NTLDR is missing - tried all the steps, but nothing works

  • Thread starter Charles Blaquière
  • Start date
C

Charles Blaquière

A drive was about to fail, so I used Norton Ghost to clone it onto a newer,
larger drive. Unfortunately, after installing the new drive and removing the
old one, I get the dreaded "NTLDR is missing Press CTRL+ALT+DEL to
restart" message.

I have:

- Ensured there is no floppy in the PC.
- Gone into the BIOS to ensure the drive was correctly detected and the boot
order was OK.
- Entered the Recovery Console, and did CHKDSK, FIXBOOT and FIXMBR.
- Copied NTLDR and NTDETECT.COM from the CD to C:\ and ensured the BOOT.INI
file looked good.
- Mounted the drive into another PC, ran Disk Management to ensure the drive
had an active, primary partition.
- Tried doing a Windows repair from the CD.

Nothing works! It seems as if the only thing left is to do a clean install,
which will wipe out all users and settings. (I have already backed up the
entire Documents and Settings tree, so no documents would be lost, but I
would have to recreate users and reinstall all software, something I'm
understandably unwilling to do...)

I have scoured the Net, trying to come up with any other steps apart from a
full reinstall. Is there anything you can think of? Thanks.
 
P

Pegasus \(MVP\)

Charles Blaquière said:
A drive was about to fail, so I used Norton Ghost to clone it onto a newer,
larger drive. Unfortunately, after installing the new drive and removing the
old one, I get the dreaded "NTLDR is missing Press CTRL+ALT+DEL to
restart" message.

I have:

- Ensured there is no floppy in the PC.
- Gone into the BIOS to ensure the drive was correctly detected and the boot
order was OK.
- Entered the Recovery Console, and did CHKDSK, FIXBOOT and FIXMBR.
- Copied NTLDR and NTDETECT.COM from the CD to C:\ and ensured the BOOT.INI
file looked good.
- Mounted the drive into another PC, ran Disk Management to ensure the drive
had an active, primary partition.
- Tried doing a Windows repair from the CD.

Nothing works! It seems as if the only thing left is to do a clean install,
which will wipe out all users and settings. (I have already backed up the
entire Documents and Settings tree, so no documents would be lost, but I
would have to recreate users and reinstall all software, something I'm
understandably unwilling to do...)

I have scoured the Net, trying to come up with any other steps apart from a
full reinstall. Is there anything you can think of? Thanks.

This is an exeptional post: Not only did you do a lot of homework but
you also have a good backup of your data files. Congratulations!

You did not say if your system partition is FAT32 or NTFS. Your answer
will influence some of the measures you can take.

If it was my machine then I would do this:
- Boot it with a Win98 boot disk from www.bootdisk.com.
- Run this command: fdisk /mbr

I know that you already ran a similar command under the Command
Console, but then I'm clutching at straws. Note that you can execute
this command without damaging your NTFS partition. It only rewrites
the MBR (which is neither FAT nor NTFS).

I would also use a partition tool to ensure that non only does "the drive
have an active, primary partition" (your words) but that it is the
WinXP partition that is active, not just any partition.

Lastly I would run ptedit.exe (ftp://ftp.powerquest.com/pub/utilities/)
to examine the partition type(s) I have. Your WinXP partition must
be a FAT32/NTFS partition that is not hidden. ptedit will tell you.
 
M

Michael Solomon \(MS-MVP Windows Shell/User\)

First, place the hard drive back in the original computer. Then try running
a repair install as follows:
NOTE, while a repair install should leave your data files intact, if
something goes wrong during the repair install, you may be forced to start
over and do a clean install of XP. If you don't have your data backed up,
you would lose your data should that eventuality occur.

Assuming your system is set to boot from the CD-ROM drive and you have an
actual XP CD as opposed to a recovery CD, boot with the XP
CD in the drive and perform a repair install as outlined below. If the
system isn't set to boot from the CD or you are not sure, you need to enter
the system's BIOS. When you boot the system, the first screen usually has
instructions that if you wish to enter set press a specific key, when you
see that, do so. Then you will have to navigate to the boot sequence, if
the CD-ROM drive is not first line, set it first in the boot sequence. Save
your settings and exit with the XP CD in the drive. The system will reboot.

When the system boots, a few screens into the process you may see a message
instructing you
to hit any key in order to boot from the CD along with a countdown. When
you see this be sure to
hit a key on the keyboard, if you miss this instruction and the system fails
to boot from the CD, it's too
late, you'll need to reboot and try again.

Once you have pressed a key, setup should begin. You will see a reference
asking if you need to load special drivers and another notice that if you
wish to begin the ASR (Automatic Recovery Console) depress F2. Just let
setup run past all of that. It will continue to load files and drivers.

Then it will bring you to a screen. Eventually, you will come to a screen
with the option to (1) setup Windows or (2) Repair Windows Installation
using the Recovery console. ***The selection you want at this screen is
"Setup Windows,"
NOT "Repair Windows Installation.

The first option, to setup Windows is the one you want and requires you to
press enter. When asked, press F8 to accept the end user agreement. Setup
will then search for previous versions of Windows. Upon finding your
version, it will ask if you wish to Repair your current installation or
install fresh. Press R, that will run a repair installation. From there
on, follow the screens.

If you only have a recovery CD, your options are quite limited. You can
either purchase a retail version of XP will allow you to perform the above
among other tools and options it has or you can run your system recovery
routine with the Recovery CD which will likely wipe your drive, deleting all
files but will restore your setup to factory fresh condition.
 
H

hawk

It sounds like your new disk doesn't have a bootable (active)
partition. Even though you copied the necessary files to it's root
directory, the MBR is not seeing it as an active partition. I think
you have to somehow make your new "C" drive\partition active.

Regards, hawk
 

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