not again...

[S0ULphIRE]

Master boot record - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Read wiki's explanation of what the mbr is, it'll tell you the answer to your question.

 

[KSoD]

well thx all about the MBR advice.. but im new to that first ive heard about it. i just went ahead and bought a new 500GB sata drive so with that my MBR will be fine right?

If you install Windows fresh yes. If you use it as a storage drive and not your primary yes. Those steps are used to fic the XP MBR to get it booting again.

XP MBR is this. It loads up. From there it looks for the NTLDR file. Which points it to the NTDETECT file. That file points to the boot.ini file which then loads Windows.

This is all done in a matter of a second. So it is fast. If one of those files is missing or corrupt you will see a boot error message.

HAL.dll file is missing or corrupt is a error that is gotten often. That usually leads to the boot.ini file not pointing to the correct drive or partition.

If the NTDETECT file is missing you will msot likely see the hard disk not found insert system disk to continue message. As the NTDETECT file is the first step in the boot process.

If the NTLDR is missing you will see that error. NTLDR is missing is the error i am referring to.

Windows XP - NeoSmart Technologies Wiki

Check that and the Troubleshooting Windows XP to see the most common ways to fix the boot errors.

 

[SiZcO]

If you install Windows fresh yes. If you use it as a storage drive and not your primary yes. Those steps are used to fic the XP MBR to get it booting again.

XP MBR is this. It loads up. From there it looks for the NTR file. Which points it to the NTDETECT file. That file points to the boot.ini file which then loads Windows.

This is all done in a matter of a second. So it is fast. If one of those files is missing or corrupt you will see a boot error message.

HAL.dll file is missing or corrupt is a error that is gotten often. That usually leads to the boot.ini file not pointing to the correct drive or partition.

If the NTDETECT file is missing you will msot likely see the hard disk not found insert system disk to continue message. As the NTDETECT file is the first step in the boot process.

If the NTLDR is missing you will see that error. NTLDR is missing is the error i am referring to.

Windows XP - NeoSmart Technologies Wiki

Check that and the Troubleshooting Windows XP to see the most common ways to fix the boot errors.

Good advice thanks