Invisible wrote:

> Now *all* I have to do is figure out how to put NTLDR and friends back 
> onto the drive using the recovery console and my PC will be usable 
> again... o_O

Under Windows NT, there was a feature where you could boot from the 
install CD, select "repair", and it would scan your HDs, try to find an 
installed copy of Windows NT, and if it found one, attempt to make it 
bootable. (E.g., check the boot sector, add the various executables and 
configuration files required for a successful boot, and even replace 
missing or corrupted DLLs and so on.)

Apparently this feature does not exist in Windows XP. (One presumes it 
was found to be too useful, and its removal allows M$ consultants to 
charge you money to fix your PC for you...)

Anyway, after consulting not less than 7 different KB articles, it 
appears that I can use the Recovery Console to manually copy the two 
boot files from the CD to the HD and semi-automatically rebuild the boot 
configuration menu.

In case anybody wants to know, the procedure appears to be this:

- Start the Recovery Console. (I.e., boot the install CD and press "R" 
when prompted.)

- Type "map" and observe the drive letter for the CD drive.

- Copy NTLDR to the harddrive: copy O:\i386\ntldr C:\

- Copy NTDETECT.COM too: copy O:\i386\ntdetect.com C:\

- Build a new BOOT.INI file: bootcfg /all

- This last command spends a few hours scanning all your HDs looking for 
anything that looks like a Windows installation. It then gives you an 
interactive prompt asking which ones to add to the boot menu.

Hopefully at this point the system should become bootable again. (And if 
not, I'll just reinstall Windows. That should get rid of those old 
nVidia demos that wouldn't uninstall...)

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