"Cannot Load Dos" Error

[Paul]

I just formatted a new 30gb drive and installed win xp on a 10 gb
partition. Intermittently when i boot up, after the post screen and
detecting devices, it will say "cannot load dos" hit any key to retry,
upon which it will reboot and repeat the same message. Sometimes it
boots okay, but usually gives me this message. I tried reformatting
several times always with same result. All components are known to
be in good working order, and hard drive is fresh out of the box. I'm
lost, What should I do?

[Alex Nichol]

Paul wrote:

>I just formatted a new 30gb drive and installed win xp on a 10 gb
>partition. Intermittently when i boot up, after the post screen and
>detecting devices, it will say "cannot load dos" hit any key to retry,
>upon which it will reboot and repeat the same message. Sometimes it
>boots okay, but usually gives me this message. I tried reformatting
>several times always with same result.

The message suggests that it is trying to boot a partition that is
formatted as a bootable DOS one (with SYS) but one of the needed files
(IO.SYS and MSDOS.SYS - probably MSDOS.SYS) is missing, so the boot
cannot complete. As it is an intermittent, and you can sometimes boot
correctly, this suggests that it is not damage to your XP partition, but
that *something* is modifying the setting in the partition table for
which is the Active partition. How I don't know (Check for a boot
sector virus in the MBR with a DOS mode AV run from a boot floppy, like
FProt). Booting a Win98 startup floppy and using FDISK to set
partition active, making sure that it is the correct one for your
Windows is the approach I would then try. Not until you are certain
about Boot Viruses though

--
Alex Nichol MS MVP (Windows Technologies)
Bournemouth, U.K. Al...@mvps.org

[Paul]

As it is an intermittent, and you can sometimes boot
> correctly, this suggests that it is not damage to your XP partition,

I discovered the system will boot with a win 2k or xp installation
disc in the drive. A non-bootable disc or no disc and it gives me
the same "Cannot Load Dos" error every time. I wasn't having it boot
of the disc, just the disc being there allowed xp to boot normally.
Any idea what this means?

[Stan Armstrong]

I'm having the same problem. The XP disc works for me, too. Please let
me know if you solve the problem. I'll do the same.

Stan Armstrong

Alex Nichol <alexn....@ntlworld.delete.com> wrote in message news:<1fs2gvc0qpajefg6n...@4ax.com>...