On turning on my Win XP Pro machine, I get the mesg "invalid boot.ini loading from c:\windows". The machine then proceeds to boot normally. Is there anything to worry about? I have seen posts where the same message caused the user to be locked out. I don't want to be locked out. Please help as I do not know what to do at this point before the problem gets more critical. The problem just appeared some days ago. I only have one partition of 30G and have been using XP on it seamlessly until now. My PC is a P2, 233mhz, 320MB RAM. Thanks.

I did a search on my XP Pro and while I didn't find a boot.ini, I did find a boot.ini.backup. In it: [boot loader] timeout=30 default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\Windows [Operating Systems] multi(0)disk(0)partition(1)\Windows="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /fastdetect Dunno if this is any help - but there it is. boot.ini.backup is in C:\Windows\pss

my computer/properties/advanced/startup&recovery/settings look for "to edit the startup options file manually" this opens 'BOOT.INI' in notepad look for another OS system listed as "default" other than XP....remove the line safe and exit

Hi, I have the same problem but I have the home verison upgrade from dell. they told me to right click on my computer go to properties then click the advanced tab then cilck settings under start up and recovery under system startup then click edit. I did this and my boot ini file is blank still get the message.

i had the same error on my laptop... 1)create a text file and copy those strings (windows 2000 professional): [boot loader] timeout=30 default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT [operating systems] multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT="Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional" /fastdetect 2)save as "boot.ini" in c:\ 3)if you try to open my computer/properties/advanced should work 4)reboot

i am having the same problem but i have XP home, an my boot.ini is blank? what can i do? all my disks that came with my sony dont have any backups for it

Here's how I fixed the invalid boot.ini problem (Windows XP Pro). The reason this occurs, I suspect, is that the original boot.ini file gets corrupted somehow. In my case, I had a system lockup. When it rebooted, I started getting the invalid boot.ini message. I tried a couple of things at first. Tried a system restore, but it did nothing. I then cleared out the boot.ini file and saved it, then re-opened it and put back in the information (i checked the boot.ini file information and it matched perfectly with what should be there). This also did nothing, which lead me to believe the original boot.ini file waa simply corrupted. To fix this - and its a pathetically simple fix after having done all of this, go to run and type in MSCONFIG. Then click on the "Boot.ini" tab. First, make sure if using XP Pro that the following is listed: [boot loader] timeout=30 default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS [operating systems] multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /fastdetect - this is the boot.ini information from XP, straight from the Microsoft Web Site. All the information below [operating systems] should be on one line! If you have a blank boot.ini file, copy and paste this information - if all information is already there, then don't change anything. Next, click the button that says "check all boot paths". You should get back a message stating that everything is good (the computer checks to make sure the boot.ini file is compatible with Microsoft Operating Systems). Next, assuming your computer likes the boot.ini file that is in there (and it should), then click the button that says "set as default". By doing this, you have now created a new (modified) boot.ini file that is a carbon copy of the original. Click apply. You will be prompted to restart. Before doing so, go back to MSCONFIG and in the general tab you will see that "use modified boot.ini" should now be checked. During reboot, you should not get the invalid boot.ini message (at least I didn't). What you will get is a message (after reachign the desktop) stating that you are not using the defaults or something like that and do you wish to go back into MSCONFIG to restore the default settings. Since your new boot.ini file is exactly the same as your original, click no and check the box to hide that irritating message. Hope this helps someone with the same problem I had. Jim