BOOT up missing on C-drive

  • Thread starter Thread starter JayDP
  • Start date Start date
J

JayDP

Though complicated I'll try and keep it short.

IDE 0, C:\drive 19.1 GB, primary
IDE 1, D:\drive 4.1 GB, slave

Through circumstances, I ended up with a corrupted (by
Verizon DSL & ZoneAlarm) Windows ME (upgraded from 98 2nd
Ed) on the Primary C:\drive. So I installed (a borrowed -
temporary) Win 2000 Server onto the D:\drive.

Only a temporary situation, I then (a few months later)
purchased Windows XP Upgrade and reformatted the
C:\drive.

I installed Windows XP as a new install, successfully on
the reformatted C:\drive. Then I proceeded to reformat
the secondary d:\drive in order to yank it out and use it
on another older computer.

That's when I noticed the problems. I couldn't reformat
the d:\drive because of "system files in use" error
message.

So, I tried physically disconnecting the D:\drive. After
doing that - I couldn't boot into Windows XP.

I get the following Errors:

"NTLDR is missing" and
"Boot Record not found on IDE-0"

It appears that when I installed (and spent two weeks
setting up and loading programs for) Windows XP, that
because Win 2000 was the default boot-up OS and on the
D:\drive before all of this, and because I reformatted
the C:\drive - Win XP defaulted to the D:\drive for boot-
up - but installed on the C:\drive as directed and as
desired.

Q: How do I create the Master Boot record on the primary
C:\drive (sans yanking out the D:\drive and starting all
over installing and setting up Win XP)???

Please also reply via e-mail: no7spam-general-
(e-mail address removed) (removing the embedded "-removethis"
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Hi,

Copy ntldr and ntdetect.com from D to C, then boot the WinXP CD and enter
the Recovery Console by hitting "r" at the prompt. Run fixboot C: from the
prompt.

--
Best of Luck,

Rick Rogers aka "Nutcase" MS-MVP - Windows
Windows isn't rocket science! That's my other hobby!

Associate Expert - WinXP - Expert Zone
 
JayDP said:
I installed Windows XP as a new install, successfully on
the reformatted C:\drive. Then I proceeded to reformat
the secondary d:\drive in order to yank it out and use it
on another older computer.

That's when I noticed the problems. I couldn't reformat
the d:\drive because of "system files in use" error
message.

So, I tried physically disconnecting the D:\drive. After
doing that - I couldn't boot into Windows XP.

I get the following Errors:

"NTLDR is missing" and
"Boot Record not found on IDE-0"

It appears that when I installed (and spent two weeks
setting up and loading programs for) Windows XP, that
because Win 2000 was the default boot-up OS and on the
D:\drive before all of this, and because I reformatted
the C:\drive - Win XP defaulted to the D:\drive for boot-
up - but installed on the C:\drive as directed and as
desired.

Q: How do I create the Master Boot record on the primary
C:\drive (sans yanking out the D:\drive and starting all
Click to expand...

Presuming that when you had got XP booted it did see itself in
C:\Windows,

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. If asked which system to repair make
sure you are selecting the one on C:

In that use (if E is your CD drive letter, adjust otherwise)

COPY E:\i386\ntldr C:\ntldr
COPY E:\i386\ntdetect.com C:\ntdetect.com
BootCfg /Rebuild
Fixboot
FixMBR

(The last two may not be essential, but just in case. . .)
On a similar Just in case, make sure that the partition is the active
one with
Diskpart
and then the diskpart commands
list partitions
to tell you the number n of the one where windows is - *probably* 1
select partition n
active
 
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