Laptop HD upgrade, NTLDR is Missing!!

[Stephen]

I have a Compaq Evo N600c laptop, with Windows 2000 Pro.

The existing 30GB HD gave me a scare the other day when the machine
started and wanted to scan the drive for errors. It had previously
shutdown normally. The scan showed 32K of bad sectors, so I thought it
time to replace it. The original drive was a Hitachi Travelstar, but I
could get an identical new one, so I got a Hitachi Travelstar 60GB
drive instead.

A sector-by-sector copy was taken using Ghost 8.5, and this was put
onto the new drive. When mounted in a USB casing the new drive
functions fine, and all the files in the new drive are accessible.
However the laptop will not boot from it.

I have tried running the Windows Console, and repairing the W2K
installation, I have tried copying NTLDR and NTDETECT.COM files from
the original drive. I have checked the BOOT.INI file, and can't spot
anything untoward there.

I have found various techniques on the net, that require the use of a
laptop drive which I don't have. So those techniques are not available
to me. As far as I can tell the Ghost copying process has copied the
NTLDR and NDETECT.COM files and yet it still says the file is missing.
I can only assume at this stage that the MBR and/or the BOOT.INI file
are pointing to the wrong place, but I am unsure how to verify whether
or not this is the case and how to correct them is they are wrong.

I have access to:

USB drive case, for 2.5" ATA drives.
The laptop, which has a DVD-ROM drive, but no floppy drive.
A PC, also with a DVD+/-RW drive, but no floppy drive.

What am I likely doing wrong?
How can I more fully diagnose what is actually happening?

Cheers

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

I have a Compaq Evo N600c laptop, with Windows 2000 Pro.

The existing 30GB HD gave me a scare the other day when the machine
started and wanted to scan the drive for errors. It had previously
shutdown normally. The scan showed 32K of bad sectors, so I thought it
time to replace it. The original drive was a Hitachi Travelstar, but I
could get an identical new one, so I got a Hitachi Travelstar 60GB
drive instead.

A sector-by-sector copy was taken using Ghost 8.5, and this was put
onto the new drive. When mounted in a USB casing the new drive
functions fine, and all the files in the new drive are accessible.
However the laptop will not boot from it.

I have tried running the Windows Console, and repairing the W2K
installation, I have tried copying NTLDR and NTDETECT.COM files from
the original drive. I have checked the BOOT.INI file, and can't spot
anything untoward there.

I have found various techniques on the net, that require the use of a
laptop drive which I don't have. So those techniques are not available
to me. As far as I can tell the Ghost copying process has copied the
NTLDR and NDETECT.COM files and yet it still says the file is missing.
I can only assume at this stage that the MBR and/or the BOOT.INI file
are pointing to the wrong place, but I am unsure how to verify whether
or not this is the case and how to correct them is they are wrong.

I have access to:

USB drive case, for 2.5" ATA drives.
The laptop, which has a DVD-ROM drive, but no floppy drive.
A PC, also with a DVD+/-RW drive, but no floppy drive.

What am I likely doing wrong?
How can I more fully diagnose what is actually happening?

Cheers

The boot sequence goes roughly like this:

1. The BIOS launches the code located in the MBR (Master Boot Record).
2. The MBR code invokes ntldr.
3. NTLDR processes boot.ini.

Since the error message reports "Missing ntldr", there is no point in
examining boot.ini.

I can think of two reasons why you might get this error message:
a) The MBR is incorrect. An easy way to fix it is to boot the
machine with a Win98 boot disk (www.bootdisk.com),
then to run this command: fdisk /mbr.
b) The disk geometry (Cylinder/Head/Sector) is incorrect.
To fix this you would need to compare the old and the
new setting on a desktop PC because few laptop BIOSs
have a facility to adjust these parameters. You would
also need an adapter to connect your 2.5" disk to a
standard ribbon cable.

