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NTLDR missing after moving hard drives

J

jfyeh

Limp Gawd
Joined
Feb 20, 2001
Messages
208
Ok, I just got a new DVD burner and put it in today. However it wouldn't fit on my 2 IDE channels so I put my hard drives on the RAID controller as regular hard drives. I booted up and the RAID controller sees the drives fine in the pre-boot stages but it says NTLDS is missing after that. But when i unplug my hard drives off of the RAID controller I can boot into windows fine. I have my boot order correct too. I booted into windows and it did detect the controller but evertime I boot up with the hard drives in it gives me the NTLDR error. Any ideas?
 
Id check that BIOS boot order again, (just try other options HDD1 HDD2)

or other BIOS options that might be pointing it to the RAID array (BIOS vary quite a bit) IDE bus manager ect
 
I've had similar problems when moving drives around. The issue is in boot.ini

Code: 
[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT="Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional" /fastdetect

After moving your drive, it's getting a different number for rdisk.

Try editting it to
Code: 
[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT="Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional" /fastdetect
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(1)\WINNT="Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional" /fastdetect
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(2)partition(1)\WINNT="Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional" /fastdetect
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(3)partition(1)\WINNT="Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional" /fastdetect

and work your way down the selection list until you find the one that works. Remove the others and edit the default line accordingly.
 
I have that problem with a HD that I'm try to fix for a friend. Nothing special it just won't boot into win98SE, I get a NTLDR missing message. Not quite sure what's going on.
 
that is mysterious considering Windows98 doesnt employ the NT Loader (NTLDR) :p

this wouldnt by chance be a dual boot?

I doubt the original issue has anything to do with the boot.ini
since the NTLDR has to load before the boot,ini can be accessed

inside the boot process part 1 & 2

"After NTLDR enables paging, NTLDR is fully operational. It next reads the boot.ini file from the root directory using built-in file-system code."
 
Hmmm... maybe I don't recall my problem all that well, as it was a while back.

After second thoughts, it may be a setting in the RAID BIOS that's the issue. I know that on my KT7-R, to boot from a drive on the controller one must not only choose RAID as the boot device, but in the RAID BIOS (CTRL + H to access it on my board, IIRC) one MUST also set which drive/array is bootable.
 
if the issue is that NTLDR is actually missing or corrupt it is relatively easy to use the recovery console to copy a new one in place.

also, are you sure there isn't a floppy in the drive? sounds stupid i know, but i got the same question from my dad and that was the problem. and he's no dummy either- MS in compsci from hopkins, been doing networking since win for workgrps 3.11, and writing software for unix voice systems for the last 20 yrs. it's worth a check.
 
If you clear the MBR... (Fdisk /mbr) it might work, depending on what weird things are going on behind the scenes. If you are running 98...kinda weird that youd have NTLDR on there, unless it was dual boot or something. Otherwise check boot order.
 
Originally posted by nullvector
If you clear the MBR... (Fdisk /mbr) it might work, depending on what weird things are going on behind the scenes. If you are running 98...kinda weird that youd have NTLDR on there, unless it was dual boot or something. Otherwise check boot order.
Click to expand...

FIXMBR (from Windows XP install CD) usually works, it basically just creates a new boot.ini for WindowsNT installations only (if you have a dual-boot avoid this option). I don't know how it will work for RAID though, I've only ever used it with IDE configurations.




For the person running Windows98 do you have a dualboot? If you're getting the NTLDR missing error it is because your bootsect.dos is corrupt/missing/wrong or/and your boot.ini is wrong. In boot.ini try changing it to:

[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=c:\
[operating systems]
c:\="Microsoft Windows 98" /fastdetect


My dad had this problem recently on a DualBoot XP/ME system. I had to use the sys command from WindowsME to regenerate bootsect.dos and then use FIXMBR to fix XPs bootloader and then manually edit boot.ini to include WindowsME, this is probably similar to what you're experiencing but with Windows98?
 
No she doesn't have a Dual boot OS. Andrew87, That kind of sounds like the problem but I can't getting into 98 and I searched her HD for both of those files but haven't found them, just too make sure I was searching right I ran it on my XP HD and the files came up. Could I just copy my version and modify it for her system?
 
Each Windows has a different Sys.com. I think it's located on the Windows98 harddrive in c:\windows\command or c:\windows\system32\command (something like that). If you have a Window98 startup disk it will be on there too. You will have to boot up her pc with her harddrive in with a boot DOS diskette. (Try bootdisk.com <- website on your XP pc to create the disk). Copy c:\windows\system32\edit.com to the flopy disk.

Once the boot diskette has loaded the pc up type in "sys c:" and then wait a few seconds. A bootsect.dos has now been created hopefully. Now type in "edit c:\boot.ini"

You'll want your boot.ini to say something like this:

[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=c:\
[operating systems]
c:\="Microsoft Windows 98" /fastdetect

Good luck and I hope this works for you :D.
 
If you still can't find sys.com on her harddrive then it should be located in the i386 directory of the Windows98 Installation CD-ROM.

The easiest method is to just get a bootdisk from bootdisk.com but make sure you're sure of the version of Windows first. If it's Windows 98SE you'll want the:

Windows 98 SE OEM
http://www.bootdisk.com/bootdisk.htm

Again good luck :).
 
Thanks for the help Andrew87. It's been awhile since I've edited a boot file, still don't know what was originally causing her problems.
Sorry jfyeh for sort of taking over your thread, I hope you where able to fix your problem. Thanks agian.
 
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