Member Avatar for Tumbleweedracef

I just re-installed Windows XP Home on a Emachine EL1200. It istalled fine and runs fine. It's a bit slow in booting up , for being a fresh and new installation so I looked in MSCONFIG, to see what I might find. All the tabs across the top are there except " BOOT.INI". There is a tab for "General, SYSTEM.INI, WINI.INI, SERVICES, STARTUP and TOOLS", but no "BOOT.INI" tab. Is that ok ???
I used a standard Windows XP Installation disc that I have used to put Windows XP Home, on many computers. This is the 1rst time I've noticed this problem.
I also noticed that on the side of the computer, on the COA sticker it says that the system is a Windows XP Home Edition Nettops
I don't know if NETTOPS has anything to do with it ?
Whats wierd is that everything works great ! It goes on the internet fine, all the drivers are there and working......after I put them there !

Any and all help is greatly appreciated !!

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Member Avatar for gerbil

Mmm... possibly something wrong with permissions on that file.. check them. Else go into RC with your cd and run..
bootcfg /default
-it will rewrite the file, and perhaps set permissions correctly.
Else use bootcfg /rebuild
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/291980

Member Avatar for Tumbleweedracef

I've used all this info and even tried to "repair" the installation and the computer stills boots a little slow but there still is no boot.ini tab in MSCONFIG.
I'm affraid that one day the computer will stop booting up because of this. Should I just go ahead and do a complete reinstallation and wipe out the old one ?

Member Avatar for gerbil

Fooling around with ProcMon and Msconfig i find that the only key that is queried for boot.ini is HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Shared Tools\Msconfig. The query is for a subkey, boot.ini. In my machine it does not exist. And I have the tab. [0.1msecs later the actual file itself is opened and read for Msconfig.exe].
Further, I note that if I uncheck a startup item a subkey is created for it under Msconfig\Startupreg; I check it again and the subkey is removed. So. Perhaps check the above path for Msconfig\boot.ini. If it exists, save the key and then delete the boot.ini subkey.

Member Avatar for Tumbleweedracef

Im a little lost on those instructions. Can ya maybe re-word them for me please.

Member Avatar for Tumbleweedracef

I'm going to reinstall Windows on the " unknown" partion after I delete it. DO I need to delete the other 2 partions as well ?

Member Avatar for Tumbleweedracef

Here is what I did. I reinstalled Windows on the 2nd partition and now everything is normal again. I guess that maybe it just didn't install the 1rst time ?!?!?!?!? I want to thank everyone who helped me !!! I'm truely greatful for those that are here to help !!!

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