boot.ini corrupt. is this bad?

[N-Bandit]

well I was playing with my OC trying to get it higher but ran into a problem. It would post but then hang on start up, so i cleared bios sto undo my FSB OC adn tried to re boot. no workie. got a message Boot.ini is corrupt, attempting to boot from C:\windows\.

well it never made it back into windows so I re, installed windows xp. I used the Clean instal where setup deletes the previous versiion of windows, but does not kill the partition or re-formatt. diddnt work. after setup ran and got back ino windows I re-started and guess what? Same messagee appears. Boot.ini is corrupt. attempting to boot from C;\windows\. and would no longer get into windows. I checked BIOS and every ting was back to stock so no OC, but it just wouldtnt start.

My final solution was to delete the partition and fully re-install. now windows runs, I have my OC back in and running, but I'm annoyed since al my data is gone from deleting the partition.

My question is WHAT HAPPENED!! any one else have a boot.ini issue? do you think it wa due to my OC? ( have a athlon 1.33 and was running it at 1.51. I guess that was a bit excessive, but it was fun! :) I just want to know what happened.

Mike

[skab]

I think if you did a search you could have repaired the boot sector without reformating. I don't remember how to do it myself but it was in a thread last week? Yep, here it is third thread in this link tells you how to fix it for next time: http://www.ocforums.com/vb/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=206063&highlight=repair+boot+sector

[N-Bandit]

thanks. Hopefully I dont have that problem again but if I do....

I coldnt do anything with my comp at the time. It wouldnt go into safe mode or anything. just post, hit the windows splash screen, then hang. Kinda frustrating, but now I have all the Crup off my drive from my wife downloading EVERYTHING she can find. My 80Gig was at 45% full, now I have less than a gig full. thats about the only good thing that came from this.

But my system still hangs occasionally. I hope I diddnt break my CPU already. I am sure that I will, but I dont want to just yet. Gotta wait untill after christmas. :)

Mike

[killer7]

I belive that that unless you have one of the newer boards like the Asus A7N8X that the pci bus isn't locked at 33 MHz. Thus, corrupting HDD data by overclocking.

[twump]

killer pretty much got it right on. when you oc the cpu you oc the pci bus also. if you don't set your divisor accordingly you can get hd corruption. i've had it happen and i'm sure alot of people here have too.you want to keep your pci bus as close to 33mhz as possible without going over about 38mhz or so.

[N-Bandit]

well I got a cruddy board for OC'ing anyway. I bet thats what I did then, I wa running it pretty high, not sure what the PCI was at. but then I am running it almost as hard now with no problems yet. maybe it was just that last straw that broke the camels back.

Mike