On Sat, 3 Dec 2005 14:51:09 -0000, "John Barnett MVP"
<freelanceit@mvps.org.NOSPAM> wrote:

>Geezer, visit my website http://xphelpandsupport.mvps.org Click the Win XP
>Faq button and take a look at question 10 'How do i create an emergency
>start up disk for XP' You will need a floppy disk for this. Once you have
>created the floppy disk reboot your computer with the floppy in the floppy
>drive. If all goes well you should be able to boot to the windows desktop.
>If the emergency floppy has booted to the desktop then go to Windows
>explorer and click on the floppy drive. The contents of the floppy disk will
>become visible (you must have 'show hidden files and folder, etc enabled
>otherwise you will not be bale to see the boot.ini file (see question 11 on
>my site). Now copy the contents - boot.ini. NTDetect, NTLDR from the floppy
>to your C: drive and then reboot again. Hopefully, assuming the floppy
>worked, this should repair the problem and you should be able to boot as
>normal.


Thanks
You sound very knowledgable and your site is one to keep accessible on
this end.

I tried what it says to do, which really is to grab the 'ntldr' and
ntdetect.com files from the hard drive - then create a new boot.ini
file with content
[boot loader]
timeout=30
Default= multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\windows [operating
systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\windows="Windo ws XP"

I can find no ntldr or ntdetect file. Remember I have my skeleton
drive as c drive and the bad drive as d drive. Both have what look to
be valid XP structures. I looked (searched) on both drives. Yes, I
have view set to see hidden & system files.

However, I did find the 2 files on my XP installation CD. So I used
them to make the so-called emergency startup diskette.

With the bad drive as c drive, and the only drive, I booted up from
the floppy. It told me that a so-called 'hal.dll' file is missing or
corrupt. I copied that file from my skeleton XP drive, and placed it
on both the floppy and in the bad drive's c:\windows\system32 (which
was a 'replace'). I re booted from the floppy again, with only the
bad drive in place (as c drive), and I get the same error.

What now?
Thanks again
Geezer