NTLDR

[Guest]

Apologies if this has been asked before.
Installing XP Pro on a brand new IDE Hard drive - did not want to clone the
old drive as some files corrupted.
Change the boot sequence to boot from CD first in Megatrend BIOS, XP Pro CD
in drive.
As soon as BIOS finishes, message comes up saying "Cannot find NTLDR, press
any key to try again" - and ofcourse pressing a key makes no difference.
So I am stuck! Searching the MS KB gives many entries for NTLDR, but the
common theme seems to be problems installing XP over earlier windows
versions, or corrupted MBR's, but none of them apply here as it is a new
drive just out of the wrapper.
Any ideas please?

Hello there and greetings from England.

I can't suggest why this has happened but I got around it with some old
fashioned file copying and it worked for me. Depending on your format - FAT
32 or NTFS - for the former you can use an old Windows '98 boot up floppy
disk and copy the NTLDR or NTDETECT.COM files from the Windows\i386 directory
of your CD to the root of the C: drive. (See full syntax below).

You're more likely to be on NTFS (assuming you have a full version of XP
and not an upgrade) put that CD in and boot from it. Press the R key when
prompted to install or repair and then the number of the installation - in
your case number 1. Enter in the administrator password when requested.

Then on it's just a matter of copying those two files as above - NTLDR and
NTDETECT so in case you don't remember good old MS DOS, you will type
COPY D:\NTLDR c:
COPY NTDETECT.COM C:
each copy action should bring up a confirmation. When you have them both
type EXIT and reboot.

All should then be well.

 

[GTS]

Apologies if this has been asked before.
Installing XP Pro on a brand new IDE Hard drive - did not want to clone the
old drive as some files corrupted.
Change the boot sequence to boot from CD first in Megatrend BIOS, XP Pro CD
in drive.
As soon as BIOS finishes, message comes up saying "Cannot find NTLDR, press
any key to try again" - and ofcourse pressing a key makes no difference.
So I am stuck! Searching the MS KB gives many entries for NTLDR, but the
common theme seems to be problems installing XP over earlier windows
versions, or corrupted MBR's, but none of them apply here as it is a new
drive just out of the wrapper.
Any ideas please?

 

[Rich]

I had the same problem with NTLDR missing. Using the WinXP
installation disk didn't help me. When it got the point in
the repair steps where it asked for a password, I pressed
enter because I never entered a password.

But the system kept coming back saying that the password
was incorrect.

 

[GTS]

Thanks for that I wil give it a try

Hello there and greetings from England.

I can't suggest why this has happened but I got around it with some old
fashioned file copying and it worked for me. Depending on your format - FAT
32 or NTFS - for the former you can use an old Windows '98 boot up floppy
disk and copy the NTLDR or NTDETECT.COM files from the Windows\i386 directory
of your CD to the root of the C: drive. (See full syntax below).

You're more likely to be on NTFS (assuming you have a full version of XP
and not an upgrade) put that CD in and boot from it. Press the R key when
prompted to install or repair and then the number of the installation - in
your case number 1. Enter in the administrator password when requested.

Then on it's just a matter of copying those two files as above - NTLDR and
NTDETECT so in case you don't remember good old MS DOS, you will type
COPY D:\NTLDR c:
COPY NTDETECT.COM C:
each copy action should bring up a confirmation. When you have them both
type EXIT and reboot.

All should then be well.

 

[Alex Nichol]

Apologies if this has been asked before.
Installing XP Pro on a brand new IDE Hard drive - did not want to clone the
old drive as some files corrupted.
Change the boot sequence to boot from CD first in Megatrend BIOS, XP Pro CD
in drive.
As soon as BIOS finishes, message comes up saying "Cannot find NTLDR, press
any key to try again" - and ofcourse pressing a key makes no difference.
So I am stuck!

Set the BIOS to boot CD before Hard Disk. Boot the XP CD and, instead
of Setup, take the immediate R for Repair. Assume any password
requested is blank, and TAB over.

Give

COPY D:\i386\ntldr C:\ntldr
COPY D:\i386\ntdetect.com C:\ntdetect.com

ATTRIB -H -R -S C:\boot.ini
DEL C:\boot.ini
BootCfg /Rebuild

Probably only the first of these is needed, but make sure while you are
about it.