I just re-installed Windows XP Home on a Emachine EL1200. It istalled fine and runs fine. It's a bit slow in booting up , for being a fresh and new installation so I looked in MSCONFIG, to see what I might find. All the tabs across the top are there except " BOOT.INI". There is a tab for "General, SYSTEM.INI, WINI.INI, SERVICES, STARTUP and TOOLS", but no "BOOT.INI" tab. Is that ok ???
I used a standard Windows XP Installation disc that I have used to put Windows XP Home, on many computers. This is the 1rst time I've noticed this problem.
I also noticed that on the side of the computer, on the COA sticker it says that the system is a Windows XP Home Edition Nettops
I don't know if NETTOPS has anything to do with it ?
Whats wierd is that everything works great ! It goes on the internet fine, all the drivers are there and working......after I put them there !

Any and all help is greatly appreciated !!

Mmm... possibly something wrong with permissions on that file.. check them. Else go into RC with your cd and run..
bootcfg /default
-it will rewrite the file, and perhaps set permissions correctly.
Else use bootcfg /rebuild
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/291980

I've used all this info and even tried to "repair" the installation and the computer stills boots a little slow but there still is no boot.ini tab in MSCONFIG.
I'm affraid that one day the computer will stop booting up because of this. Should I just go ahead and do a complete reinstallation and wipe out the old one ?

Fooling around with ProcMon and Msconfig i find that the only key that is queried for boot.ini is HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Shared Tools\Msconfig. The query is for a subkey, boot.ini. In my machine it does not exist. And I have the tab. [0.1msecs later the actual file itself is opened and read for Msconfig.exe].
Further, I note that if I uncheck a startup item a subkey is created for it under Msconfig\Startupreg; I check it again and the subkey is removed. So. Perhaps check the above path for Msconfig\boot.ini. If it exists, save the key and then delete the boot.ini subkey.

Im a little lost on those instructions. Can ya maybe re-word them for me please.

I'm going to reinstall Windows on the " unknown" partion after I delete it. DO I need to delete the other 2 partions as well ?

Here is what I did. I reinstalled Windows on the 2nd partition and now everything is normal again. I guess that maybe it just didn't install the 1rst time ?!?!?!?!? I want to thank everyone who helped me !!! I'm truely greatful for those that are here to help !!!

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