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yes, it does contain textsetup.sif and i can acces it since im using a linux liveusb at the moment and its an acer aspire one a150. update: posting this from windows xp in the end it seems i had 2 problems: first one sptd.sys, which prevented windows from booting and bad blocks on the harddisk solved the first one by deleting the registry key and the second one by forcing chkdsk to check my drive though, still want recovery console on usb since that would make it alot easier. is it better to start all over again?

unmountable_boot_volume stop:0x000000ED (0x862dc68, 0xc00000013, 0x00000000, 0x00000000 yes, sata boot/ ldlinux.sys syslinux.conf CMDCONS/ boot.ini cmdcons.bs grub.exe menu.lst ntdetect.com ntldr setupldr.bs menu.lst color black/cyan yellow/cyan timeout 30 default 0 title find and load NTLDR of Windows NT/2K/XP find --set-root /ntldr chainloader /ntldr title Boot Recovery Console of Windows NT/2K/XP SETUPLDR.BIN find --set-root /setupldr.bin chainloader /setupldr.bin ##################################################################### # write string "cmdcons" to memory 0000:7C03 in 2 steps: ##################################################################### # step 1. Write 4 chars "cmdc" at 0000:7C03 write 0x7C03 0x63646D63 # step 2. Write 3 chars "ons" and an ending null at 0000:7C07 write 0x7C07 0x00736E6F title Boot Recovery Console of Windows NT/2K/XP \CMDCONS\SETUPLDR.BIN find --set-root /CMDCONS/setupldr.bin chainloader /CMDCONS/setupldr.bin ##################################################################### # write string "cmdcons" to memory 0000:7C03 in 2 steps: ##################################################################### # step 1. Write 4 chars "cmdc" at 0000:7C03 write 0x7C03 0x63646D63 # step 2. Write 3 chars "ons" and an ending null at 0000:7C07 write 0x7C07 0x00736E6F title RC CMDCONS cmdcons.bs find --set-root /cmdcons.bs chainloader /cmdcons.bs edit: is it that i can simply copy the 1386 folder from the hdd to usb, press f6 when asked for and that it loads the driver? (if its in there)

so i can actually just delete boot.ini and ntldr, since i dont need it? and then choose third option in grub to load setupldr.bin from the CMDCONS folder

not sure if it's relevant, but here's the original and edited file. edit: no luck got as far as loading recovery console, but at the end of the loading bar i get a bsod saying umountable boot volume setupldr.zip

yes, that's what i did. now i got another small question. i need to copy the bootsector of my usb right? but is it that its size is 512 bytes? since i didn't see anything like ntldr in that file. http://www.boot-land.net/forums/index.php?...ost&p=41075 step 6 though, did see something resembling step 7 (mswin4.1)

hello, I've gone this way: usb boots to syslinux syslinux loads grub4dos grub4dos loads ntldr after that it says this: microsoft says it's because of an error in boot.ini, so thats a good thing since it actually does something. so..what now? edit: changed boot.ini to this [boot loader] timeout=30 default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(1)\WINDOWS [operating systems] multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition" /noexecute=optin /fastdetect and now i indeed got the hal.dll error like you said in your previous post.

taken from http://www.boot-land.net/forums/index.php?...5316&st=10# 3rd post couldn't get further then step 1.b on startup i see a flashing underscore, usb light flashes for a while, then the font changes, and the light stops flashing got these files on the stick(fat partitioned) so far: boot.ini, ntldr, ntdetect all taken from my xp install. edit: think it has something to do with my boot.ini, so i guess i should show what's written in it. [boot loader] timeout=30 default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS [operating systems] multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition" /noexecute=optin /fastdetect edit #2: is it maybe that i should add a second entry, so it will actually show me that it works? also i suppose i should change rdisk to (1) and partition also to (1) right? im gonna try this.

ok here's my situation: windows doesn't startup, not even in safe mode. found out that sptd.sys is the problem. now the only way to fix this would be start recovery console, either from Wxp cd or as boot option. but since its a netbook, there's no way i can use a cd (nor do i have a cd for that matter) though, i can still access the hdd via linux. so, since i explained the background story, now for my question: what should i type in boot.ini, so i can boot to the recovery console instead of the (broken) xp install? also, is it correct that the recovery console can stop windows from trying to load sptd.sys and boot normally? (just deleting the file didnt work, it would just hang for about 30 secs and then bsod) any help is appreciated ps. yeah, i know i suck at explaining