some
NTFS file access but these are third party programs and are
not part of the normal XP distribution.

Did you get any particular error message? It could be a
virus or it could just be a mechanical or electrical
problem. Hard drives even fail.


| This may be the wrong group, if it is I apologize. I am
| new to XP and have a problem. A computer that has been
| working just fine has taken a big crap. This A.M. when I
| attempted to boot up it was gracious enough to report to
| me that it has a boot failure. It seems as though the unit
| thinks the bios has a setting to boot from the CD rom. I
| double checked the bios and the first device is a HDD, the
| second is a HDD and the last is a CD ROM. Is this an
| idication that there is a virus, possibly? What type of
| tools should I use to look at the disk. I believe I
| understand that a ms dos boot disk will not allow me to
| view the disk in anyway because of the file structure, or
| so I think I understand. Anyone have any good feedback for
| me?
| Anything would be appreciated.
| Thank you in advance
| Respectfully
| mdooly
 
Make a Windows XP/2003 boot disk for your respective OS's.

Format a floppy in GUI mode, dont quick format the machine.
Copy NTLDR, ntdetect.com and boot.ini from the root of C to the floppy
Boot the floppy and if the machine boots, copy those files to the root of
the C drive on the down machine.

This assumes an MBR or boot file problem.
 
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