KVR Audio

deastman · Post by **deastman** » Fri Aug 12, 2005 5:38 pm

I've got a bit of a sticky situation here. I showed my coworker how to add the /3GB switch to her boot.ini file, but I didn't think she'd actually attempt it herself on someone else's system!

Needless to say, she did it wrong, and now the system just reboots endlessly.

I need to find a boot floppy or CD which will allow me to go in and either fix or replace the boot.ini file. This is a Windows XP system, and I don't have Administrator rights. I'm assuming the drive is NTFS.

If anyone can give me some tips, I'd be most appreciative!

diverdee · Post by **diverdee** » Fri Aug 12, 2005 5:46 pm

You'll probably need to repair the boot.ini using the recovery console bootcfg /rebuild or something like that.
Google it - there'll be more detailed instructions out there.

whyterabbyt · Post by **whyterabbyt** » Fri Aug 12, 2005 5:52 pm

Any knoppix disk with NTFS support should do it, but you could try this one which is specifically a rescue disk. You dont need to know a huge amount of Linux to fix stuff with it, but if you dont, you need to at least check up on how to mount a volume, change to the right directory, and the basics of the 'vi' text editor to get stuff done.

Ive not tried it, but it seems to have what you might need.

http://omnibus.uni-freiburg.de/~giannon ... e/current/

Your 'brute force' alternative, which only really requires a screwdriver, is pulling her hard drive and installing it as a secondary drive on another machine (XP if hers is XP, XP or W2K if hers is W2K) .

deastman · Post by **deastman** » Fri Aug 12, 2005 5:52 pm

I can't even get into the recovery console, safe mode, debug mode, or any other startup option. Any of these just reboot the machine when it gets to boot.ini. Right now I'm downloading something called "Ultimate Boot CD", hopefully that will allow me to get into the disk... but please let me know if anyone else has some advice!

deastman · Post by **deastman** » Fri Aug 12, 2005 5:55 pm

I haven't used Linux specifically, but I've dealt with other types of Unix in the past. Your 'brute force' method is actually not a bad idea... I'll keep that in mind if all else fails.

djsubject · Post by **djsubject** » Fri Aug 12, 2005 5:58 pm

do you have the winxp install disk?

recovery console is in there (but still a bit tricky to use)

the easy to do fix is

choose to install winxp not repeair it at the first part of the install

then it will do a scan & find your currunt winxp install & give you a option to repear that

choose that option to repeair & it will install ALL of the windows operating files, but keeps your software installed

DRAWBACKS*******

all service packs & windows updates will be removed

some ssoftware MIGHT need to be registerd again

i would advise looking up on the net on how to use recovery console to fix the boot ini (thats the first option to repeair from the windows xp install disk

best of luck

Subz

deastman · Post by **deastman** » Fri Aug 12, 2005 6:08 pm

I should add that I work for a large, Nazi-esque corporation in which a bunch of evil IT-weazles control all the hardware and software. They don't allow us "mere mortals" to have admin rights, and they retain all the install disks. In other words, I don't have an XP install disk at my disposal.

aMUSEd · Post by **aMUSEd** » Fri Aug 12, 2005 6:15 pm

I use Knoppix myself on a bootable CD - it will open your boot.ini no problem and you can edit and repair it from there.

The advantage of this over any messing with windows is your tech support fascists won't have to know

btw - what's this <3GIG switch?

deastman · Post by **deastman** » Fri Aug 12, 2005 6:38 pm

Okay, you Linux experts... now that I'm booted with that Rescue disk, where do I find my C: drive? Is it somewhere in /dev?

About the /3GB switch (as I understand it):
Windows allocates a maximum of 2 gigs of memory to be shared among all running applications, even if you have more physical RAM and VM allocated. This isn't a big deal for audio apps, but for 3D, it can be a deal breaker on large files. By adding the /3GB switch to your boot.ini file, Windows will use 3 gigs for all running applications. Presumably this problem will go away under the new 64 bit Windows...

deastman · Post by **deastman** » Fri Aug 12, 2005 7:02 pm

*bump*

deastman · Post by **deastman** » Fri Aug 12, 2005 7:21 pm

One more thing, I just noticed that the boot drive is SCSI. I looked in /dev/scsi, but there's nothing in there to mount. Not quite sure where to look...

Hovmod · Post by **Hovmod** » Fri Aug 12, 2005 7:38 pm

I have just recently rescued my own lappie from a boot.ini mistake thingy, but I can't for the life of me remember the name of the program I ran! There was a bootable CD with its own little OS on it, and a whole arsenal of recovery utilities there. Man... What was it called... I can't find out until monday.

The thing was that with this one I could FIX IT without having to reinstall anything, with no data loss and so on, so it was quite nice...
Is monday OK?

deastman · Post by **deastman** » Fri Aug 12, 2005 7:43 pm

Hovmod wrote: Is monday OK?

Yes, please let me know what you used. Even if I don't end up using it for this problem, it would be good information to have.

I haven't been able to find a mount point for the SCSI drive in Linux, so I'm feeling more and more inclined to go rip the drive out and install it as a secondary drive somewhere else...

Hovmod · Post by **Hovmod** » Fri Aug 12, 2005 7:48 pm

deastman wrote:
Hovmod wrote: Is monday OK?
Yes, please let me know what you used. Even if I don't end up using it for this problem, it would be good information to have..

I'll try to remember. Remind me if I forget.

aMUSEd · Post by **aMUSEd** » Fri Aug 12, 2005 7:50 pm

You should just see your harddisk partitions on the desktop. If you click on them they should mount and you should be able to open them and edit files. If you can't I'm not sure what else you need to do - it all works like that with my PC.

Need Help! - damaged Boot.ini file