One of my computers is xp pro and I get the message, invalid boot.ini booting from windows C:\
I have done the "fix" from the Microsoft site and it worked for about a dozen reboots and now I am getting this message again.
Question is......does this sound like a hard drive failure?
I have run virus scans with Microsoft security essentials and malwarebytes.
Post your boot.ini file here. Open it in notepad. Is it empty? Do you have a copy of boot.ini on your system?
Well yes, I did that once and it worked but then after several reboots it failed again
If it helped once, it will help again
Until we don't know what is causing the corruption of your boot.ini, we can not prevent it.
Didn't you try to install an other OS on the same PC?
Did you check for hard drive errors, viruses?
Didn't you mess up with the boot order in the BIOS?
Didn't you removed an other HDD from the PC?
That doesn't necessarily mean your hard drive is failing. Some more information would be helpful. As Lemur has requested already, please post the contents of the boot.ini. It is hidden by default so you'll need to enable the option to view hidden folders/files (which you can find in Windows Explorer) menu option.
Furthermore, the boot.ini file is unnecessary for single boot machines. In another words, if XP is the only operating system running on that system, the boot.ini file is unnecessary.
Edit:
I see in your reply to Lemur that you looked for the boot.ini file through the msconfig utility. Don't edit the boot.ini file through that - the boot.ini file is on the root of your C:\ drive. Simply navigate to the C: drive using Windows Explorer. You can open the contents with Notepad in XP Accessories. Copy & paste the contents here.
Quote