NTLDR is missing error

[Amy Cheatham]

After returning from vacation, I powered up my computer
only to receive a message stating "NTLDR is missing".
After hours on the phone with a Dell rep., my computer is
STILL not fixed. From what I've read, this is a common
occurance is you have upgraded Windows 95, 98 or ME to
Windows XP. This IS NOT THE CASE. I have not upgraded
anything. My computer was originally shipped with XP on
it and I have not made any modifications to it. Does
anyone know how to solve this problem? All of the
solutions that I've seen posted involve copying files off
of a bootable Windows 95, 98 or ME CD. I don't have any
of those. Please HELP! Thanks!

 

[Dave Patrick]

Try booting the recovery console and from a command prompt issue the
command;
fixboot

To start the Recovery Console, start the computer from the Windows 2000
Setup CD or the Windows 2000 Setup floppy disks. If you do not have Setup
floppy disks and your computer cannot start from the Windows 2000 Setup CD,
use another Windows 2000-based computer to create the Setup floppy disks.
Press ENTER at the "Setup Notification" screen. Press R to repair a Windows
2000 installation, and then press C to use the Recovery Console. The
Recovery Console then prompts you for the administrator password. If you do
not have the correct password, Recovery Console does not allow access to the
computer. If an incorrect password is entered three times, the Recovery
Console quits and restarts the computer. Once the password has been
validated, you have full access to the Recovery Console, but limited access
to the hard disk. You can only access the following folders on your
computer: %systemroot% and %windir%

Or try creating a boot disk. For the floppy to successfully boot Windows
2000 the disk must contain the "NT" boot sector. Format a diskette (on an NT
machine, not a DOS/Win9x, so the NT boot sector gets written to the floppy),
and copy ntldr, ntdetect.com, and boot.ini to it; and possibly ntbootdd.sys.
Edit the boot.ini to give it a correct ARC path for the machine you wish to
boot.