Format & reinstall XP problem?

Have fully formatted, not quick option, HDD and reinstalled XP. At bootup I
now have 2 XP's in boot menu! I thought a full format removed everything so
why have I got this? I have successfully resolved similar situation before
by following the steps here:
http://tweakhomepc.virtualave.net/dual/removedualboot.html
Only difference then was that the 2nd XP was on a different partition, this
time they're on the same one, drive's not partitioned. The file "boot.ini"
does not exist on this PC and yes I have searched hidden system files. I
have an almost identical PC and "boot.ini" is on that in the root folder of
C:, only real difference in the PC's is that this one has 2HDD's and a
number of partitions.
I have only installed XP, no chipset drivers or anything as yet. Selecting
the 2nd XP PC boots normally, selecting 1st XP the PC boots slowly but to
the new XP install, the old one doesn't exist. I don't know what's going on
here and any advice appreciated, in particular why I have no "boot.ini".

 

If you have WinXP installed there *has* to be a Boot.ini file on there
somewhere. Check again, and make sure you have windows set to display hidden
and system files. Don't rely on merely the search tool. Go into windows
explorer, go to tools, then folder options, then view, and enable hidden and
system files as well as protected operating system files. You should then
find the boot.ini file in the root folder. Alternatively, go to the MSconfig
utility, and it will show you what your boot.ini file looks like.



...

 

In Xp you access Boot.ini differently. Click Start, right click My Computer,
choose properties, click Advanced tab, click Settings under Startup and
Recovery, click Edit.

 

Thanks, never thought of checking msconfig! It was there and I used the
"check all paths" option and it told me:
"it appears the following line in boot.ini does not refer to a valid OS,
(long line here), would you like to remove it from boot.ini. Clicked yes,
restarted and it started normally. Funny thing is I still can't find
boot.ini yet I can find a backup of the unmodified boot.ini in PSS folder.
I have enabled "show hidden files" and "show system files". General tab of
msconfig says I'm now using a modified boot.ini. Still curious as to how
the problem arose in the first place, format and reinstall went very
smoothly.

 

Your boot.ini file will be on the system drive as a hidden file. Open
Disk Management and see which partition is your system drive. The Boot
drive will be the currently loaded OS drive/partition.
With XP you may even have a different active drive.

 

Thanks, that works and I can access boot.ini from there but why is it that
on another almost identical PC I can find and open it from the Find command?

 

You should have blown away the partition and then boot with the XP cd, then
do a normal install where it partitions and formats for you. XP is more
user friendly this way. You have to get out of the old mode of thinking
where you first had to fdisk then format and then run setup.

Dave

 

I booted from XP CD and formatted/reinstalled from there.

 

Are you familiar with fdisk?
Dave

 

First check your search preferences. Open a search, click the All Files and
Folders, click More advanced options, make sure "Search system files" and
"Search hidden files and folders" both are checked. Even if you have folder
options set to show all files, etc, Search still bypasses system files and
folders.

Did you manually check the root of C: for the file? You should have been
able to find it there

 

Check your folder options in the Tools menu. There are two separate
settings that need to be set to view system files. Check the circle in
front of "Show hidden files and folders" and uncheck the box in front of
"Hide protected operating system files." You should be able to see
everything in your root directory now.

 

Yes, have used it many times installing Win98 but know with XP to do it
booting from CDROM.

 

Are you suggesting using the FDISK and FORMAT commands from a Win98 Startup
disk then running format & reinstall from the XP CD? I can see your
reasoning but still don't see why formatting from XP CD didn't do a
completely clean wipe before installing, it obviously left some traces of
the old XP.

 

I'm suggesting you use a win98 startup disk to run fdisk and remove all
partitions, then boot off the XP cd and let the XP setup program make a new
partition and then format it with NTFS and then install XP. XP install
likes to start with a clean, bare drive. Removing all partitions makes it
clean and bare.

Dave

 

Will give it a go, thanks.

--

Kenny

 

This is entirely normal. The boot.ini is read & remembered throughout the new install (If you had other installations on other drives, would you not want them to be remembered?) Then a line is added for the new installation & the file is saved - including earlier lines from the file. Just delete the old line from boot.ini if it turns out you have only one installation