"NTLDR is Missing" after adding Promise ATA66

T

Tomas

Hi all,

I was trying to add a larger HDD to an old HP computer (PII 266, 6.4GB
HDD limit on the BIOS I think). I have a spare 30GB HDD and found a
Promise ATA66 on eBay.

I did a clean install of Win2k following Promise's direction of adding
driver early in the install (pressing F6 and supplying driver on
floppy). The install completed o.k, but during the first boot I would
get the "NTLDR is Missing" error message.

I also tried the alternate method of apply the driver to a drive with
an existing OS. I have to do this on the 6.4GB drive since that all
the onboard controller could read. Then moved it to the Promise
controller. Same error message when connected to the Promise
controller. Moved it back to the onboard, booted o.k.

I also tried a clean install of Win2k on the 6.4GB drive on the
Promise controller. Won't boot on the Promoise after the install.
Booted o.k. with onboard.

I really want to put a larger drive in the computer.

Any help is appreciated.
 
P

Pegasus \(MVP\)

Tomas said:
Hi all,

I was trying to add a larger HDD to an old HP computer (PII 266, 6.4GB
HDD limit on the BIOS I think). I have a spare 30GB HDD and found a
Promise ATA66 on eBay.

I did a clean install of Win2k following Promise's direction of adding
driver early in the install (pressing F6 and supplying driver on
floppy). The install completed o.k, but during the first boot I would
get the "NTLDR is Missing" error message.

I also tried the alternate method of apply the driver to a drive with
an existing OS. I have to do this on the 6.4GB drive since that all
the onboard controller could read. Then moved it to the Promise
controller. Same error message when connected to the Promise
controller. Moved it back to the onboard, booted o.k.

I also tried a clean install of Win2k on the 6.4GB drive on the
Promise controller. Won't boot on the Promoise after the install.
Booted o.k. with onboard.

I really want to put a larger drive in the computer.

Any help is appreciated.

As a first step, boot your machine from a Win2000 floppy boot
disk, to see if things are OK on your hard disk:

- Format a floppy disk on some other Win2000 PC.
Don't do it on a Win9x PC - it won't work.
- Copy these files from the \i386 folder of your Win2000 CD
to A:\
ntldr
ntdetect.com
- Copy the hidden file c:\boot.ini to your floppy
- Boot the machine with this floppy

What do you get?
 
G

GAlan

(e-mail address removed) (Tomas) wrote in
Hi all,

I was trying to add a larger HDD to an old HP computer (PII 266, 6.4GB
HDD limit on the BIOS I think). I have a spare 30GB HDD and found a
Promise ATA66 on eBay.

I did a clean install of Win2k following Promise's direction of adding
driver early in the install (pressing F6 and supplying driver on
floppy). The install completed o.k, but during the first boot I would
get the "NTLDR is Missing" error message.
<clip>

Does the BIOS have a boot order selection in it somewhere? Check there
to see if it has a setting to boot first from another controller.
If it only has a limited selection of orders, some with SCSI, try
one of those. Most of those addon IDE controllers are treated as SCSI
by NT, 2000 and XP.

You can't just move a drive with 2000 on it to another port or controller.
It either won't boot at all or it'll just reboot after you login.

You need a copying program like Partition Magic 7.0 or later to
copy the 2000 install and fix whatever needs "adjusted" for 2000
to work in the new location.

In your case you also need to get the BIOS to boot from the addon
controller first in line. Hopefully it's one of the nice ones that
lets you choose to assign bootable devices in any possible order.

I usually choose Floppy, CD, Hard drive 0, other.
 
D

Dave Cooper

Also make the floppy disk is removed
GAlan said:
(e-mail address removed) (Tomas) wrote in

<clip>

Does the BIOS have a boot order selection in it somewhere? Check there
to see if it has a setting to boot first from another controller.
If it only has a limited selection of orders, some with SCSI, try
one of those. Most of those addon IDE controllers are treated as SCSI
by NT, 2000 and XP.

You can't just move a drive with 2000 on it to another port or controller.
It either won't boot at all or it'll just reboot after you login.

You need a copying program like Partition Magic 7.0 or later to
copy the 2000 install and fix whatever needs "adjusted" for 2000
to work in the new location.

In your case you also need to get the BIOS to boot from the addon
controller first in line. Hopefully it's one of the nice ones that
lets you choose to assign bootable devices in any possible order.

I usually choose Floppy, CD, Hard drive 0, other.
 

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