[smeke]

hello, i just formatted my laptop and when it rebooted during installation i accidentally made the system boot from the installation CD again and now everytime i turn my laptop on a screen appears which says

Choose which operative system you would like to load
Windows XP Home Edition
Windows XP Home Edition

And in my C: folder i now have a folder named WINDOWS and one named WINDOWS.0 . i tried erasing the second one but it wont allow me to do so since it is a windows folder.
any help on how to fix my issue is appreciated.

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Hi smeke...

First, we need to determine which directory you're booting to. Click Start then Run and type %windir%...then click "OK". Which folder opens, Windows or Windows.0?

Open Control Panel and double click the "System" icon. Under the "Advanced" tab, in the "Startup and Recovery" section, click on the "Settings" button. In the window that opens, click on the "Edit" button...a notepad window will open (boot.ini)...copy the contents of that window and paste it here for me.

wannabe1

[wannabe1]

Hi smeke...

First, we need to determine which directory you're booting to. Click Start then Run and type %windir%...then click "OK". Which folder opens, Windows or Windows.0?

Open Control Panel and double click the "System" icon. Under the "Advanced" tab, in the "Startup and Recovery" section, click on the "Settings" button. In the window that opens, click on the "Edit" button...a notepad window will open (boot.ini)...copy the contents of that window and paste it here for me.

wannabe1

[smeke]

i went to the school technicians and they fixed the problem, thank you; but now i face another problem. my Pc took hours to boot XP, and when it finally loaded the sound was choppy and my laptop was reeeally slow. i instantly thought of a trojan or something, but strangely AVG did not warn me about any viruses. after running panda activescan i discovered i was infected with Bck/Webmic.q . Supposedly, it disinfected my computer and i eliminated the virus from the _restore by deactivating and reactivating System Restore. I am now running Activescan another time just to make sure, but my computer is still slow and sound is still choppy (note that i haven't rebooted my laptop since the scan ended). If the problem still persists, would u be so kind as to help me fix it?

Thanks

EDIT:
After rebooting my laptop was still slow.
Im at school right now and i talked to my computers teacher... my computer is still slow and she told me that it probably had something to do with me having 2 windows files, which made my computer boot both files when windows loads and that may be the reason it takes hours for XP to load.

when i insert %windir% the WINDOWS.0 files opens.

this is the log from Startup and Recovery, and after looking at it i believe that in fact that is part of the problem because it shows both operating systems.

[boot loader]
timeout=0
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS.0
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS.0="Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition" /noexecute=optin /fastdetect
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition" /noexecute=optin /fastdetect

Edited by smeke, 08 February 2007 - 08:35 AM.

[wannabe1]

When you say the machine is slow to boot, where during the boot is it spending the most time? On the screen with the loading bar? Before that? When loading the desktop?

Open the boot.ini file and remove the line of text shown in red below. Then click on "File" on the toolbar and choose "Save"...close the boot.ini window.

[boot loader]
timeout=0
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS.0
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS.0="Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition" /noexecute=optin /fastdetect
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition" /noexecute=optin /fastdetect

Do you have all your drivers installed? Right click on My Computer and choose "Properties". Under the "Hardware" tab, click the "Device Manager" button. Are there any yellow ! or ? displayed next to any of the listed devices?

[smeke]

ok i erased the line from the boot.ini file (the one i got to by pressing edit on startup and recovery right?), and i have all my drivers correctly installed.

[wannabe1]

Ok...let's see if we can get rid of the old directory.

Open "My Computer" and double click on "Local Disk C:". Right click on the folder named Windows and choose "Delete"...accept the deletion.

Are you able to delete this folder?

[smeke]

yep i erased it alright

[wannabe1]

Ok...reboot.

Is the time required for bootup any shorter?

[smeke]

nope... it still takes hours on the

Windows XP

[ ---- ]

Loading

screen

[wannabe1]

Do you have File and Printer Sharing enabled?

[smeke]

mm im not sure, i mean i use a network printer (which is not connected to my computer) so i think i do share... but today my computer tool even longer to load, now it also took some minutes for the desktop to load.

[wannabe1]

Let's disable File and Printer sharing and try a couple boots.

Right click on "My Network Places" and choose "Properties". Right click on your ethernet connection and choose "Properties". Remove the tick next to "File and Printer Sharing for Microsoft Networks" and Apply the change.

Reboot a couple times. Any difference?

[smeke]

nope

[cmw2010]

Slow boot up and choppy sound could be that your hard drive is stuck in PIO transfer mode. Should be more of 5-10 minute bootups not hours.
Go to Device manager>>IDE ATA/ATAPI Controller>>Primary IDE Channel>>Advanced Settings under Current Transfer mode if it says PIO then uninstall it and reboot, Windows will reinstall it in Ultra DMA mode. I would say though that if your PC takes hours to boot then you have something else wrong also!

[smeke]

yes it does say PIO... should i uninstall the whole driver then?

Edited by smeke, 11 February 2007 - 01:11 PM.