WHAT... "NTLDR Missing"

jozi

turned on pc this morning and got this message "NTLDR Missing" press.... to reboot

i'm guessing ntldr is the boot file?

how it went missing i dont know? pc worked fine for me last night!

question is does anybody know how to fix it?

would i have to instal windows again? cant really do this because i have to much stuff on my hd that i cant afford to loose

anyone help?

thanks, jozi

BioHazRd

First thing I would do is check that there is no floppy disk in your disk drive. In 90% of the times I have seen that problem, that was the cause.

Bio

jozi

haven't got a floppy disc drive so thats rulled out and no discs in any other drive

Sleipnir

then it sounds a bt screwed.
Boot from your OS cd and run the repair option.

ando

I guess you don't have a ERD disk?

jozi

if i boot from os disc and do the repair option will i still be able to dual boot?

ando whats a erd disk? (nice car is it moded?)

sceptre

Can't /guarantee/ you'll still be able to dual boot (though if there's a problem, that can certainly be fixed after) but the windows boot files for my laptop are on C (still on win98, haven't had time to sort it), E has WinXP and there's a linux boot as well and I've had no hassle running the repair option so I'd imagine you'll be fine.

ERD is Emergency Repair Disk. I'm lazy so I've never made one.

jozi

i done some back-up thing before but i didn't make the boot disk as i dont own a floppy disk drive, didn't think i'd ever need one!
in college now so i'll have to wait till i get home to try it

if dual booting wont work anymore i'd just have to add a line of text into the boot file wouldn't i?

MarkR

I don't want to alarm anyone, but I seem to getting a LOT of these over the last week on the phone (tech support for a brand of laptops) . Checked symantec etc but it doesn't seem to be a viurs. Is / was your definitions up to date? I'm kind of curious now at this stage.

Mark

jozi

i check for updates for my definitions daily (norton internet security) the last time it updated was on saturday i think.
had the pc running for a couple of hours yesterday and turned it of this morning (3 o'clock) when it woke me up (cant believe i actually fell asleep with it on, as noisey as it is) i just shut it down normally so cant see where it went wrong there.

did you a drive defrag the other day as i was going to instal linux but it froze during setup, all worked fine the 2 days after

MarkR

While looking into this I came across some ideas on fixing, mostly using fixmbr to repiar he master boot record. Google it and see what comes up, some people were reporting success.

Mark

moridin

Anytime this has happened to me I've had to re-install. Sucks.

jozi

ended up on a forum somewhere after a google found this link there and i think that might be my problem.
i do remember doing something in the administrative tools screen that had something to do with partitions and stuff.

i think i might just reinstal windows as soon as i can get hold of a big enough hd to back-up stuff

unless anyone has any ideas please let me know cause i hate instaling new os's

(note i dont have a floppy disc drive but can get one if i need it to repair)

ando

Originally posted by jozi
ando whats a erd disk? (nice car is it moded?)

yeah m8, she's modded alright !

An ERD is an emergency repair disk (floppy disk), but if you didnt have a floppy drive, I dont see how you would of created one. I had a similar problem like this before on a server, would'nt boot for me. If you can somehow create a boot disk, by copying the neccesary files from another machine with the same OS onto a floppy (I take it your machine is Nt/2k or XP?) and then edit the boot.ini file to what you think it would of been on your drive.

Now you'll need to get hold of a floppy drive and install it or you could try burning the files onto cd and seeing if your pc will boot from the CD. If booting is successfull from the floppy, run fixmbr to fix the boot up files on your harddrive. I have a feeling you could have a bad sector on your HD, or somethings up with the HD in general. Did you install any other apps/drivers recently?

moridin

If it's a case of an active partition problem, boot off a linux cd and change the active partition toggles using linux fdisk.

jozi

might run setup for linux then, been thinking of giving it ago for a while now.

can i use cd's like you can with floppys to boot? i know it work with my win 2k disc, xp pro won't. if so i could put them files on it

nope, no new drivers or programs etc lately just virus definitions and had an attemp at installing linux, froze after or during hard ware initialisation?

anyone know if i install linux on my cd drive (the one with the boot file) will it reconise winXp pro on my other hd? and will it created the option to load either, like the pc does now (option between win2k and xp)?

i dont actually need win 2k i had to instal it so i could start winxp pro instalation, it wouldn't boot from the disc? for me

thanks for anyones help so far, not looking forward to going home now and spending hours fixing the pc


ando see there's 1/4 mile racing on in march, more info on maxed-ie.net, seen it there last week or so looks like it might be an interesting event to go to

jozi

thank god i didn't have to reinstal windows!!!

changed round my first and second boot device in bios and she booted up fine!
i assume i did make my 2nd hd the primary on then or something


thanks everyone for your help

ando

yeah m8, I might be going. A m8 of mine might be racing his modded 1.8 Focus should be fun

ando

lol, how did the Bios settings change?

jozi

dragwars should be good alright, hope i can make it to!

i think what done was make my hd that doesn't have the boot loader on it the primary hd so when the bios (or what ever it is) was looking for the boot file on that drive it didn't find it because the bios was checking the wrong primary drive.

prob wrong on thhat one but my problem is solved so i'm happy again

ando

Originally posted by jozi
dragwars should be good alright, hope i can make it to!

lol m8, you got me thinking about entering myself !!! If i do a few small things to the engine I might be in with a chance

oh, back on topic :rolleyes: you should make an emergency repair disk now m8, just in case

EDIT: sorry just remembered you dont have floppy drive

Capt'n Midnight

On another PC with the same OS (preferrably same service pack level)

Start - Run - CMD
Format A: /U
C:
CD \
Xcopy Nt*.* a: /h /r
Xcopy boot.* a: /h /r

You now should have a boot disk.

If it works then happy days (it's fixable)

If not then you might have to copy boot.ini from the PC that won't boot - if still not booting then you have a problem.

jozi

think i might get a floppy disc drive, just incase i get problems again!

ando, you might as well enter, at least you'll know how your car goes then compared to others


edit: capt'n, got pc to work changed order in wich drive the pc boots from