Rick/FORC5,
Thank you. But, I did find the bug!
It was a true, major case of PEBCAK!
I did a really dumb thing. I deleted NTDETECT.COM.
The boot.ini file was actually in place and ?fine?
JRS shared a link to the "Ed Jablondki" boot file logic.
I now have a working XP BOOT Floppy that does work!
I recovered the missing NTDETECT.COM file back to c:\windows.
The very old XP client is OpsNorml again and even completed its' monthly
XP updates.
Embarrassed I certainly am! LOL!
Duncan
On 03/18/2010 01:06, Rick Glazier wrote:
From: "DSinc"
I suppose my question is:
"Does XP need BOOT.INI to boot up?"
Yes, it is critical. It tells the bootloader where to locate and then
to start Windows.
All you need to do is try different ones, the switches need to be as I
posted.
When you find one that works, use it.
You need to boot to something that will support writing to an NTFS file
system drive.
This assumes you HAVE NTFS on the old drive. Fat32 would be a piece of
cake, but that
is no reason to have used it. (There are other limitations to using Fat32.)
I'd give more instructions, but I'm not sure how much info you need and
what
"tools" you have to work with.
Puppy Linux is a good way to boot and add file to the old broken drive.
OR you could move it to another machine internal or by a USB adapter.
There are lots of ways to accomplish this.
Rick Glazier
