Serious Problem. Help Needed!

[timers]

Ok as I type this I am in my dads room on his Pc. My PC is messed up. Heres what happened. I was customizing my wallpaper, etc, and decided to also customize the bootup backdrop, u know the one with the bar on the bottom that moves. Well I found one I liked, and took these steps. Extracted the archive, copied over a boot01.exe to Windows/System 32. There was also a bios.ini file provided. I went into C:, where mine is, and renamed it to bios.BAK, (to sort of back it up), and then I copied bios.ini over. I then restarted my PC. The bios works fine, it picks up my hds on the raid, then goes on to that verify DMA or whatever, that last black screen u always get, then black, then the boot picture i chose was up, with the bar moving, etc., but the system seemed a little more taxed than usual, the HDD led was full solid red, not letting up. The bootup screen stayed like that with the bar moving for a good 10-15 seconds, and then screen goes black, and it restarts. I went into BIOS, loaded fail safe. Some thing.... I hit F8, and loaded Safemode with command Prompt, it loads all those files, if u know what i mean, and then it restarts(no cmd prompt ever seen).
Heres my logic in how to fix this

Get Into dos prompt
Figure out a way to get all drives to show, meaning "Drive is not valid) will not show up.
Delete boot.ini
rename boot.bak to boot.ini

I would imagine that would clear it up, since nothing was ever changed.
Here on my dads Pc, I created a MS-DOS startup disk, in the floppys format menu, the checkbox there. I used that on my PC, and can get to the Dos prompt fine, but I cannot access C, or D, or E, etc. Only A it seems.

Am I missing something?
My logic above seems like it will work if only I can get the drives to work properly.

I am really pissed at myself right now, because something as stupid as a new boot up screen locked me out of my system, and I feel stupid.

Any help please? Theres no way Im formatting anything. Thats just a fact.

-Jake

 

[underpaid]

What version of windows are you using? If you're using 2k/xp, are you using ntfs?

 

[msulazy]

this *might* work. I've done something similar, but not exactly. put your hdd as a slave on your dad's cpu. boot your dad's cpu to the dos prompt, and go into YOUR hd (which'll be like G:, H:, etc on his machine) and rename your boot.ini. then take your hdd back to your computer, switch your shunt back to master, and run with it. ??? maybe. it beats the hell out of reformatting.

 

[timers]

Im using Windows XP
NTFS filesystem yes

I might try that slave HD method, but I am pretty sure my problem lies in the fact that in the bootcfg, is the Kernel = Boot01.exe.

Basically, nothing will post to desktop. Safemode, etc.

It shows the entire boot logo I stupidly selected with the bar moving and all on the bottom, but then right when its supposed to then show the mouse, and then desktop. I hear the HD restart sound, and boom, restarts itself.

I got into Recovery Console, and was playing around in there.
I ran chkdsk and it fixed some problems it said.
I would try using this method to do what I said above, but you can only work within C:Windows, and its subfolders, no higher. The boot.ini is in C:

I ran fixboot or something like that as well in here, and ran bioscfg multiple times. Scanned, and listed it.
When I list it, it shows me basically that its reading the Kernel from = bios01.exe.
I have the ability to delete that file If I need to, but then Im kinda screwed I guess?
Is there anyway to basicaly look at my dads bios.ini file, and then seem to edit my bios.ini settings to match that?
Is that possible?

Thanks.

 

[msulazy]

I guess it depends on what you want in the end. if you want your new loadup screen, then you'll probably have to keep tinkering with it. if you just want it the way it was, you just need to get any dos prompt (ie slave to your dad's master) and rename your boot.bak to boot.ini. you don't really need to know how his looks because you already have a working boot file in boot.bak. unless I'm missing something ...which I very well may be.

 

[timers]

Well, what is the point of taking my drive out. Can I not get to a normal dosprompt where all my drivers for Harddrives are loaded, and I have access to C:, all of it, not just C:Windows, although I think I am onto something. Using bootcfg, Im just gonna add a new thing to the list, and load that one. I think it will work. Wish me luck.

 

[timers]

I got it fixed.



Im on my PC now.

I ended up doing this
Lost my XP Cd, so I made 6 floppys to get into the System Recovery Wizard deal, by hitting R at the setup. Then I was at C:Windows

I hit bootcfg / list
then bootcfg / rebuild
Then I typed "Microsoft Windows XP Professional"
Then typed "fastdetect"

That added the new boot entry.
Then I simply selected it on bootup and Im in

I deleted the old one and all that bulls*it. Too much of a headache. Im fine with the standard.
But ya, thanks for those ideas though.

Take care.