Invalid Boot.ini Error in Windows

To resolve this issue, start the computer from the Windows XP CD, start the Recovery Console, and then use the Bootcfg.exe tool to rebuild the Boot.ini file
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To do this, follow these steps:
1. Configure the computer to start from the CD-ROM or DVD-ROM drive.
2. Insert the Windows XP CD-ROM into your CD-ROM or DVD-ROM drive, and then restart yourcomputer.
3. When you receive the "Press any key to boot from CD" message, press a key to start your computerfrom the Windows XP CD-ROM.
4. When you receive the "Welcome to Setup" message, press R to start the Recovery Console.
5. If you have a dual-boot or multiple-boot computer, select the installation that you have to use from the Recovery Console.
6. When you are prompted, type the administrator password, and then press ENTER.
7. At the command prompt, type bootcfg /list, and then press ENTER. The entries in your current Boot.ini file appear on the screen.
8. At the command prompt, type bootcfg /rebuild, and then press ENTER. This command scans the hard disks of the computer for Windows XP, Microsoft Windows 2000, or Microsoft Windows NT installations, and then displays the results. Follow the instructions that appear on the screen to add the Windows installations to the Boot.ini file. For example, follow these steps to add a Windows XP installation to the Boot.ini file:

a. When you receive a message that is similar to the following message,

 press Y: Total Identified Windows Installs:

1 [1] C:\Windows
Add installation to boot list? (Yes/No/All)

b. You receive a message that is similar to the following message:

Enter Load Identifier

This is the name of the operating system. When you receive this message, type the name of your operating system, and then press ENTER. This is either Microsoft Windows XP Professional or Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition.
c. You receive a message that is similar to the following:

 Enter OS Load options
When you receive this message, type /fastdetect, and then press ENTER.

Note The instructions that appear on your screen may be different, depending on the configuration of your computer.
9. Type exit, and then press ENTER to quit Recovery Console. Your computer restarts, and the updated boot list appears when you receive the "Please select the operating system to start"message.

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How to perform a Primary Restore of Active Directory

1. Reboot the domain controller.
2. During startup, press F8 when prompted, and then select Directory Services Restore Mode (Windows DCs only) from the Windows Advanced Options menu. Press Enter. 
3. Choose the operating system that should be started. Press Enter.
4. When the Safe Mode logon prompt appears, enter the appropriate local administrator account information, and then click OK. Click OK when a message appears, advising that Windows is running in Safe Mode.
5. Click Start, All Programs, Accessories, System Tools, and then click Backup.
6. On the initial page of the Backup or Restore Wizard, click Next.
7. Ensure that the Restore files and settings option is selected on the Backup Or Restore page. Click Next. 8. On the What to Restore page, choose the backup which you want to use for the Primary restore process. Click Next.
9. Click Advanced.
10. On the Where to Restore page, leave the default setting of Original location, unchanged, and then click Next 
11. On the How to Restore page, choose the Replace existing files option. Click Next.
12. When the Advanced Restore Options page appears, enable the When restoring replicated data sets, mark the restored data as the primary data for all replicas checkbox. You can leave all other default settings on the Advanced Restore Options page unchanged.
13. Click Next.
14. Click Finish to start the Primary restore of Active Directory.
15. Reboot the server.

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How to perform an Authoritative Restore of Active Directory

1. Perform a Normal Restore of Active Directory.
2. When prompted to restart the server, click No and then close the Windows Backup Utility.
3. Click Start, Run, and enter cmd in the Run dialog box. Click OK.
4. To open the Ntdsutil command-line utility, enter ntdsutil.
5. Enter authoritative restore.
6. To specify Active Directory, or components of Active Directory as authoritative, use one of the following methods:

•  Enter restore database; this sets the domain and all configuration containers as authoritative. 
•  Enter restore subtree, together with the distinguished name of the Active Directory object you want to mark as authoritative. 
•  You can use the verinc option with either of the above commands, to explicitly set the version number. The option is useful when a different Authoritative restore needs to be performed on an existing Authoritative restore. 

7. When the Authoritative Restore Confirmation dialog box appears, asking whether the Authoritative restore should be performed, click Yes.
8. Enter quit, and enter quit again to close the Ntdsutil command-line utility.
9. Proceed to reboot the server 

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How to perform a Normal Restore of Active Directory

1.Reboot the computer
2.During startup, press F8 when prompted to, and then select Directory Services Restore Mode (Windows DCs only) from the Windows Advanced Options menu. Press Enter.
3.Choose the operating system that should be started. Press Enter
4.When the Safe Mode logon prompt appears, enter the appropriate local administrator account information, and then click OK.
5.Click OK when a messag e appears, advising that Windows is running in Safe Mode
6.Click Start, All Programs, Accessories, System Tools, and then click Backup.
7.On the initial page of the Backup or Restore Wizard, click Next
8.Ensure that the Restore files and settings option is selected on the Backup Or Restore page. Click Next. 9.On the What to Restore page, choose the backup which you want to use for the restore process. Click Next.
10.Click Finish to immediately start a normal restore of Active Directory. If you want to configure advanced option settings, click Advanced, and not the Finish button.
11.When the Where to Restore page appears, choose one of the following optios from the Restore files to list box

• Original location, this default setting restores files to their original locations 
• Alternate location, if selected, you can specify a different location to which the files should be restored. 
• Single folder; this option restores files to a single directory. 

