How can i edit the boot.ini file when it isnt even there?

[erik5104]

i partioned a 30 gb drive on a win2k box using disk management under computer management in the administrative tools folder. i did something where it told me i had to edit the boot.ini file and change the entry for first physical disk from 0 to 1, or from 1 to 0....one of those two...however i did a full system search on the computer and i cannot locate the boot.ini file. The computer has since been restarted and comes up with "Operating System not found" when it tries to load windows. Any help would be greatly appreciated :-D

 

[erik5104]

*by the way:* the 30 gb drive is a slave drive, not a master/stand alone drive.

 

[MattWray]

The boot.ini is a protected system file and you need to check in folder otions to view protected system files to find it. As for your OS not found.. You can no longer boot at all? I'm a little confused as to what you were talking about with the slave part.. Matt Wray
CCNA, MCP
mwray77518@yahoo.com

 

[VMWiseGuy]

Since you moved the Win2K partition, that would cause Win2K to ask you to change the BOOT.INI info to match where the Win2K data is now located. -Was- the drive the master before you started?

Is your HD formatted NTFS or FAT32? SCSI or IDE? If FAT32, boot from floppy and have ATTRIB.EXE handy along with a file editor. BOOT.INI is hidden, a system file, and read-only.

ATTRIB is handy for finding _any_ file: ATTRIB BOOT.INI will list the file for you:

attrib boot.ini
SHR C:\BOOT.INI

ATTRIB BOOT.INI -s -h -r will set the file so you can see and edit it. Make a backup copy of the file first, edit it and change the info as needed.

I will assume you have the following in the boot.ini:

[boot loader]
timeout=10
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(1)\WINNT
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(1)\WINNT="Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional" /fastdetect

rdisk(1)- slave drive; partition(1) - first partition on slave drive.

If Win2K is now the second partition on the slave drive, change the partition(1) to partition(2) on both lines or to match where the Win2K partition is now located on the slave drive. JSV