boot.ini gone

[intensive]

I've accidentally erased boot.ini file on my laptop so it won't boot now. What tool can be used to restore the file? I need an utility that will boot and recover file.

[VodaHost]

Did the laptop come with an emergency restore/boot cd or disk?

[Robert]

If you have your OS's CD-ROM or DVD installation disk, then try this solution from Microsoft's Knowledge Base to rebuild your boot.ini file.


http://support.microsoft.com/kb/330184

Alternative methods are discussed as well.

[tim berry]

Some recovery windows disks do a restore of OS but formats the drive at this point. if you have some valuable data then you can use active@ undelete. the tool boots from it's disk and can restore any files you needhttp://www.active-undelete.com/

[LadyEye]

I just looked at this ... this is a very handy link I think ...

Am I understanding correctly that if your computer crashed, and you did not have your back up cds of your system, you could for this small amount of money be back up and running with your operating system, XP say, and put everything back together, all your files etc. or is it just for your files only that are lost?

[Robert]

it depends on a combination of specific settings made to your pc, settings which aren't normally altered by the common user. but to give you an idea of what happens...

Suppose you have a hard drive partitioned like so:

C, D, E

Even if you turn off "System Restore" for D and E....AND you disable the recycle bin for them as well (meaning they will be "permanently" deleted...), you accidently delete an entire folder of files instead of the one file you meant to. Well, as long as you don't restart your pc, you can get them back pretty fast. Most programs used to do this can even retrieve data long after you've deleted it...under circumstances of course. The main thing though, however, is one key fact:

the registry

There is a registry key made when this delete action occurs, which holds information about everything that was part of the delete...filenames, paths, size, type, etc..

these programs properly read this data and other specific data to rebuild these files. so as long as you don't wait too long or do too many changes while attempting to recover them yourself, these recovery programs are definitely worth the investment.

[intensive]

I had no windows recovery CD. That would make the things much easier but in the end I had to use third party soft, the active undelete recommended in this posts. Fortunately, it worked and brought my lap to life.