ntldr compression

[hp]

Did system restore, and downloaded windows xp update restarted and now I get
ntldr compression press ctrl-alt.-delete nothing works, is there anything I
can do?

 

[John John (MVP)]

To "decompress" ntldr simply boot to the Recovery Console and issue the
following commands (pressing <Enter> after each):

CD \
ATTRIB -C NTLDR

John

 

[hp]

can't boot to anything, only the f11 works, and I don't know enough to mess
with that. any other suggestions?

 

[John John (MVP)]

Do you have a "real" Windows CD? Does your computer have a floppy
diskette drive? Do you have access to another Windows XP machine, or a
Windows 2000 machine?

John

 

[hp]

I have reinstallation cd from a dell, not for hp and I do have another
computer to operate from. the hp has a floppy diskette drive

 

[John John (MVP)]

Is your other computer a Windows XP computer? Do you see an i386 folder
on the Dell XP CD? Do you see the files NTDETECT.COM & NTLDR inside the
i386 folder?

John

 

[hp]

yes windows xp and yes found the folder with i386 and yes NTLDR

 

[John John (MVP)]

Then it should be easy. Use your second Windows XP computer and create
a startup floppy diskette for the non booting one.

To build the boot diskette do the following:

1- Format a floppy diskette with the Windows XP computer. Make sure
that you format the diskette with your Windows XP computer, if the
diskette was formated with a W9x computer the diskette will fail to boot
your Windows XP installation so don't skip this step.

2- Copy the files NTDETECT.COM and ntldr from the hard drive of the
working Windows XP computer to the floppy diskette. Those are hidden
system files, you may need to go in the Folder Options and change the
View settings to see the files. The files are in the root of the system
partition, that is usually C:\.

3- Create a Boot.ini file and copy it to the diskette. To create a
boot.ini file create a Notepad file and copy the
text between the == lines to the file and save it as boot.ini:

==================================================================
[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP 01"
/noexecute=optin /fastdetect
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP 02"
/noexecute=optin /fastdetect
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP 11"
/noexecute=optin /fastdetect
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(2)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP 12"
/noexecute=optin /fastdetect
===================================================================

Set your non working computer to boot to diskette first (in the BIOS)
and try booting with the diskette. The above boot.ini file will allow
you to try booting on 2 different partition on 2 different hard disks.

If you can boot the computer with the diskette you then only need to
start a Command Prompt and "decompress" ntldr, at the Command Prompt
issue the following commands;

cd\
attrib -c ntldr

John

 

[MAP]

Did system restore, and downloaded windows xp update restarted and
now I get ntldr compression press ctrl-alt.-delete nothing works, is
there anything I can do?

Once your system is up and running (following John John's advice) you might
want to think about this backup software.
http://www.acronis.com/homecomputing/