my laptop acer wont start......ntldr is missing.....
any ideas....
any ideas....
missing ntldr
- Thread starter morristhemoose
- Start date
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IAN
IAN
I have absolutely no idea what causes this, but I have had this happen once in the past.
The fix was to format the hard-disk and install Windows onto the blank disk.
If you have vital information on the disk, you might be able to read it by connecting it up to someone else's PC and burning the data onto CD.
The fix was to format the hard-disk and install Windows onto the blank disk.
If you have vital information on the disk, you might be able to read it by connecting it up to someone else's PC and burning the data onto CD.
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I
Igorian
1st thing is, do you have a floppy drive? If so, remove any disks as it will (in most cases) try to boot from here.
If not, then the boot sector, ntldr or ntdetect.com are damaged or a combination of the 3. It's best to replace all 3, so do the following.
Boot the laptop from a Windows XP disk and, when prompted, press "R" to go to the recovery console. You will be asked to select a Windows instance, which is usually just option "1" and the administrators password. You will then be presented with a command prompt.
First, do a disk check to detect/repair any damage. From the prompt, type CHKDSK /P and press ENTER. Wait for the process to finish.
Now, assuming your CD ROM drive is D, type copy d:\i386\ntldr c:\ and press ENTER. Next type copy d:\i386\ntdetect.com c:\ and press ENTER. Lastly type FIXBOOT and press ENTER. Answer yes to the prompt that follows. If your CD ROM letter is something else, replace the d:\ with the letter of your drive.
Remove the Windows XP CD and reboot the machine.
If it starts up ok, you may not experience any further problems, but I would suggest backing up important files and maybe running manufacturer diagnostics on the drive. The problem could be hardware related, but equally a software update (especially a bad SP2 install) can cause this problem.
If not, then the boot sector, ntldr or ntdetect.com are damaged or a combination of the 3. It's best to replace all 3, so do the following.
Boot the laptop from a Windows XP disk and, when prompted, press "R" to go to the recovery console. You will be asked to select a Windows instance, which is usually just option "1" and the administrators password. You will then be presented with a command prompt.
First, do a disk check to detect/repair any damage. From the prompt, type CHKDSK /P and press ENTER. Wait for the process to finish.
Now, assuming your CD ROM drive is D, type copy d:\i386\ntldr c:\ and press ENTER. Next type copy d:\i386\ntdetect.com c:\ and press ENTER. Lastly type FIXBOOT and press ENTER. Answer yes to the prompt that follows. If your CD ROM letter is something else, replace the d:\ with the letter of your drive.
Remove the Windows XP CD and reboot the machine.
If it starts up ok, you may not experience any further problems, but I would suggest backing up important files and maybe running manufacturer diagnostics on the drive. The problem could be hardware related, but equally a software update (especially a bad SP2 install) can cause this problem.
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i have seen this many times ,
Another option is to boot up with your xp cd, go into recovery console and run chkdsk. Its amazing the amount of times thats helped out!
Another option is to boot up with your xp cd, go into recovery console and run chkdsk. Its amazing the amount of times thats helped out!
I
Igorian
Thanks for all the help/advice...
But it wont let me load up xp repair/installation console at all. to perform the said functions.
But it wont let me load up xp repair/installation console at all.
to perform the said functions.
I
Igorian
You need to boot from the XP CD. You might have to enter the BIOS and make your CD ROM drive the 1st bootable device. There will also be a message which says "Press any key to boot from CD".
It also helps if you can provide us with more detailed information of what is actually happening as we obviously can't see your machine.
It also helps if you can provide us with more detailed information of what is actually happening as we obviously can't see your machine.
This may sound silly, but is it trying to boot from a floppy (maybe even a cd), make sure that nothing is in the floppy disk drive.
Check the BIOS setting to make sure that it's defaulting to the hard disk to boot from.
Check the BIOS setting to make sure that it's defaulting to the hard disk to boot from.
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