[theaceman]

Yep, I do.

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1. Insert your Windows XP CD into your CD and assure that your CD-ROM drive is capable of booting the CD.
2. Once you have booted from CD, do NOT select the option that states: Press F2 to initiate the Automated System Recovery (ASR) tool.
You’re going to proceed until you see the following screen, at which point you will press the “R” key to enter the recovery console:



3. After you have selected the appropriate option from step two, you will be prompted to select a valid Windows installation (typically number “1").
Select the installation number, and hit Enter.
If there is an administrator password for the administrator account, enter it and hit Enter (if asked for the password, and you don't know it, you're out of luck).
You will be greeted with this screen, which indicates a recovery console at the ready:



4. There are eight commands you must enter in sequence to repair any of the issues I noted in the opening of this guide.
I will introduce them here, and then show the results graphically in the next six steps.
NOTE. Make sure, you press Enter after each command. Make sure, all commands are exact, including "spaces".
These commands are as follows:

CD..
ATTRIB -H C:\boot.ini
ATTRIB -S C:\boot.ini
ATTRIB -R C:\boot.ini
del boot.ini
BOOTCFG /Rebuild

Note about the above command.
BOOTCFG /REBUILD command which searches for pre-existing installations of Windows XP and rebuilds sundry essential components of the Windows operating system, recompiles the BOOT.INI file and corrects a litany of common Windows errors.
It is very important that you do one or both of the following two things:
A.) Every Windows XP owner must use /FASTDETECT as OS Load Option when the rebuild process is finalizing.
B.) If you are the owner of a CPU featuring Intel’s XD or AMD’s NX buffer overflow protection, you must also use /NOEXECUTE=OPTIN as an OS Load Option.
For the Enter Load Identifier portion of this command, you should enter the name of the operating system you have installed.
If, for example, you are using Windows XP Home, you could type Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition for the identifier (it's not crucial, however what the name is, as long, as it's meaningful).
Here is your computer screen:



5. Following command verifies the integrity of the hard drive containing the Windows XP installation. While this step is not an essential function in our process, it’s still good to be sure that the drive is physically capable of running windows, in that it contains no bad sectors or other corruptions that might be the culprit:

CHKDSK /R

6. This last command writes a new boot sector to the hard drive and cleans up all the loose ends we created by rebuilding the BOOT.INI file and the system files. When the Windows Recovery Console asks you if you are Sure you want to write a new bootsector to the partition C: ? just hit “Y”, then Enter to confirm your decision:

FIXBOOT

7. It’s time to reboot your PC by typing
EXIT
and pressing Enter.

With any luck, your PC will boot successfully into Windows XP as if your various DLL, Hive, EXE and NTLDR errors never existed.

[rshaffer61]

1. Insert your Windows XP CD into your CD and assure that your CD-ROM drive is capable of booting the CD.
2. Once you have booted from CD, do NOT select the option that states: Press F2 to initiate the Automated System Recovery (ASR) tool.
You’re going to proceed until you see the following screen, at which point you will press the “R” key to enter the recovery console:



3. After you have selected the appropriate option from step two, you will be prompted to select a valid Windows installation (typically number “1").
Select the installation number, and hit Enter.
If there is an administrator password for the administrator account, enter it and hit Enter (if asked for the password, and you don't know it, you're out of luck).
You will be greeted with this screen, which indicates a recovery console at the ready:



4. There are eight commands you must enter in sequence to repair any of the issues I noted in the opening of this guide.
I will introduce them here, and then show the results graphically in the next six steps.
NOTE. Make sure, you press Enter after each command. Make sure, all commands are exact, including "spaces".
These commands are as follows:

CD..
ATTRIB -H C:\boot.ini
ATTRIB -S C:\boot.ini
ATTRIB -R C:\boot.ini
del boot.ini
BOOTCFG /Rebuild

Note about the above command.
BOOTCFG /REBUILD command which searches for pre-existing installations of Windows XP and rebuilds sundry essential components of the Windows operating system, recompiles the BOOT.INI file and corrects a litany of common Windows errors.
It is very important that you do one or both of the following two things:
A.) Every Windows XP owner must use /FASTDETECT as OS Load Option when the rebuild process is finalizing.
B.) If you are the owner of a CPU featuring Intel’s XD or AMD’s NX buffer overflow protection, you must also use /NOEXECUTE=OPTIN as an OS Load Option.
For the Enter Load Identifier portion of this command, you should enter the name of the operating system you have installed.
If, for example, you are using Windows XP Home, you could type Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition for the identifier (it's not crucial, however what the name is, as long, as it's meaningful).
Here is your computer screen:



5. Following command verifies the integrity of the hard drive containing the Windows XP installation. While this step is not an essential function in our process, it’s still good to be sure that the drive is physically capable of running windows, in that it contains no bad sectors or other corruptions that might be the culprit:

CHKDSK /R

6. This last command writes a new boot sector to the hard drive and cleans up all the loose ends we created by rebuilding the BOOT.INI file and the system files. When the Windows Recovery Console asks you if you are Sure you want to write a new bootsector to the partition C: ? just hit “Y”, then Enter to confirm your decision:

FIXBOOT

7. It’s time to reboot your PC by typing
EXIT
and pressing Enter.

With any luck, your PC will boot successfully into Windows XP as if your various DLL, Hive, EXE and NTLDR errors never existed.

[theaceman]

I have pasted this and printed it out from MS Word for use. It looks kind of 'heroic' - are there any downside risks?

[rshaffer61]

Always a risk of data loss.
Anyone that says different is lying to you. If you want you can use a Linux Live cd to access that data you need to save and backup.

[theaceman]

I have made an Acronis full system backup on a remote hdd around a week or so ago which will hopefully probably do.

I want to REALLY thank you - hopefully it will go as planned, if not then I guess I'll have to recreate the system from the Acronis b/up.

[rshaffer61]

OK please let me know how it all goes.
What you are going to be doing is repairing and\or replacing the boot.ini and fixing the MBR with the steps I have given. This should in theory get rid of all references to Win7 and return the file to its original form.
Once done the system should be able to boot into XP with no problem.
Good luck and I will be waiting for your results.

[theaceman]

I aim to try this when I feel confident I have covered all the bases.....is there a way to know for certain that my CD-ROM drive is capable of booting the CD?

[rshaffer61]

If the boot sequence in the bios is set to boot to the cdrom first and you have a genuine full installation disk then the steps should work as I have posted.

[theaceman]

I have used the sequence you gave. The thing is that where on bootup it asks if you prefer Windows 7 on the black screen (in white lettering) it now asks if you prefer Windows XP Pro. As before, beneath the 'windows 7' line, it prompts you about choosing Windows XP Professional as before. Puzzling.

[rshaffer61]

Then the steps in post 264 I think should clear up the boot.ini and mbr for you.

[theaceman]

The steps in post 264 WERE the steps I took. I'm afraid I don't quite understand. I followed them to the letter.

[rshaffer61]

ok then we need to look at more drastic measures.
Since those steps specifically had you run fixmbr then we can figure the problem is deeper.
Other then having to choose between which OS does everything else run like it should?

[theaceman]

I have only picked up on, and corrected/repaired already, a problem with MS Office 2010. I ran the 'change' option from the Control Panel - it took a while but MS Access, Word and Excel have no worries. I use the others seldomly if at all.

[rshaffer61]

Just to clarify did you uninstall Win7 or did you simply delete the partition it was on?

[theaceman]

I believe I was told by Acronis support staff I needed only to delete the partition.....but perhaps it was uninstalled. Does it matter?