Modifying Boot.ini for proper booting

[ha14]

Hi

Have you ever where in a situation where your computer had more than one entry on the Windows XP boot menu screen? Most of the time one of the entries doesn't even work in the first place, and then you're forced to either hit a key or wait 30 seconds long every time.


This means that your Boot.ini has more then one entry to follow during the boot. So editing and modifying the script can solve this situation.

Please make sure you know what you’re doing when you are playing with the boot.ini file, is really sensitive, if you mess up with it you could end up with boot problems. Think safe.

I) Function and Purpose of Boot.ini
Boot.ini is one of the very first files that come into play when a Windows XP system is started up. It is a plain text file that is kept in the system root, so it is usually C:\boot.ini. Because it is an essential system file, the attributes are set to hidden, system, read-only to protect it. That means that it will not appear in the file lists in My Computer or Windows Explorer unless the default Windows settings are changed to show hidden files.
Boot.ini contains the location of the Windows XP operating system on the computer. If there is a multi-boot system, the locations of of any other operating systems are also contained. During the startup process, functions from the Windows XP file named "Ntldr" are in charge of getting the proper operating system loaded and Ntldr looks at boot.ini to find out where the operating systems are located and whether a menu should be displayed. Boot.ini can also include entries giving boot options such as Safe Mode or the Recovery Console.

One of the most common reasons for editing boot.ini is to reduce the "timeout" setting.in order to speed up booting. This is easily accomplished by using the System Configuration Utility (often called msconfig). Open Start-Run and enter "msconfig". The box shown below will open.

Click the tab "BOOT.INI" and the figure shown next will open. The contents of the boot.ini file are shown and a number of configuration settings are available. In the middle right is a box where the settings for Timeout can be changed. This example is for a dual-boot system and another common reason for editing is to change the default operating system in dual-boot setups. Note that there is a button "Set a Default" as well as buttons "Move Up" and "Move Down" (grayed out here). If there are multiple entries in the boot display, their order can be rearranged here. There are also a number of advanced options that experienced computer users may look at. These other functions are discussed in the Microsoft references in the sidebar.

II) Removing an Incorrect Boot Menu Option on XP

Now you can open up the boot.ini file in Notepad by going to Start \ Run and typing in the following
notepad c:\boot.ini

In this file you'll see the same options that you normally see in the boot menu. Take special note of the default= item, as that should be pointing to one of the items in the list (normally the top one).
Tip: Everything after the "=" character in the default line should match everything before the "=" character in the [operating systems] section. Remember this when making edits.

Make a backup of the original before any changement of boot.ini.

III) Disable the Boot Menu the Easy Way
Instead of risking screwing something up by manually editing the file, you can just disable the boot menu entirely, which is much safer. There's no reason to show the menu if you only make one choice, and not really any good reason to edit the file manually.
You can either right-click on My Computer and choose Properties, or type sysdm.cpl into the Start \ Run box to bring up the System Properties window. Once there, go to Advanced \ Startup and Recovery \ Settings as shown below:

In the Startup and Recovery dialog, make sure the default operating system is correct, and then uncheck the option for "Time to display list of operating systems", and close the dialog.

At this point you should be able to reboot, and the menu should be gone

IV) Microsoft Way

Modifying the Boot.ini
While you can modify the Boot.ini file using the Startup and Recovery dialog, where you can select the default operating system, change the timeout value, or manually edit the file, the following method uses the command line utility, Bootcfg.exe.

Note The Bootcfg.exe utility is only available in Windows XP Professional. This utility is not available in Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition. Therefore, this section does not apply to Windows XP Home Edition.
1. Click Start, and then click Run.
2. In the Open text box, type cmd.
3. At the command prompt, type bootcfg /?.
4. The help and parameters for BOOTCFG.exe will display.

Adding an Operating System
At the command prompt, type:
bootcfg /copy /d Operating System Description /ID#
Where Operating System Description is a text description (e.g. Windows XP Home Edition), and where # specifies the boot entry ID in the operating systems section of the BOOT.INI file from which the copy has to be made.


Removing an Operating System
At the command prompt, type:
bootcfg /delete /ID#
Where # specifies the boot entry ID that you want to be deleted from the operating systems section of the BOOT.INI file (e.g. 2 for the second Operating system that is listed.


Setting the Default Operating System
At the command prompt, type:
bootcfg /default /ID#
Where # specifies the boot entry id in the operating systems section of the BOOT.INI file to be made the default operating system.


Setting the Time Out
At the command prompt, type: bootcfg /timeout# Where # specifies the time in seconds after which default operating system will be loaded.


Open the Boot.ini File to Verify Changes
1. Right-click My Computer, and then click Properties.
-or-
Click Start, click Run, type sysdm.cpl, and then click OK.
2. On the Advanced tab, click Settings under Startup and Recovery.
3. Under System Startup, click Edit.

V) You should do backup of boot.ini

Save a Backup Copy of Boot.ini
1. Right-click My Computer, and then click Properties.
-or-
Click Start, click Run, type sysdm.cpl, and then click OK.
2. On the Advanced tab, click Settings under Startup and Recovery.
3. Under System Startup, click Edit. This opens the file in Notepad ready for editing.
4. In Notepad, click File on the Menu bar, and then click Save As.
5. Right click in an empty area of the Save As dialog box, point to New in the context menu, and then click Folder.
6. Type a name for the new folder, for example temp, and then press the ENTER key to create the folder named temp.
7. Double-click the new folder named temp, and then click the Save button to save a backup copy of the Boot.ini file.

Edit the Boot.ini File
To view and edit the Boot.ini file:
1. Right-click My Computer, and then click Properties.
-or-
Click Start, click Run, type sysdm.cpl, and then click OK.
2. On the Advanced tab, click Settings under Startup and Recovery.
3. Under System Startup, click Edit.



