How to Restore Boot Files

Restoring boot files in Windows is an easy task as long as you've created a backup disk. There are only four important files to boot the computer to Windows, so storing a backup on another hard drive or floppy disk saves a lot of time and hassle when restoring the boot records. Restoring boot records from a backup only takes a few steps.

Things You'll Need

• Floppy disk
• Boot record backup

Instructions

1. Copy the boot files to a floppy disk. If you do not have a backup of the boot files, you can use another computer's boot files, but the boot.ini file must be edited. The following list is the boot files that are needed.
   Ntldr
   Ntdetect.com
   Boot.ini
   Ntbootdd.sys

2. Modify the boot.ini file. This step ensures that the location in the boot.ini file points to the hard drive with the operating system. If you are restoring from a backup, then the boot.ini file should already have the proper location. If you've used another computer, the following line of code is an example of the text needed to point to the local disk drive for Windows 2000. Replace the description text with the name of your operating system, and replace the "WINNT" directory with the location of your operating system files.
   [boot loader]
   timeout=30
   default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT
   [operating systems]
   multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT="Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional" /fastdetect

3. Insert the floppy disk into the computer and reboot the machine. The computer picks up the floppy disk as the bootable device and loads the operating system.

4. Copy the floppy disk files to the bootable drive of the computer. For most people, this is the "C" drive.

5. Remove the floppy disk from the computer and reboot the computer. The hard drive uses the newly copied bootable files to load the Windows operating system.

References

• Microsoft