Windows XP - New Hard Drive

[wulf109]

I installed a new HD on my Windows XP computer. Now with the new HD booting,in DOS I'm getting a screen which asks me to select an OS. I only have one OS,so why am I getting this screen?
Is there anyway to get rid of this screen??

[lumis]

there is a boot.ini file on the root of the C drive, you'll need to show protected o/s files to view it.

it should look like this;

[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

if you've got more than that, delete the excess & save.. you can do this with notepad.. remember to backup your stuff before you do this.

[wulf109]

Thanks,my boot.ini file did not contain the Operating System portion of the file at all. I copied the boot.ini file from the old HD to the new HD and that fixed the boot problem.

[thevoelk]

Right-click on My Computer and select Properties. Go to the Advanced tab, and select Settings (in the Startup and Recovery section). Right beneath the drop down listing that probably says "Microsoft Windows XP Professional/Home" /fastdetect, there is a checkbox that says "Time to Display list of operating systems: " with a time in seconds. Unceck the box, or decrease the time to 1 or 2 seconds. If you have the old hard drive still installed, as a slave or something else, the new install of Windows may be reading the boot sector from the original drive. If it's a fresh install, I have this happen to me at work when I format Dell's Windows XP and install my site licensed copy to make a deployment image. It only seems to do it when I use a quick format, I just change the setting.

While you're in there, it may be a good idea to make sure the Automatically Restart button is unchecked (under the System Failure section) and Write an event to the system log is checked. It can help in troubleshooting. You may not know what the Blue Screen codes mean or understand the Event Log, but if you post the question on a forum board like this, someone may be able to help you out.