Until you get this problem resolved, you could probably boot
the machine with a Win2000 boot diskette or CD. Post again
if you need instructions on how to make one.

 

[Stephen]

The boot sequence goes roughly like this:

1. The BIOS launches the code located in the MBR (Master Boot Record).
2. The MBR code invokes ntldr.
3. NTLDR processes boot.ini.

Since the error message reports "Missing ntldr", there is no point in
examining boot.ini.

I can think of two reasons why you might get this error message:
a) The MBR is incorrect. An easy way to fix it is to boot the
machine with a Win98 boot disk (www.bootdisk.com),
then to run this command: fdisk /mbr.
b) The disk geometry (Cylinder/Head/Sector) is incorrect.
To fix this you would need to compare the old and the
new setting on a desktop PC because few laptop BIOSs
have a facility to adjust these parameters. You would
also need an adapter to connect your 2.5" disk to a
standard ribbon cable.

Until you get this problem resolved, you could probably boot
the machine with a Win2000 boot diskette or CD. Post again
if you need instructions on how to make one.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

I have managed to get a hold of a floppy drive module for the laptop,
so that's a new option open to me if needs be.

Reading your reply makes sense. I have just run an "Ultimate Boot CD 4
Win", which has various drive tools on it. One of which stated that
there was a problem with the drive geometry, and went on further to
say that it was probably an incorrect figure for the number of heads.

How do I ascertain the correct geometry for the new drive? And what do
I need to change to make this work? The laptop BIOS has precious
little helpful options in it, and certainly nothing that looks useful
with regards to the hard drive.

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

I have managed to get a hold of a floppy drive module for the laptop,
so that's a new option open to me if needs be.

Reading your reply makes sense. I have just run an "Ultimate Boot CD 4
Win", which has various drive tools on it. One of which stated that
there was a problem with the drive geometry, and went on further to
say that it was probably an incorrect figure for the number of heads.

How do I ascertain the correct geometry for the new drive? And what do
I need to change to make this work? The laptop BIOS has precious
little helpful options in it, and certainly nothing that looks useful
with regards to the hard drive.

I know of two ways to obtain the correct drive geometry:
- Read it off the disk label
- Get a desktop BIOS to report it to you.
The only way I have ever been able to change a drive geometry
is by using a desktop PC with a halfway intelligent BIOS. After
changing it, you would need to re-image the disk.

 

[Stephen]

I know of two ways to obtain the correct drive geometry:
- Read it off the disk label
- Get a desktop BIOS to report it to you.
The only way I have ever been able to change a drive geometry
is by using a desktop PC with a halfway intelligent BIOS. After
changing it, you would need to re-image the disk.

So let me try and get this straight...

The MBR contains some code, a bootstrap code if you will. Just enough
code to read some specific sectors off the disk.
These sectors will contain the NTLDR file. This again is some code,
but more complex and will read the BOOT.INI file.

The MBR code will have within it some drive geometry information
contained within it, to ensure it reads the sectors containing NTLDR.
I presume it reads the sectors, and the NTLDR file is fingerprinted
somehow so that the MBR code knows it has found it. If it doesn't it
displays the message I have been seeing.

Mounting the drive through UBCD4Win, I am able to read the new drive
and all the contents perfectly, because the incorrect MBR drive
geometry values are not a factor?

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

So let me try and get this straight...

The MBR contains some code, a bootstrap code if you will. Just enough
code to read some specific sectors off the disk.
These sectors will contain the NTLDR file. This again is some code,
but more complex and will read the BOOT.INI file.

The MBR code will have within it some drive geometry information
contained within it, to ensure it reads the sectors containing NTLDR.
I presume it reads the sectors, and the NTLDR file is fingerprinted
somehow so that the MBR code knows it has found it. If it doesn't it
displays the message I have been seeing.

Mounting the drive through UBCD4Win, I am able to read the new drive
and all the contents perfectly, because the incorrect MBR drive
geometry values are not a factor?

