NTLDR is missing... yet again

  • Thread starter Thread starter JSOUL dot com
  • Start date Start date
J

JSOUL dot com

As is the way with Windows XP, I am yet again confronted with yet
another screen of death during bootup and right before I was able to
take an image of the hard drive. For no apparent reason I see the
following:

NTLDR is missing
Press Ctrl+Alt+Del to restart

I am hoping someone can provide some "official" response with regard
to correcting this deadly error that pops up for absolutely no
apparent reason periodically.

I have attempted to combat this deadly error in the past by using the
Windows XP Console, which is about as useful as ice in Alaska during
the dead of winter. I find DOS to have been miles more useful for
reviving my system and quickly accessing my files. I have checked out
various suggestions on the Internet and none have worked in the past
short of doing a fresh install, saving all the data on the C
partition, reformatting the partition to install yet another copy of
Windows and spend 4-6 hours installing each piece of software
separately.

My biggest knock against Windows is that in the 10 years since I
switched from the Mac I still haven't seen one useful utility or
organizational change that will allow you to easily recover/repair
your system cleanly and easily and troubleshoot, e.g. removing your
extensions from your folder cleanly, replacing certain files, bootup
disk will access all your files easily, etc. This is frustrating.
Thank you for listening... I know you have all been there... and I'm
hoping to fix this recurring problem once and for all...

Mike
 
Is there more than one drive in your PC? Do you have more than one portion
on the drive that the Windows resides on? Have you used a partitioning
software and moved/resized some partitions on this drive? Any one of these
may cause this problem and very often simply editing Boot.ini file can
correct the problem, providing you have a way to do that with out loading
Windows.
 
If you have a operating system cd copy the ntlrd file from the cd to the
root drive or do a repair installation using the cd.
 
TaurArian said:
http://www.computerhope.com/issues/ch000465.htm
NTLDR Missing
Click to expand...

Hmm. Looks like none of the possibilities could even remotely be the fault
of XP (loose cable, bad drive, etc.).
This is frustrating.
Thank you for listening... I know you have all been there... and I'm
hoping to fix this recurring problem once and for all...
Click to expand...

No, I've never been there. 'Course we don't abide crappy hardware - the
instant it starts acting flakey, in the dumpster it goes.
 
I don't know what causes this. I have seen it a few times on various
systems. My way of solving it is to boot up with the Ghost 9 CD and recover
the individual file ntldr to the C: drive. The whole process takes about 5
minutes.

--
Regards,

Richard Urban
Microsoft MVP Windows Shell/User

Quote from: George Ankner
"If you knew as much as you thought you know,
You would realize that you don't know what you thought you knew!"
 
I don't know what causes this. I have seen it a few times on various
systems. My way of solving it is to boot up with the Ghost 9 CD and recover
the individual file ntldr to the C: drive. The whole process takes about 5
minutes.
Click to expand...

While I'll try this, it didn't work the last 2 times I've had this
happen. I was hoping to get all my software installed and then image
the HD. Everything worked perfectly this week. I was going to do the
imaging later today but booting up just didn't happen this time for no
apparent reason. I'm also at a loss to know what causes this but it's
frequently not because the ntldr file is missing or corrupt. Go
figure. I'll try and report back... thank you for your response.
 
Is there more than one drive in your PC? Do you have more than one portion
on the drive that the Windows resides on? Have you used a partitioning
software and moved/resized some partitions on this drive? Any one of these
may cause this problem and very often simply editing Boot.ini file can
correct the problem, providing you have a way to do that with out loading
Windows.
Click to expand...

Thanks - Yes, I have more than one drive and both are partitioned. In
the 2 weeks that we were up and running I haven't changed anything
that should have caused this to happen. I'll see what I can do to
startup in command line and edit the Boot.ini file. Would you have a
reference page to ensure that the boot.ini file appears correctly? I
thought it did already but should check with a reference.

Thanks greatly for your assistance.
 
Hmm. Looks like none of the possibilities could even remotely be the fault
of XP (loose cable, bad drive, etc.).


No, I've never been there. 'Course we don't abide crappy hardware - the
instant it starts acting flakey, in the dumpster it goes.
Click to expand...

Not when you custom build a system with excellent components.

The problem is now taken on a whole new life. I have an asus a7n8x-e
motherboard and have 2 maxtor SATA drives and 1 IDE. The problem now
is that while bootup verifies that both SATA drives are being seen,
booting up from the Windows XP disks and then loading the SATA drivers
still results in Windows in the recovery console not seeing the SATA
drive at all.
 
JSOUL dot com said:
Not when you custom build a system with excellent components.

The problem is now taken on a whole new life. I have an asus a7n8x-e
motherboard and have 2 maxtor SATA drives and 1 IDE. The problem now
is that while bootup verifies that both SATA drives are being seen,
booting up from the Windows XP disks and then loading the SATA drivers
still results in Windows in the recovery console not seeing the SATA
drive at all.
Click to expand...

