USB Boot solution (temporary, i'll fix soon):

***2006-08-04 I am not able to work on it right now but i did find my usb fix files on an old computer, i just zipped the working directory and posted it on the site so you will have to figure some of the things out for yourself, I hope to get this remedied soon, but here is the file: usb_ntldr_fix.zip***

My solution uses two utilities that I am including attached to this email.  Also I will give you the web addresses where I got them from.       The first utility is called the HP usb format utility and is a very handy tool.  The second utility is called bootpart 2.6.  It is what enables me to get the usb drive to look at ntldr and then open the boot.ini menu.  Your special boot.ini file is perfect for all different computer layouts.  All three files will be attached to this email as 1 zipped file.  The three files are the two utilities and the file of instructions.  I am doing this on a thinkpad t40.          Gmail doesn't allow a file with an exe  extension to be sent as an attachment inside of a zipped file so I have renamed the bootpart.exe file inside of the  bootpa26.zip to bootpart.mil  and the hp tool also has a mil extension on the end.  Just rename both of the mil files to exe files.

PS:  Here are the two web sites for those utilities. 

bootpart 2.6  http://www.winimage.com/bootpart.htm HP usb format tool     http://h18007.www1.hp.com/support/files/hpcpqdt/us/download/20306.html

HP usb key format and boot utility.zip 2523k bytes

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Tentative "How to make a floppy to make it a bootable cd"

format a floppy with "create ms-dos disk" in win xp, copy all files to a temp directory
run fixntldr.exe file to create bootable diskette
copy ms dos disk files back over onto floppy

create a bootable disk in roxio

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If you've got no floppy, you can download something called an "iso" that will make a CD with boot information on it that you should be able to use to boot the computer back into windows.

The iso you need is inside this zip file:
http://www.tinyempire.com/notes/files/fixntldriso.zip
(if this link changes, consult http://ntldrismissing.com/ )

Download it and save it to your desktop.

Extract the file, and see if you can just double-click it. If it brings the program you use to burn new CD's, go ahead and burn it, place it in the broken computer, and try to boot.

If it brings up a box about "Windows cannot open this file" we need to download some more software. By default, Windows doesn't include the software you need to burn iso images, but some free software exists here:
http://www.download.com/MagicISO-Maker/3000-2646_4-10379421.html?tag=lst-0-8

Click Download now, run the setup program, go back to your desktop and open MagicISO, (choose the Try It) button. Once it opens, click Tools>Burn CD/DVD with ISO.

There will be a white box in the middle with an open folder to the right, click the open folder, and find the fixntldr.iso file I had you save to the desktop earlier (it might be in a folder named fixntldriso).

Once you select it, click "Burn it!" and have it create the CD, put that into the broken PC and turn it on, it should give you the boot options, and go ahead and boot the PC.

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y'know i made that disc by formatting a floppy in windows xp and chose the option "make an ms-dos boot disk". i then copied those files to a temp directory, and ran my fixntldr.exe to reformat the disk with my boot files, then i copied back to the floppy all the files from the temp directory i'd then go into my cd-rom burning software and tell it to make a bootable cd from the floppy in the drive. if you want you could try to recreate it like that and see if the cd you create will boot it where my fixntldriso would not.