You're close but not entirely correct. On the other hand my own
knowledge is not complete either.

You write "The MBR contains some code, a bootstrap code if you
will. Just enough code to read some specific sectors off the disk."
Yes, the MBR contains some code which is sufficient to read ntldr.
No, this file does not have to be in a specific place like to old DOS
boot files. The MBR code will find it regardless.

You write "The MBR code will have within it some drive geometry
information contained within it, to ensure it reads the sectors containing
NTLDR. I presume it reads the sectors, and the NTLDR file is
fingerprinted somehow so that the MBR code knows it has found it."
This is the part I know least about. Here are the two things I do know:
- If the information on your disk is recorded with an incorrect
geometry setting then the machine won't boot.
- In such a case my trusty old copy of PQMagic (a fierce competitor
to Ghost) would warn me about the discrepancy and tell me not to
store any information on the disk, to avoid serious corruption.

In other words, PQMagic tells me that a disk with a drive geometry
that does not match the BIOS settings is bad news.

I note that Acronis, which I use these days to manipulate partitions,
does not issue any warnings.

I have had several laptops with problems similar to yours. I was
able to fix all of them by performing the imaging process on a desktop
PC where I could control the disk geometry.

I suspect that other Ghost users must have had the same problem.
If so then the Ghost FAQs would mention it.

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

So let me try and get this straight...

The MBR contains some code, a bootstrap code if you will. Just enough
code to read some specific sectors off the disk.
These sectors will contain the NTLDR file. This again is some code,
but more complex and will read the BOOT.INI file.

The MBR code will have within it some drive geometry information
contained within it, to ensure it reads the sectors containing NTLDR.
I presume it reads the sectors, and the NTLDR file is fingerprinted
somehow so that the MBR code knows it has found it. If it doesn't it
displays the message I have been seeing.

Mounting the drive through UBCD4Win, I am able to read the new drive
and all the contents perfectly, because the incorrect MBR drive
geometry values are not a factor?

It just so happens that I have a laptop here whose partly corrupted
disk I imaged prior to running chkdsk on it. The image won't boot -
in my case the error message is "No operating system". Tomorrow
I shall check out the drive geometry and repeat the imaging process.
Watch this spot!

 

[dg1261]

Reading your reply makes sense. I have just run an "Ultimate Boot CD 4
Win", which has various drive tools on it. One of which stated that
there was a problem with the drive geometry, and went on further to
say that it was probably an incorrect figure for the number of heads.

How do I ascertain the correct geometry for the new drive?

The "correct" geometry is the one that your laptop's BIOS wants to use.
There is no specific geometry for the hard disk that is more correct than
another, as it will change depending on what machine the hard disk is
installed in.

You didn't say exactly how you did the cloning, but mashed up geometry
parameters can occur with IBM/Lenovo and HP/Compaq laptops if you are not
scrupulously careful about how you do the cloning. You might be able to
glean more information about this phenomenon in this thread:

http://radified.com/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1128609708/14#14

 

[Stephen]

I have a Compaq Evo N600c laptop, with Windows 2000 Pro.

The existing 30GB HD gave me a scare the other day when the machine
started and wanted to scan the drive for errors. It had previously
shutdown normally. The scan showed 32K of bad sectors, so I thought it
time to replace it. The original drive was a Hitachi Travelstar, but I
could get an identical new one, so I got a Hitachi Travelstar 60GB
drive instead.

A sector-by-sector copy was taken using Ghost 8.5, and this was put
onto the new drive. When mounted in a USB casing the new drive
functions fine, and all the files in the new drive are accessible.
However the laptop will not boot from it.

I have tried running the Windows Console, and repairing the W2K
installation, I have tried copying NTLDR and NTDETECT.COM files from
the original drive. I have checked the BOOT.INI file, and can't spot
anything untoward there.

