How to Recover a Boot Partition

The boot partition in Windows consists of a few files that are used to load the operating system. When the boot partition becomes corrupted or the files are accidentally deleted, the computer may show an error in DOS and the operating system will not load. The best way to recover a boot partition is using the Recovery Console available through the Windows installation CDROM.

Instructions

1. Insert the Windows installation CDROM into your computer. Restart your computer and the machine will boot using the CDROM. A screen is shown in DOS that has several options, including a full installation choice. Since you only want to repair the boot files, press the "R" button to start the Recovery Console.

2. Press the "1" button on the keyboard to start the repair of the primary operating system. If you have several versions of Windows installed, press the number that corresponds to the operating system version. For most people, there is only one version of Windows installed, so "1" is only displayed.

3. Enter the username and password for the administrator. This is the password that was set up when you first installed Windows. Once the password is entered, a screen to a DOS prompt appears.

4. Type the following commands into the DOS command prompt to copy the boot files over to the hard drive:
   copy <cdrom_drive>:\i386\ntldr c:\
   copy <cdrom_drive>:\i386\ntdetect.com c:\

   Replace "<cdrom_drive>" with the drive letter of the CDROM drive.

5. Replace the boot.ini file if necessary. This step is only required if the boot.ini file is corrupted. It's a necessary boot file, but it is not always corrupted or missing along with the others. Type "type" into the DOS command prompt to open an editor to create a new file. The following is an example of a boot file code syntax:
   [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 XP" /fastdetect

   Save this file to the C drive and ensure that it's named "boot.ini".

6. Reboot the computer. Once these files have been restored, remove the CDROM and boot the computer. The operating system will now load normally.

References

• Microsoft