I ran a repair install on windows XP. Then I encountered this phenomena:
computer fails to boot: can't find a boot device.
BUT, if there is a windows xp disk in the CD drive, then it will boot windows as long as i don't press any key to boot from CD.
The boot.ini file looks fine. The recovery console commands fixmbr and fixboot did not solve the problem. Running another repair install with SP3 (first time was with SP2) also didn't fix the problem.
Whatever command the BIOS uses to launch the OS isn't working, but whatever command the windows CD is using does work. Any idea how to fix this?