"NTLDR is missing"

S

Supersport

n00b
Joined
Sep 21, 2006
Messages
8
I need some serious help. I installed a few new components on my machine last night: a fan for my video card and a new case fan. After finishing and trying to boot I now get "NTLDR is missing - press CTRL + ALT + DEL to restart.

I really don't know how to go about fixing this, but I don't have access to another computer other than my work computer. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
 
Supersport said:
I need some serious help. I installed a few new components on my machine last night: a fan for my video card and a new case fan. After finishing and trying to boot I now get "NTLDR is missing - press CTRL + ALT + DEL to restart.

I really don't know how to go about fixing this, but I don't have access to another computer other than my work computer. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
Click to expand...
need more info, do you have sata HD's and IDE or just one type? Check all your cables to yor HD's.
This is saying it cant find your windows basically or HD with windows on it, usually a physical problem or a boot order issue. Check your bios boot order also, and make sure you dont have any floppy's or usb drive's in the pc
 
yeah sorry, that was a bit vague. I have 2 HDs: 1 SATA, 1 IDE. I did check the BIOS and it did have the correct boot order. I do not have a floppy drive, no CDs inserted, and no jump drives (usb) plugged in. I hope I didn't fry something while workin on it.
 
Refit all cables. If it continues, repair the install by attempting to install XP again into the same partition of the same drive it is currently on. If a repair is possible, XP will detect your old OS and ask if you would like to repair the current installation by pressing [R]. Please note, this is not from the recovery console. If you'd like to use the recovery console or if the repair option isnt available, do this:
1. Insert the Windows XP bootable CD into the computer.
2. When prompted to press any key to boot from the CD, press any key.
3. Once in the Windows XP setup menu press the "R" key to repair Windows.
4. Log into your Windows installation by pressing the "1" key and pressing enter.
5. You will then be prompted for your administrator password, enter that password.
6. Copy the below two files to the root directory of the primary hard disk. In the below example we are copying these files from the CD-ROM drive letter "E". This letter may be different on your computer.

copy e:\i386\ntldr c:\
copy e:\i386\ntdetect.com c:\

7. Once both of these files have been successfully copied, remove the CD from the computer and reboot.
Click to expand...
 
will i lose all my installed games/data on the HD by repairing in the recovery console?

Also, my machine came with a "recovery partition" on the HD, is there something I can do to make use of this? I would like to avoid a total system overhaul if at all possible.
 
enginurd said:
Refit all cables. If it continues, repair the install by attempting to install XP again into the same partition of the same drive it is currently on. If a repair is possible, XP will detect your old OS and ask if you would like to repair the current installation by pressing [R]. Please note, this is not from the recovery console. If you'd like to use the recovery console or if the repair option isnt available, do this:
Click to expand...

if its just a cable dont do the hole repair thing, its either a boot order problem or a cable i bet money on it. if you cant get it, boot into a window's cd and hit the R than do a fixboot, fixmbr and a chkdsk /r,
But i say again, i bet its just a boot order problem, check your bios to see what drive its booting to first
 
A workaround is to have the Windows CD in the drive while your computer is booting...

It will prompt you to "Press any key to boot from disk"

Simply wait for that to pass by and XP will boot. At least, that worked for me.
 
If you just added a couple components why would you try making any changes to the filesystem to solve the problem that was created? That's not logical.

Since you say you don't have a floppy drive, I bet you have the wrong HDD specified in your boot order. On most recent bioses, you have 2 sections related to the boot order. 1st part is the usual CDROM/HDD/USB/FLOPPY, etc. and the 2nd part is where you specifically specify which HDD you want to boot. The latter is where I'd look.
 
Well as it turns out, somehow my BIOS got jumbled around and my boot order was the culprit. I switched the order to normal and all is well. Thank you to all that replied...it is nice to have a working machine again :D
 
yeah this has happened to me before without even touching anything, i formatted the computer only to find out that was my issue.. haha...
 
I'd say you knocked your HD cable loose. Sata's are especially easy to do this with.

-Larry
 
Yeah, hell. Forgot about that one :)

It's a never-ending problem on IBM Desktops (and others I'm sure).

-Larry

Dan_D said:
Eject your floppy disk. :D

j/k
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