I have done a fresh install of windows 2000 pro on the d: drive. First i formatted to NTFS, as another install of windows 2000 was there. After a successful install, I added users, setup some hardware, and installed a few apps. After restarting the computer, I got the error message "NTLDR is missing. Press ctrl+alt+del to reboot". I've gone into the recovery console and copied ntldr from the i386 directory on the install cd rom. But now when I try to boot, I get the error message: Invalid BOOT.INI file Booting from C:\WINNT NTDETECT Failed I have fresh copies of ntldr in C: D: and D:\WINNT. I don't have access to another working windows 2000 computer, please help! sevengraff-at-yahoo.com

Sounds like some kind of c: disk corruption. Can you boot to the c: install or is that hosed too? ntldr and ntdetect.com only belong on c: Boot to the cd again and run fixboot.

Geeeese...try this: Boot to recovery console(from CD). C:\WINDOWS>bootcfg /rebuild scanning for operating systems.... found 1 [1]d:\winnt add[1]:? (type y) type identifier: (type Windows 2000) type boot option: (type /fastdetect) (that should rebuild boot.ini) C:\WINDOWS>fixboot d: do you want to make d: your primary boot? (type y) (that should put boot.ini to d: drive and direct the boot files to that drive) you could also try the fixmbr command. I did something similar to this yesterday, check out my post. http://www.computing.net/windowsxp/wwwboard/forum/68071.html

A very easy solution is to copy the NTDLR Boot.ini and ntdetect.com files onto a floppy disk. Then set up your machine to boot from the floppy. It should start your machine no problem. Then just copy them back. Good luck

Darkfriend I looked at your referanced post and with the one here and there there are some inaccuracies. You are mixing apples and oranges in that you are also using a boot manager concerning your first post. This is why you needed to have your boot files on d:. Without a boot manager all booting is done from c: since that is the only place the bios goes to when it hands off the boot sequence. A boot manager then takes the ball and carries if from there. Simple confirmation is to wipe your c:. You won't boot anything after that. XP did not install to a logical drive in an extended partition due to you having too many primary partitions. The present rule set is 4 primarys per drive or 3 primarys with 1 extended partition with logical drives. Logical drives are only limited by the amount of available drive letters starting at d:. Next issue is this is 2000. 2000 has winnt not the "windows" folder which XP has. W2k does not have the bootcfg. Paul M the problem is that Nick has those files on the local hard drive but for as yet undetermined reason the system is not booting correctly. A floppy disk will just replicate this issue. Nick when you say you added some hardware, did you add an additional drive or some device that takes a drive letter? If so this can explain your nonbooting d: since due to drive enumeration it would be e: not d:. But you should be able to boot c: as normal. The fact that you have ntldr, boot.ini and ntdetect errors tells me something has gotten messed up on c:. Look there for your booting issues. Confirm that the files are there and that the boot.ini looks correct.

Wanderer...good point. My system will not work in windows 2000. My bad. Good other points too.