Dont reall know where to post this but hope someone can help.

My pc wont boot unless it has a windows bootable CD/DVD in the drive. It first started when i had Vista installed but as i was planning to go back to a dual boot setup i didn't bother looking into it as i though it would fix when i re-formatted.

Now i have formatted and installed XP, the problem is still there. Am not going to stick Vista on incase i need to re-format.

Anyone have any ideas????

Many thanks in advance Iain

what happens when it won't boot? just get a blank screen? do you get error messages when a windows cd is not in the drive?

Try setting the boot order to Floppy, Hard Drive then CD. Or put the hard drive first.

furthermore, can you paste the details of boot.ini from your C:\

Vista uses a completely different boot loader than XP, have you tried running fixmbr from the XP recovery console?

Sorry been away for a while and only just got back.

When it wont boot it just gets past the P.O.S.T and then nothing, just stops.

Have tried setting the drives in diffeerent orders but still nothing.

Have tried FIXMBR and FIXBOOT but with no posotive results.

[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /noexecute=optin /fastdetect

One of my friends has recommended trying to debug my drives but after a little reading up am a bit affraid it will screw up my drives.

Many thanks Iain

Sorted now, used a debug script of another forum and it worked like a charm.

For those interested here it is.

Boot to Win98SE startup disk (It is the best OS made boot disk ever). Type in debug at the A: prompt.

Enter in the following commands:

Blue: what you type in.

Pink: what is displayed on the screen. (DO NOT TYPE THIS IN!)

Black: this is useful information. (DO NOT TYPE THIS IN!)

=====================================================================

To delete partitions on a hard drive:

-------------------------------------------

-F 220 L1000 0 (ENTER)

-A CS: 100 (ENTER)

xxxx:0100 MOV AX,301 (ENTER)

xxxx:0103 MOV BX,200 (ENTER)

xxxx:0106 MOV CX,1 (ENTER)

xxxx:0109 MOV DX,80 (ENTER) <---"80" for hd1, "81" for hd2 >

xxxx:010C INT 13 (ENTER)

xxxx:010E INT 20 (ENTER)

xxxx:0110 (ENTER) <BLANK>

-G (ENTER)

Program terminated normally

- (CTRL)-(ALT)-(DEL) to reboot system

Edited June 1, 200719 yr by iainstott