CompTIA A+® Certification All-In-One For Dummies®, 2nd Edition

1.1. Windows Boot Files and Boot Errors

Just like older OSes (say, MS-DOS and Windows 9x) suffer from boot problems, so do newer OSes, such as Windows XP and Vista. This section takes a look at some of the boot problems that affect Windows XP computers. These problems will affect all Windows NT–based computers (such as Windows 2000 and Windows Server 2003), and Windows Vista and Windows 2008 Server are slightly different.

The Windows boot process can suffer from boot sector corruption, boot loader problems, and drive identification problems within boot.ini or the BCD. For most problems, the Emergency Repair Process or Recovery Console are reasonable troubleshooting and repair steps. (I discuss the Emergency Repair Process and the Recovery Console in Chapter 3 of this minibook.)

1.1.1. SCSI issues

The boot.ini file on your hard drive identifies the controller bus that contains the hard drives in your computer. This controller bus is identified as either SCSI or multi. If your drives are connected to a SCSI controller with the BIOS disabled, the controller is identified as SCSI. In all other circumstances, the controller is identified as multi. If your system is unable to initiate the boot process, or if you receive an error regarding a missing ntoskrnl.exe, the problem could be a misidentified SCSI controller. Book V, Chapter 6, has more information about the boot.ini file.

1.1.2. No operating system found

The No operating system found error in Windows, just like in MS-DOS, is ...