NTLDR Error installing Win XP HELP!!!

I am having a lot of problems installing Windows XP Professional on my
friends PC for him. I hope you will have time to have a look at my
problem and offer a suggestion?

Let me fill you in on the background.

My friend has a Compaq Presario desktop PC that he bought from another
friend.

He had Windows 98 installed on the PC but wanted to upgrade to XP.

I helped him buy a copy from eBay.

I set about installing Win XP for him. All was going well, I deleted
the existing partitions, selected to create a new one, and setup
proceded to format the hard drive and setup windows.

I got to the point where setup restarts the PC the first time.

The PC started up fine with the Compaq splash screen appearing,
followed by the "Press any key to boot from CD" message.

I didn't press anything, so to let the setup continue but horror! An
error message popped up:

couldn't open drive multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)

NTLDR: couldn't open drive multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)

I didn't have a clue what this meant, but as soon as I pressed
anything the PC restarted, and got back to the "Press any key to boot
from CD" message again - If I don't do this then the NTLDR message
reappears, but if I press a key, it goes back into Windows setup.

So I am in a vicious loop unable to do anything!!

I've searched the net for some answers but don't really know what to
do??

I followed these instructions:
http://support.microsoft.com/defaul...kb;en-us;314057

But to no avail.

I don't know what to do!

Do you have any possible solutions?

Many thanks for your time.

Try booting up using the XP CD-ROM and choose to repair. Then choose the
Recovery Console Option...
Choose the number corresponding to your XP version and enter your
Administrator Password (then press enter).

After that you'll see a command prompt...enter the following command:

bootcfg /rebuild" command to fix boot.ini.
FIXBOOT will fix the boot sector on the boot drive,
FIXMBR will fix the master boot record if the NT loader
complains of a missing HAL or unmountable boot volume.

You need to use the FIXMBR command .........XP cant find the HD so you need to
redo the master boot record.
You also need to make sure that the proper drive is listed as the 1st boot
device in the BIOS.
peter



After the process is completed enter the command EXIT to quit (and the
system should auto reboot OK from that point onwards...
"Rhys Jones" <rhysjones@dsl.pipex.com> wrote in message
news:397e5713.0410020951.1f64799d@posting.google.com...
>I am having a lot of problems installing Windows XP Professional on my
> friends PC for him. I hope you will have time to have a look at my
> problem and offer a suggestion?
>
> Let me fill you in on the background.
>
> My friend has a Compaq Presario desktop PC that he bought from another
> friend.
>
> He had Windows 98 installed on the PC but wanted to upgrade to XP.
>
> I helped him buy a copy from eBay.
>
> I set about installing Win XP for him. All was going well, I deleted
> the existing partitions, selected to create a new one, and setup
> proceded to format the hard drive and setup windows.
>
> I got to the point where setup restarts the PC the first time.
>
> The PC started up fine with the Compaq splash screen appearing,
> followed by the "Press any key to boot from CD" message.
>
> I didn't press anything, so to let the setup continue but horror! An
> error message popped up:
>
> couldn't open drive multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)
>
> NTLDR: couldn't open drive multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)
>
> I didn't have a clue what this meant, but as soon as I pressed
> anything the PC restarted, and got back to the "Press any key to boot
> from CD" message again - If I don't do this then the NTLDR message
> reappears, but if I press a key, it goes back into Windows setup.
>
> So I am in a vicious loop unable to do anything!!
>
> I've searched the net for some answers but don't really know what to
> do??
>
> I followed these instructions:
> http://support.microsoft.com/defaul...kb;en-us;314057
>
> But to no avail.
>
> I don't know what to do!
>
> Do you have any possible solutions?
>
> Many thanks for your time.

Hi Peter

Many thanks for the reply, i'm pretty sure i tried that? Although I've
lost track of everyting I tried by now!

I tried copying the i386\ntldr and i386\ntdetect.com files from the
win xp disk and THEN used the bootcfg /rebuild command.

The used FIXBOOT and probably tried FIXMBR.

These were all after copying those ntldr files over - no joy

Although i'm not sure if i did anything in the correct order if you
know what i mean!?




"peter" <peter@nomalarky.net> wrote in message news:<#oZEr#KqEHA.556@tk2msftngp13.phx.gbl>...
> Try booting up using the XP CD-ROM and choose to repair. Then choose the
> Recovery Console Option...
> Choose the number corresponding to your XP version and enter your
> Administrator Password (then press enter).
>
> After that you'll see a command prompt...enter the following command:
>
> bootcfg /rebuild" command to fix boot.ini.
> FIXBOOT will fix the boot sector on the boot drive,
> FIXMBR will fix the master boot record if the NT loader
> complains of a missing HAL or unmountable boot volume.
>
> You need to use the FIXMBR command .........XP cant find the HD so you need to
> redo the master boot record.
> You also need to make sure that the proper drive is listed as the 1st boot
> device in the BIOS.
> peter
>
>
>
> After the process is completed enter the command EXIT to quit (and the
> system should auto reboot OK from that point onwards...
> "Rhys Jones" <rhysjones@dsl.pipex.com> wrote in message
> news:397e5713.0410020951.1f64799d@posting.google.com...
> >I am having a lot of problems installing Windows XP Professional on my
> > friends PC for him. I hope you will have time to have a look at my
> > problem and offer a suggestion?
> >
> > Let me fill you in on the background.
> >
> > My friend has a Compaq Presario desktop PC that he bought from another
> > friend.
> >
> > He had Windows 98 installed on the PC but wanted to upgrade to XP.
> >
> > I helped him buy a copy from eBay.
> >
> > I set about installing Win XP for him. All was going well, I deleted
> > the existing partitions, selected to create a new one, and setup
> > proceded to format the hard drive and setup windows.
> >
> > I got to the point where setup restarts the PC the first time.
> >
> > The PC started up fine with the Compaq splash screen appearing,
> > followed by the "Press any key to boot from CD" message.
> >
> > I didn't press anything, so to let the setup continue but horror! An
> > error message popped up:
> >
> > couldn't open drive multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)
> >
> > NTLDR: couldn't open drive multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)
> >
> > I didn't have a clue what this meant, but as soon as I pressed
> > anything the PC restarted, and got back to the "Press any key to boot
> > from CD" message again - If I don't do this then the NTLDR message
> > reappears, but if I press a key, it goes back into Windows setup.
> >
> > So I am in a vicious loop unable to do anything!!
> >
> > I've searched the net for some answers but don't really know what to
> > do??
> >
> > I followed these instructions:
> > http://support.microsoft.com/defaul...kb;en-us;314057
> >
> > But to no avail.
> >
> > I don't know what to do!
> >
> > Do you have any possible solutions?
> >
> > Many thanks for your time.