Couldnt find NTLDR

[tcompton2]

Hey Im trying to install Windows XP again after my hard drive crashed, so I reformatted it and also got another Maxtor 120 gig. I installed both, but now when I try to boot from the Windows XP cd in order to install it, before I even get the chnace to do anything it says this:

Boot from CD: CDBOOT: Couldn't find NTLDR.

How can I fix this. Im just basicaly starting over. Both hard drives have nothing on them, so....any ideas?:(

[MajorDomo]

Make sure you don't have a floppy in the drive and that you CD player is set to first in the BIOS order. ;)

[Catuela]

I have a similar problem in where about every other 2 or 3 times I restart it says it can't find NTLDR. I just did a fresh install of XP Pro on pretty much a brand new system. When it happens I go to the restore option after I boot from the CD and use BOOTFIX. But it only works for a little while and then i have to do it all over again :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad:

[FrothyByte]

there is probably a setting in your bios for a delay IDE for X seconds.

Try and up that value. Maybe your HDD isn't completely being seen by the BOIS correctly.

[Zwitterion]

I had this problem too. Its a problem with the MBR. I completely fomatted all my partitions (because it was easiet for me and I was gonna do it anyways). I just knowi t had something to do with my MBR and partition table.

[bisonisonbison]

i think zweterrion is right.

this happened to me when i installed XP on a hd that was in slave position. i imagine there is some way to fix it without formatting again, but i couldnt figure it out. if anybody knows how, i'd love to hear it.

[Stanley Pain]

From what I've seen, Windows likes to make odd partitions active.

For example.

my Primary boot drive (IDE 0). Is not the active drive.

It's drive 4 (on a PCI IDE Controller card). Strange stuff indeed. To tell you the truth , with my setup, booting has been a pain in the ass to say the least.

1 IDE on onboard
3 IDE on controller card
2 Sata
3 Rom Drives IDE onboard.

Seems each time I install xp a different drive becomes active.

I'd just reformat all of em, but having as much shit as I do (porn + mp3s), that's not an option until I decide to burn everything to DVD :p

Cheers,

Mr. Pain

[Catuela]

From the sounds of it my problems are being caused by the fact that I have 2 drives. One of the drives had XP Home on it so I took all of my media files off the other one and pplaced them on the master drive. Then i formatted and installed XP pro on what was the media drive moved the media files over to the new master drive then formatted the old master..... I think maybe i just need a couple Raptors to fix my problem :D

[Andrew87]

Originally posted by Catuela
I have a similar problem in where about every other 2 or 3 times I restart it says it can't find NTLDR. I just did a fresh install of XP Pro on pretty much a brand new system. When it happens I go to the restore option after I boot from the CD and use BOOTFIX. But it only works for a little while and then i have to do it all over again :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad:

It's probably your overclock corrupting data. i.e. XP2500 at XP3200 or something along those lines.

[bisonisonbison]

when you install windows on a slaved hard drive (D:), it still puts the master boot record on the master hard drive (C:). it does this because having the boot record for the D: drive's OS on the C: drive allows you to choose which one to use when you boot up, assuming that you will leave the hard drives in the current master/slave configuration. (when you boot up, BIOS checks the mbr on the C: drive by default.)


so, when you format and reinstall, be sure you do so with only the one hd in the computer.