[Slick Slab McKnab]

Hey guys, I need to pick some of your brains again, having an issue with my mini (toshi nb205), but it's a XP situation.

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So recently I had a BSoD on my mini, then after a few regular startups it's drastic. Whenever I turn it on, the WinXP splash/loading logo pops up, then blue screen, then says Invalid BOOT.INI

Then it goes to the standard "Your computer has shut down incorrectly yadda yadda yadda. Would you like to restart normally; from last known good configuration; safe mode; safe mode with networking; safe mode with command prompt".

Now, the thing is that no matter which one I choose it does the same thing over and over.

My question, besides how I can fix this, is if I can just use a live cd to go in and copy/paste a good version of that BOOT.INI file directly (after I found out where it's stored at). Second, if I load this live cd on a USB drive, can I boot from it? I only saw the HDD/SDD and FDD (what's fdd?) option in bios, well, there was a third but I don't remember what it was, definitely not USB though.

Now, I learned that if I hold the number 0 during startup I can access the on board instant recovery section which will basically reformat and reinstall windows, which is a relief that I can get to that. I just don't want to do that just yet.

Thanks in advance, and all the other help I've gotten on here for my toshi/previous hp. I've been waiting for a reply on the Toshiba dot com forum website with no luck. Dead thread for two days with 80 views. =(

[Slick Slab McKnab]

sooooooo i think i'm going in the right direction. and maybe this will help someone in the future if they have the same problem with any other mini or a toshi itself.

i was in the process of d'ling knoppix to try a live cd solution and maybe recover some files but was impatient and started up the mini to smash a few more buttons. as usual i tried the last config option, normal, yadda yadda, flipped through the bios, then tried the f8 at start up only to get the usual OS listing that gives you the option to choose which one youwant if you have more than one (?) when i noticed an option. i clicked it and it took me to even more start up options. one of them being a debugging mode.

fuck yeah!

clicked that, win xp started to load up with that bright turqoise text at the bottom saying entering debugging mode. saw my mouse cursor!!!!! oooo la la. froze for a quick second. crap! and then loaded my desktop! awesome! so now i'm running the os with no problems, wifi, etc etc, backing up my files, will not shut down and try to restart till i finish. but i always have the option of accessing the recovery partition by holding 0 on startup.

wish me luck!