VI) Windows Vista
BOOT.INI is gone, BCD is here.
In this version of Windows, the boot.ini file has been replaced with Boot
Configuration Data (BCD). Windows Vista and Windows 7 have both made the task of directly editing the BCDedit file complicated as it is no longer text based as the boot.ini file was. Boot information is stored in a Registry-like file called the Boot Configuration Data (BCD) store. This file is more versatile than boot.ini, and it can apply to computer platforms that use means other than basic input/output system (BIOS) to start the computer. If you need to make changes to BCD, such as removing entries from the list of displayed operating systems, use the command line tool Bcdedit, an advanced tool intended for administrators and IT professionals.


If your computer is a multiboot configuration, you can still change which
Windows operating system opens by default, and how long to display the list
of operating systems, by using System in Control Panel.

1. Open System by clicking the Start button , clicking Control Panel,
clicking System and Maintenance, and then clicking System.

2. In the left pane, click Advanced system settings. If you
are prompted for an administrator password or confirmation, type the
password or provide confirmation.

3. Click the Advanced tab, and then, under Startup and
Recovery, click Settings.

4. Under System startup, choose a default operating system and
the amount of time to display the list of operating systems, and then click
OK.

To use bcdedit, first bring up Command Prompt windows using an administrator. Type in bcdedit to see a list of boot manager and boot loaders.c:>bcdedit

From the list, we can see that the boot loader named Microsoft Windows is the one that’s not needed. The identifier for this boot loader is {50c73d4f-e6b3-11da-bc73-d30cdb1ce216}. We can use this info to delete it.
c:>bcdedit /delete {50c73d4f-e6b3-11da-bc73-d30cdb1ce216}

We can see that the boot loader is now gone.

you can use just {current} to modify this boot loader. After the changes, you won’t see the boot screen again since there is only one boot loader.



Alternatively there is VistaBootPro to more tweaking.

[Rusty]

nice tut. I know it was for XP and i run VHP SP1. But i thought i'd nose around anyway. i do not even have a boot.ini file. I looked and did a search. CMD line just said the file did not exist and asked if i wanted to create it. Is this just for dual boot systems

[ha14]

Vista do not have a boot.ini file. In this version of Windows, the boot.ini file has been replaced with Boot Configuration Data (BCD). I think that windows vista do not have Hal.dll. use vista boot pro for configurate dual boot.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc721886.aspx


To install an older Windows operating system on a computer running Windows Vista, use the following procedure.

To install a previous version of Windows onto a computer running Windows Vista


1. Install the previous version of Windows.

2. Log on to the older operating system and restore the latest boot manager by running the following. Fixntfs.exe will be in the \boot directory of the active partition.
fixntfs /lh

3. Create a BCD entry for the older operating system by specifying the following. Bcdedit.exe is located in the \Windows\System32 directory of the Windows Vista partition. Description is the description of the new entry for the older operating system.
Bcdedit /create {legacy} /d 「Description」
Bcdedit /set {legacy} device boot
Bcdedit /set {legacy} path \ntldr
Bcdedit /displayorder {legacy} /addlast

4. Restart the computer in order for the changes to take effect.




Rebuilding BOOT.INI for XP
There are multiple ways of re-creating BOOT.INI to get your system up and running once more:

Manually Creating/Updating BOOT.INI
Now that you've read all about the contents of BOOT.INI and what they mean in the section above, it shouldn't be too difficult to create a proper, working BOOT.INI that correctly points to the available Windows XP installations on your PC.

1.If you don't have a file called BOOT.INI on your boot partition (usually C, create a new file in notepad and save it to there, calling it "BOOT.INI" (with the quotes).
2.Copy this to the notepad window:
[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="Windows XP Professional" /fastdetect3.Update the rdisk(0) and partition(1) values to point to the correct disk and partition numbers. Refer to the information above for details on how this number is determined. Make this change to both ARC path lines – make sure they're both exactly the same.
4.Save your changes to BOOT.INI and exit notepad.
5.Reboot to test.

Automated Creation of BOOT.INI
If you have a Windows XP or Windows 2000 CD lying around, you can use it to automatically re-create your boot.ini file to point to the correct partitions.

1.Insert your Windows 2000 or XP CD in the drive, and proceed to boot from it.
2.When prompted to "Press 'R' to enter Recovery Console," do so.
3.Once in the recovery console you may be asked for the Administrator password for security purposes. If you know it, enter it and hit <enter>. If you don't, use a Windows 2000 CD to bypass the prompt.
4.Enter this in the console:
bootcfg /rebuild
exit5.The bootcfg command will search your hard drive for valid, available Windows NT-XP installations, and proceed to add each to boot.ini. You will be prompted to name each entry (give it any name you like) and provide load options (give it "/fastdetect" without the quotes).
6.The exit command will quit the Recovery Console.
7.Remove the 2000/XP CD from the drive and reboot.
Boot.ini has been recreated and should do the trick.

By Repair Installing (In-Place Upgrade) Windows XP
If you're not comfortable with the command-line, have no idea what order your partitions are in, and don't want to mess around with things that could quickly get ugly – don't worry, there's still hope for your BOOT.INI yet!

[Lucignolo]

Salve buonasera allora io ho seguito alla lettera questo passaggio " Dall'elenco, possiamo vedere che il boot loader di nome Microsoft Windows è quello che non è necessario. L'identificatore di questo boot loader è (50c73d4f-e6b3-11da-bc73-d30cdb1ce216). Possiamo usare queste informazioni per eliminarlo.
c: bcdedit> / (cancella 50c73d4f-e6b3-11da-bc73-d30cdb1ce216) " ma non riesco a cancellare l'identificatore...quale e il cmd ?? grazie