12.Click Next.
13.Click OK if a message is displayed, warning you that a restore of system state data overwrites existing system state data.
14.When the How to Restore page opens, choose between the following options:

• Leave existing files (Recommended); select this option if you do not want the restore to overwrite any existing files. 
• Replace existing files if they are older than the backup files; if selected, files older than the backup files are replaced. 
• Replace existing files; this option replaces all existing files with the backup files 

15.Click Next.
16.When the Advanced Restore Options page is displayed, you can select the following options

• Restore security settings; is enabled by default. If you disable this checkbox, all files would be restored without any permissions. 
• Restore junction points, but not the folders and file data they reference; when selected, the restore process is able to restore information on mounted drives. 
• Preserve existing volume mount points; when selected, existing mounts are protected on the volume. Restore the Cluster Registry to the quorum disk and all other nodes; if applicable for this domain controller, the cluster quorum database is restored. 
• When restoring replicated data sets, mark the restored data as the primary data for all replicas; this option should be enabled if you are performing a Primary restore of Active Directory. 

17.Click Next. 
18.Click Finish to start the Normal Restore of Active Directory.

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INSTALLING A VIRTUAL OPERATING SYSTEM(HYPER-V) IN WINDOWS 2008

Open Server Manager and then navigate through the console tree to Roles -> Hyper-V -> Microsoft Hyper-V Server. If this is the first time that you have used Hyper-V, then you will be prompted to accept Hyper-V License Agreement. Once you accept the license agreement, the various Hyper-V options will be made available to you.

The first thing that you must do is to click on the Connect to Server link, located in the Actions pane. When you do, you will be prompted to select the computer that you want to connect to. Choose the Local Computer option, and click OK. You will now see the screen in

Figure A.

Figure A

This is the main screen that you will use for managing virtual machines.

Creating a New Virtual Server

To create a new virtual server, click the New -> Virtual Machine options found in the Actions pane. When you do, Windows will launch the New Virtual Machine Wizard. The wizard’s initial screen explains that you can click Next to begin customizing a virtual machine, but that you also have the option of clicking Finish right now to create a virtual machine that uses the default values. For the purposes of this article, we will create a custom virtual machine so that you can see the options that are available to you.

With that said, click Next and you will be prompted to enter a name and a location for the virtual machine that you are creating. I recommend using a descriptive name. The location is up to you, but if your server contains a striped RAID array, then that is a good location to choose for performance reasons

Click Next and you will be prompted to enter the amount of memory that is to be assigned to the new virtual machine. By default, new virtual machines are assigned 512 MB of RAM, but that isn’t really enough if you plan on running Windows Vista or Windows Server 2008. I would recommend 1 GB for Vista and 2 GB for Windows Server 2008 installations.

Click Next, and the wizard will prompt you to choose which network adapter you want to use for the machine’s virtual network connection. As you may recall, when you installed Hyper-V, you were given the opportunity to select one or more network adapters to be used by virtual machines. This option allows you to pick from the network adapters that you previously selected. The idea is that you can use a different network adapter on each virtual machine if you want, so that no single network adapter becomes over burdened.

When you have made your selection, click Next, and you will be prompted to choose the virtual hard drive that you want the machine to use, as shown in Figure B. As you can see in the figure, you can either create a new virtual hard drive, or you can use an existing one. Since there aren’t any existing virtual hard drives right now, we will have to create a new one. Windows defaults to creating a virtual hard drive that’s 127 MB in size, but you can create a drive of up to 2 TB if you want

Figure B

Click next, and you will be prompted to install an operating system on the new virtual machine. You have the option of installing an operating system later on, but you can also choose to install from a CD (or an .ISO file), a boot floppy, or from an installation server, as shown in Figure C

Figure C

You can choose to install an operating system now.

When you’ve made your choice, click Next. You will now see a summary of the options that you have created. If you have chosen to go ahead and install an operating system, then insert the operating system media, select the option to start the virtual machine, and click Finish. Windows will now launch the virtual machine and begin installing the operating system, as shown in Figure D

Figure D 

Windows will launch the new virtual machine and begin installing the guest operating system. And with that, we are done!

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