Professional technical help needed.

m5ex9oqjawdg2i

NTDLR


I tried looking it up on the web but it helped none. It all started about a month ago when I tried install a second HD as I wanted more space. It was a 30 gig HD (Maxtor) Now my mate installed it, but I think he completely messed things up. The primary HD, 180 gig, got very very slow, to the point that I formatted it and reinstalled the OS on the 30 gig and had the 180 gig as my backup. That worked brilliantly.

Lately a big blue screen would come up about physical memory dump begining, or something. I just restart the computer, now lastnight I got some serious critical errors so I turned off the computer, I may have downloaded a virus. Anyway I turned my comp off and on again some time later, it got stuck on the second screen, the one after the comp checks for IDE connections. you sometimes only see it for a second, anyway it froze on that screen... for ages, I restarted about 5 or 6 times. Still nothing. so I took out the hard drive, I disposed of it today and bought a bran new 250 gig maxtor HD.

Now I tried reinstalling windows XP from CD rom but it says that I am missing the NTLDR file (New Technology Loader file or something?). How do I get this sorted? I have spent 400 euro's in the last month on upgrades and I am seriously pissed off with it. Can we work with just the 250 gig HD, pretend that there is no other HD's to work with...

Oh I did something in the bios, reset back to default settings and then to optimised settings. Any idea's on what to do? Your help is much appreciated... thanks.

Cuddlesworth

Sounds like memory issues. Download memtest and boot it from a floppy.

jhegarty

krazy_8s wrote:

Sounds like memory issues. Download memtest and boot it from a floppy.

second vote for memory... might have got some static on it installing hd...

CuLT

Mmm, that's an error I always got when the BIOS was trying to boot from the wrong drive.

You probably have it set (in BIOS) to boot from a drive that doesn't have an OS or some sort of boot instructions on it (and presumably you haven't actually gotten to install Windows yet).

IE, you'll need to set your CD/DVD drive as the primary boot device, or else access the BIOS boot menu and boot the Windows install CD that way.

stevenmu

Sounds like it's possibly some kind of primary/secondary master/slave issue. You should have two ide ports on the motherboard, primary and secondary (prob numbered 0 & 1), make sure the hard disk you want to install windows on is connected to the primary, also make sure the drive is set to 'Master' using the jumpers at the back. If anything else (other hard disc or cd-drive) is connected with the same cable make sure it's set to slave.

Also, as Cult says, set your CD drive as first boot device in the BIOS to get windows installed.

Civilian_Target

First: Run a copy of Memtest86 on your computer to make sure it's OK. You can get this from http://www.memtest86.com/ - just download the bootable image and open it using nero or some other CD burning program and write it to CD. Then put it in your computer at boot time, and it'll check you're memory's OK, which is also a basic hardware stability check. To do this you'll need to make sure you're computer's booting from CD first at startup - press DEL or F1 or whatever you're prompted to press at start up, and check for "Boot Sequence" (usually in advanced BIOS settings) and make sure it's set to CD/DVD-->Hard Disk. Then save and exit.

If Memtest passes, put the Windows CD in your drive, restart and see if you're prompted for NTLDR. If you are, your computer's having boot management issues. Your boot ROM is currently set to look for the windows NT loader but can't find it because the hard disk it used to be on is gone. Get a copy of Universal Boot Disk and see if it can install a boot loader for you. http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/

dathiultaigh

Could also be a virus based in the MBR. If your system buescreen's again (memory dump) write down the fx00000... (whatever the code is) you see on the screen and google it and you should get search returns stating cause and effect. BTW is this XP 64 bit? if so make sure you are using the right drivers for your HDD controller.

NutJob

Two things usually cause this a mem fault.

OR

A bad hard drive.



Also check the hard drive is jumpered correctly.

m5ex9oqjawdg2i

Before I wanted to waste anybodies time on this I:

Set up the BIOS as to boot from the cd/dvd drive.

The HD was bran new and had no OS on it. The jumpers were correct and the IDE cable was primary. The same problem happened on another 2 HDs.

I changed the ram, same problem.

I changed the motherboard, same problem.

I basically have a bran new computer, completely differant system, but the NTDLR file is still missing.

Thanks for the help but I gave it in to a rapair man. Lacking time and patients it was my last resort.

MrShadow

is one of the drives sata by any chance?
if so it can be bios setting that are screwing things up. try installing with just one drive in