INSTALL WINDOWS XP PROFESSIONAL FROM A MASTER IMAGEIN THIS EXERCISE, Y...

6. On the General tab, under Attributes, clear the Read-Only check box, and then

click OK.

To change file attributes using the command prompt, switch to the directory containing

the BOOT.INI file if necessary, and then type

After you have changed the attributes of the BOOT.INI file, you can open and modify

the file using a text editor.

What Happens During the Kernel Load Phase

After configuration selection, the Windows XP Professional kernel (NTOSKRNL.EXE)

loads and initializes. NTOSKRNL.EXE also loads and initializes device drivers and loads

services. If you press E

when the Hardware Profile/Configuration Recovery menu

appears, or if NTLDR makes the selection automatically, the computer enters the kernel

load phase. The screen clears, and a series of white rectangles appears across the bot-

tom of the screen, indicating startup progress.

During the kernel load phase, NTLDR does the following:

Loads NTOSKRNL.EXE, but does not initialize it.

Loads the hardware abstraction layer file (HAL.DLL).

Loads the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM Registry key.

Selects the control set it will use to initialize the computer. A control set contains

configuration data used to control the system, such as a list of the device drivers

and services to load and start.

Loads device drivers with a value of 0x0 for the Start entry. These typically are

low-level hardware device drivers, such as those for a hard disk. The value for the

List entry, which is specified in the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\Current-

ControlSet\Control\ServiceGroupOrder subkey of the Registry, defines the order

in which NTLDR loads these device drivers.

Problems during the kernel load phase of startup often occur because of corrupted sys-

tem files or because of a hardware malfunction. In the case of corrupted system files,

you can try to replace those files using the Recovery Console, which is covered in Les-

son 3. In the case of a hardware problem, you will likely need to troubleshoot by

removing or replacing hardware components until you identify the problem. You may

be able to isolate the hardware device causing the problem by enabling boot logging

(which is also covered in Lesson 3).

What Happens During the Kernel Initialization Phase

When the kernel load phase is complete, the kernel initializes, and then NTLDR passes

control to the kernel. At this point, the system displays a graphical screen with a status

bar that indicates load status. Four tasks are accomplished during the kernel initializa-

tion stage:

The Hardware key is created. On successful initialization, the kernel uses the data

c o l l e c t e d d u r i n g h a r d w a r e d e t e c t i o n t o c r e a t e t h e R e g i s t r y k e y

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\HARDWARE. This key contains information about

hardware components on the system board and the interrupts used by specific

hardware devices.

The Clone control set is created. The kernel creates the Clone control set by copy-

ing the control set referenced by the value of the Current entry in the