Boot Disk
A boot disk is a start-up disk of an operating system that is used to load the initialization files of software to start a computer. Modern day platforms are configured to search for opening boot up files based on priority. The system would initially boot through the floppy drive, then the CD-ROM drive and finally through the internal hard drive. The sequence can be programmed in the BIOS.
If Windows fails to boot from the hard drive, the process can be redirected to a floppy or CD-ROM using a command line interface. Using the Command prompt, the user can retrieve critical data files.
Creating a Boot disk
To avoid losing important data through boot up failure, you would need to create a Windows boot disk. This disk differs from a MS-DOS startup disk with respect to size and content. A typical Windows boot disk comprises of files that would be necessary to start an operating system, with the remaining system files present on the hard drive.
To create the startup disk, you would need a blank floppy disk that has been formatted by Windows XP. Search for the root folder from a system partition of the hard drive and copy the following files to the floppy disk.
- Boot.ini
A significant file of Microsoft Windows 2000 and Microsoft Windows XP operating systems, the ‘boot.ini’ is a Microsoft initialization file. The file is located on C drive (root directory) of the partition disk. The file is used to exhibit a menu of operating systems present in the computer. The file is extremely critical for system reboot as it is used to indicate the exact location of the operating system. - NTLDR
NTLDR or the NT Loader is the boot loader for a Windows operating system. NTLDR can be processed from a CD-ROM, USB flash drive or internal hard disk. NTLDR require low hard disk space and the appropriate boot sector in a file to load a version of Windows.
The files required by the NTLDR are the main boot loader and boot.ini. Ntdetect.com can also be included to load an NT-based Operating System. The NTLDR is not included Windows Vista, which has separated the functions of the NTLDR between Windows Boot Manager and winload.exe - Ntdetect.com
Ntdetect.com is used by the NTLDR. The file is used to gather information and forward it to the NTLDR. The Ntoskrnl.exe, the Windows kernel, processes this information.
If the Ntbootdd.sys file or the Bootsect.dos file exists in the system partition, you may need to copy these files to the boot disk. After copying the files on the floppy disk, you might have to remove the system, read-only, and hidden attributes from the files.
While booting, if you select the Windows OS, NTLDR runs Ntdetect.com, and then passes control to Osloader.exe. If you use MS-DOS or OS/2, Bootsect.dos is loaded by NTLDR.
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