Help NTLDR IS MISSING

G

gkg101

Limp Gawd
Joined
Jun 4, 2007
Messages
422
Opteron 185
A8N SLI SE
Corsair HX620w
2 gigs Corsair 3200 400 ddr
evga 8800 gts

I think it's a coincidence that I had just popped in my Opteron 185 from a single core 4000 about 20 minutes prior to a break-down. Everything was fine and dandy. Temp fine, played a game, fine. Then I was gently sliding the the side panel back on the case and poof, computer shuts down and attempt to restart. I get past the BIOS screen and then get this message on the screen where the component specs display, you know just before Windows starts. I get this message,"NTLDR IS MISSING, CTL ALT DEL to restart. It's my thought that I get this message just before i would hear the hard-drive starts it's spinning to start Windows. I replaced the hard-drive cable with a new one but that didn't work.

I'd gone through hell and back trying to get this system restored after my cpu busted a while back. Wrong diagnosis let me to change out a couple of motherboards (same chip-set) Finally, I get everything to together, with Windows seemingly running swell with my CPU replaced by Asus and now this? Possibly my rummaging around the case in the last couple months jostled the hard-drive one too many times?

Relating to the published advice listed below, do you think my hard-drive is gone. I mean the system crashed with Windows fully loaded while I was just gently putting the side panel on? But it's so weird that I had just replaced the CPU.

Computer is booting from a non-bootable source.
Computer hard disk drive is not properly setup in BIOS.
Corrupt NTLDR and/or NTDETECT.COM file.
Misconfiguration with the boot.ini file.
Attempting to upgrade from a Windows 95, 98, or ME computer that is using FAT32.
New hard disk drive being added.
Corrupt boot sector / master boot record.
Seriously corrupted version of Windows 2000 or Windows XP.
Loose or Faulty IDE/EIDE hard disk drive cable.
 
Yea, I'm bone-headed, and that's not just with computer hardware. With many things. However I think I stated my problem okay. Windows was up and running. I was gently sliding the side panel on like I've done many times. Nothing got bumped or shocked. But I do suspect that the slight vibration was the straw.
 
Oh, there was a duplicate sentence there in my first post. See I was right - I am boneheaded .
 
My first thought would be a bad cable, or a short going to your mobo when you shook the case.
 
Well everything seems secure and tight, although I'll check things again. I think me sliding on the side panel did have something to do with it but was just the trigger, not the cause, The crash happened while computer was idle, there was no abrupt jarring of the case. The way the crash happened makes me think that the problem is on a mechanical level rather than software? Would a bad hard-drive cause a catastrophic failure like this, while Windows is otherwise stable. I got some bad luck.
 
Update: Was able to start from Windows normally from installation CD. Got a normal startup! Gotta to leave for work now. Still gotta figure out what happened.
 
Possibly a sign that the HDD either got a jolt from when you put the side panel on and buggered the file system up, or your drive is dying and where NTLDR was originally (before you reloaded it) was a bad sector forming which caused it to go missing.
 
That sounds about right, Outamyhead
I'll copy the files from the win cd to my hard drive and see if Windows will start without the install cd. Everything else about my software seems normal
 
Funny thing happened. I decided I could settle in and use my PC normally abet starting from the Windows CD. I applied an auto over-clock of 10% in the Asus BIOS the way I usually do. Then I saved and exited expecting to be able to boot normally from the CD. But this time I see the set-up screen -Windows isn't loading anymore. Not a big deal since I think my hard-drive was close to mechanical failure anyway. Did the change in BIOS cause this change or was it bound to happen anyway. I might research and use the repair option in Windows set-up to see if I can, at least temporally fix my installation. Any thoughts?
 
After exiting from the repair console (without making changes because it turns out one has have to enter code unless your computer is already password protected :confused:)
I was surprised that after exiting repair console, setup ran ChkDsk -no problems found. I later found out that Windows would start even without installation CD. I 'm thinking when I touched my case, it caused a dissconnection with the hard-drive. I'm going to check if the motherboard screws are looser than they should be.
 
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