Boot Sequence Errors

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The most common boot sequence errors occur when the operating system components required for the boot process cannot be found or are corrupted. Often a modification of the boot.ini file leads to a failure to boot properly. If you or your client have recently made a modification to the startup files, you should suspect that problem first.

Catastrophic hardware failure is not a common problem, but it is encountered—particularly in older equipment. If a hard drive stops operating, it is obvious because your computer sounds differently. Also, when you open the case of the computer and listen to it, you won’t hear the hard drive spin up and achieve its operating speed.

Much less obvious are hardware errors that damage the capability of your system to start up without appearing to alter the performance of your system noticeably. If your hard drive develops a bad disk sector, which contains the operating system components responsible for booting your computer, for example, the computer appears to function correctly. This problem is solved by re establishing the boot files on another portion of your hard drive.

The following error messages appear when there is a problem with the boot.ini file. If you get one of these error messages and the Windows shell doesn’t load, you should suspect the boot.ini file and use a boot disk or an Emergency Repair Disk (ERD) to repair the boot.ini file. Later in this chapter, you learn how to create an ERD.

This message indicates that the Windows NT Loader file is either damaged or corrupted:

BOOT: Couldn't find NTLDR

Please insert another disk

Typically, the error with the NTLDR file occurs early on in the boot process. When you see a repeated sequence of error messages indicating that Windows NT Workstation is checking hardware, the error is a problem with the ntdetect.com file. These messages appear as follows:

NTDETECT V1.0 Checking Hardware…

NTDETECT V1.0 Checking Hardware…

NTDETECT V1.0 Checking Hardware…

It is possible for Windows NT to load even if the boot.ini file is missing. If that is the case, the NTLDR starts Windows NT loading files it finds in the <default>\WINNT folder. If the operating system was installed in another location, an error message appears indicating that the ntoskrnl.exe file is missing or corrupt. The following error message appears when the boot.ini file is damaged or when it points to a location that no longer contains the Windows NT Workstation operating system files:

Windows NT could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt:

\<winnt root>\system32\ntoskrnl.exe

Please re-install a copy of the above file.

This message indicates that the Windows NT operating system kernel has failed to load. The problem most often occurs when someone inadvertently renames the folder containing the operating system files without realizing the consequences of that action. The solution is to use your boot disk to gain access to the system and to rename the folder back to the location contained in the boot.ini file. It is less common to see a change in the boot.ini file giving rise to this problem, as that requires a knowledgeable user’s action.

Another potential explanation for the inability of the kernel to load could be that you used the Disk Administrator to create a partition with free space. If you changed the partition number that contains your Windows NT operating system files, the pointer in the boot.ini file no longer points to the correct location. To fix this problem, you need to edit the pointer to the partition to correct the partition number so that it correctly locates your Windows NT operating system files.

When there is a problem with the boot sector, the following error message appears during startup:

I/O Error accessing boot sector file

Multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1):\bootsect.dos

This error message may indicate a problem with your hard drive. You should boot from a boot disk and run the RDISK utility.

Windows NT Workstation also posts a more specific message when it can determine that the error in locating the boot sector is hardware related. The operating system checks hardware (as you have just seen) by testing it during startup. Failure to respond to one of these tests generates the following message:

OS Loader V4.00

Windows NT could not start because of a computer disk hardware configuration problem.

Could not read from the selected boot disk. Check boot path and disk hardware.

Please check the Windows NTª documentation about hardware disk configuration and your hardware reference manuals for additional information.

The preceding message indicates that the pointer in the boot.ini file that locates the Windows NT operating system references a damaged or nonexisting device, or a partition that doesn’t contain a file system that Windows NT can access with the boot loader.

Finally, you may see a STOP error when the Windows NT Loader cannot resolve the appropriate partition that contains your operating system files. This error takes the following form:

STOP: 0x000007E: Inaccessible Boot Device

This error appears when the hard disk controller has difficulty determining which is the boot device—if your computer contains an Adaptec SCSI disk controller, for example, and there is an ID number conflict. Other instances where this error occurs is when the Master Boot Records (MBR) is corrupted by a virus or a disk error.

If you have an internal IDE drive on the workstation and a SCSI disk drive with an ID number set to 0, you will also see the inaccessible boot device problem appear. The 0 ID number is used to specify which disk is the internal disk, and this drive conflicts with a boot partition on the IDE drive. Any bootable SCSI disks may also be booted in preference to your internal IDE drive, so you may want to make all SCSI drives non-bootable to prevent the SCSI disk controller from booting that SCSI drive. (Some disk adapters dynamically assign SCSI device numbers, but they aren’t particularly common.) If Windows NT DETECT program in the boot loader assigns the SCSI bus adapter the number 0, this too makes the reference in the boot.ini file to your internal IDE drive inaccurate.




As a general rule, SCSI drives are faster than IDE drives and preferred by the operating system. Don’t mix and match these two different drive types. If you have a SCSI disk controller and SCSI drives, use those to locate your boot partition on.

If your system proceeds through the load phase and boots correctly but still seems to be malfunctioning, you should check the System Event Log to see whether any system messages were written to the log.

The System Log may display errors, warnings, or informational events that contain an explanation of the conditions leading to the anomaly that you observe due to an error in the boot sequence. Use the Event Viewer program in the Administrative Tools folder on the Program submenu of the Start menu to view the System Log. Choose the System Log command on the Log menu to open the System log. Figure 7.2 shows a System Log with various events.