Spring Cleaning the Lappy
Ardea — Mon, 04/28/2008 - 18:02
I am a really bad IT person... basically I have lost faith in all Antivirus, and Spyware removal applications. Instead of protecting I created a golden image of my computers once every 2months or so I backup any files I want to keep and restore the image (basically making it new again).
So I decided today was the day for cleaning... slow day at work. Backed up my files (wow interface and wtf) and started the restore. Early in the process the restore failed and to shorten the story, my really nice hard drive is now an ugly paperweight.
I am guessing that the boot.ini was wiped since the laptop dose not see it anymore. The HDD Self test in the BIOS failed to see it either.
Funtimes... this is why I have a ton of computers and get the warranties.
My first assesment was
Ardea — Tue, 04/29/2008 - 11:38My first assesment was wrong... It has been a long time since I had to deal with PC components. Unfortunately the BIOS cannot/ does not detect the hard drive. Without the BIOS seeing it I am pretty screwd... well until I get a new HD from HP tomorrow.
I believe my drive was in the process of dying and reimaging it just pushed it over the edge.
Boot.ini can be fixed but...
You have a recovery disk or
tweaks — Tue, 04/29/2008 - 08:42You have a recovery disk or windows disk? you could prolly repair using that to get your boot ini file back. If you have either you will need its product key. Also don't worry, this should still have all your progrrams intact.
1. Insert the Windows XP CD into your computer's CD-ROM drive or DVD-ROM
drive.
2. Restart your computer. If you have to, change the BIOS settings to start
from
the CD-ROM drive or DVD-ROM drive, and then restart your computer again.
3. At the "Welcome to Setup" page, press ENTER.
4. Press F8 to accept the Licensing Agreement.
5. Use the arrow keys to select the installation of Windows XP that you want
to
repair, and then press R to start the automatic repair process.
6. When Setup is completed, activate Windows XP.
That should work if your .ini file is missing.