I have found various techniques on the net, that require the use of a
laptop drive which I don't have. So those techniques are not available
to me. As far as I can tell the Ghost copying process has copied the
NTLDR and NDETECT.COM files and yet it still says the file is missing.
I can only assume at this stage that the MBR and/or the BOOT.INI file
are pointing to the wrong place, but I am unsure how to verify whether
or not this is the case and how to correct them is they are wrong.

I have access to:

USB drive case, for 2.5" ATA drives.
The laptop, which has a DVD-ROM drive, but no floppy drive.
A PC, also with a DVD+/-RW drive, but no floppy drive.

What am I likely doing wrong?
How can I more fully diagnose what is actually happening?

Cheers

Good news everyone, I've managed it. Based on the various comments and
ideas, I came to the conclusion that the best thing was probably to
use the actually laptop to create the clone, rather than a desktop
machine, as I had been doing. The desktop system uses Ghost 8.5, but
what I actually used was one of the utilities on the UBCD4Win disk
called RawCopy. The old drive was attached to the laptop using a USB-
IDE converter, and the new drive installed properly.

The most worrying part was determining precisely which was Drive 0 and
which was Drive 1, as these were the only references available in the
RawCopy program to select the source and destination drives. The
Windows installation on the UBCD wasn't much help as it had the
internal drive C at location "0", and the USB attached one at location
"0(0)"! One of the MBR tools eventually showed that the USB drive was
0 and the internal was 1, and I took a leap and set the copy off over
night, as it was going to take 8 hours over the USB 1.1 port on the
laptop.

This morning, it rebooted on the new drive perfectly, apart from
Windows 2000 faffing around saying new drivers found for this that and
the other.

Just used Partition Magic to extend the 29GB partition to occupy the
whole disk, which took a while as it had to realign everything because
the cluster size went up from 16k to 32k. Rebooted again and now
everything is hunky dorey!! ;-)

So if anyone is interested:

I used UBCD4Win v3.1, containing RawCopy from Roadkil.net.
Then I used Partition Magic.

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

Good news everyone, I've managed it. Based on the various comments and
ideas, I came to the conclusion that the best thing was probably to
use the actually laptop to create the clone, rather than a desktop
machine, as I had been doing. The desktop system uses Ghost 8.5, but
what I actually used was one of the utilities on the UBCD4Win disk
called RawCopy. The old drive was attached to the laptop using a USB-
IDE converter, and the new drive installed properly.

The most worrying part was determining precisely which was Drive 0 and
which was Drive 1, as these were the only references available in the
RawCopy program to select the source and destination drives. The
Windows installation on the UBCD wasn't much help as it had the
internal drive C at location "0", and the USB attached one at location
"0(0)"! One of the MBR tools eventually showed that the USB drive was
0 and the internal was 1, and I took a leap and set the copy off over
night, as it was going to take 8 hours over the USB 1.1 port on the
laptop.

This morning, it rebooted on the new drive perfectly, apart from
Windows 2000 faffing around saying new drivers found for this that and
the other.

Just used Partition Magic to extend the 29GB partition to occupy the
whole disk, which took a while as it had to realign everything because
the cluster size went up from 16k to 32k. Rebooted again and now
everything is hunky dorey!! ;-)

So if anyone is interested:

I used UBCD4Win v3.1, containing RawCopy from Roadkil.net.
Then I used Partition Magic.

Congratulations! Note that the cloning method is not really
important. What counts is that the disk gets populated under
the same geometry settings as the one used by the laptop.
In your case you used a desktop with a different setting (which
you did not disclose until the very end), hence your problems.

 

[Stephen]

Congratulations! Note that the cloning method is not really
important. What counts is that the disk gets populated under
the same geometry settings as the one used by the laptop.
In your case you used a desktop with a different setting (which
you did not disclose until the very end), hence your problems.

Sorry about that. On the plus side I have learnt quite a good deal
from this, thanks to you, and of course the laptop is working fine
with its new drive. In fact I am typing this reply on it now.

Thanks for your help.