Excellent components or not this is often caused by a hardware problem. Bad
ram, bad hard drive, faulty cable, etc. Just because it is new and from a
good manufacturer doesn't mean it is defect free. I would do some basic
hardware troubleshooting first to make sure this is not the problem, memory
tests, hard drive tests, etc. Next I would try troubleshooting the drivers
for the hard drives. Mixing SATA and IDE drives can be confusing getting the
right drivers installed. Some motherboards need different drivers depending
if RAID is activated in the BIOS or not. Were all the drives installed when
Windows was installed? Sometimes adding a drive later with mixed SATA and
PATA drives causes the order of the drives to change breaking boot.ini which
causes the error you are seeing.

Kerry
 
Excellent components or not this is often caused by a hardware problem. Bad
ram, bad hard drive, faulty cable, etc. Just because it is new and from a
good manufacturer doesn't mean it is defect free. I would do some basic
hardware troubleshooting first to make sure this is not the problem, memory
tests, hard drive tests, etc. Next I would try troubleshooting the drivers
for the hard drives. Mixing SATA and IDE drives can be confusing getting the
right drivers installed. Some motherboards need different drivers depending
if RAID is activated in the BIOS or not. Were all the drives installed when
Windows was installed? Sometimes adding a drive later with mixed SATA and
PATA drives causes the order of the drives to change breaking boot.ini which
causes the error you are seeing.
Click to expand...

Thanks Kerry. Unfortunately the Mac handles all of the above in such a
superior fashion with regard to troubleshooting and true "plug and
play." I disconnected everything except for the SATA drives. Both are
recognized individually at boot but neither is found by windows to do
a recovery, one at a time. I'd find it difficult to believe that both
happen to have the same problem just at the same time.

All the drivers were installed properly. I've done it a few times
before. Everything was working perfectly, nothing changed, and then
the dreaded NTLDR error. The memory seems fine as I can use the IDE
drive if I want to install Windows, but that isn't helping me. I tried
updating the BIOS and that isn't making any difference
 
With the two drives, is the SATA drives the drive that you are using as
the primary drive that holds the Windows? What happens if you disconnect the
IDE drive?

I am not that familiar with the interaction between SATA/IDE drive with
a motherboard but if it is similar to SCSI/IDE then even if I make my SCSI
drive in bios to be the first drive, the IDE MBR is still used and not the
SCSI MBR during initial boot which can be a pain in the neck sometimes. For
this reason, I have never been able to uses programs that use a Floppy
emulator to do a temporary boot in order to do special tasks that have to be
done outside Windows. Such program is Windows version of Partition magic or
Drive Image 2002. Both programs modify what they think is the MBR but
instead they modify the SCSI MBR, which is not used.

Anyway, if you put your windows on the IDE, do you then have a problem?
 
JSOUL dot com said:
Thanks Kerry. Unfortunately the Mac handles all of the above in such a
superior fashion with regard to troubleshooting and true "plug and
play." I disconnected everything except for the SATA drives. Both are
recognized individually at boot but neither is found by windows to do
a recovery, one at a time. I'd find it difficult to believe that both
happen to have the same problem just at the same time.

All the drivers were installed properly. I've done it a few times
before. Everything was working perfectly, nothing changed, and then
the dreaded NTLDR error. The memory seems fine as I can use the IDE
drive if I want to install Windows, but that isn't helping me. I tried
updating the BIOS and that isn't making any difference
Click to expand...

Apple has the advantage of controlling the hardware as well as the software.
Microsoft can only guess at what you have decided to install in your pc.
This makes troubleshooting a little harder but has the advantage of more
competition so prices are lower for most pc peripherals. Also I may be wrong
but I don't know of any Macs that support SATA and PATA in the same machine.

After looking at the manual for your motherboard I have a few questions.
Which drive are trying to boot from? What is the order of the boot devices
set to in the BIOS? What service pack level is your XP at? What are the
voltages listed in the BIOS?

You could try posting your problem here:

http://vip.asus.com/forum/bbs.aspx?SLanguage=en-us&model=A7N8X-E Deluxe

I also found a step by step procedure for mixing SATA and PATA drives with
that motherboard in this thread:

http://hardwareanalysis.com/content/topic/6821/

Kerry
 
Apple has the advantage of controlling the hardware as well as the software.
Microsoft can only guess at what you have decided to install in your pc.
This makes troubleshooting a little harder but has the advantage of more
competition so prices are lower for most pc peripherals. Also I may be wrong
but I don't know of any Macs that support SATA and PATA in the same machine.

After looking at the manual for your motherboard I have a few questions.
Which drive are trying to boot from? What is the order of the boot devices
set to in the BIOS? What service pack level is your XP at? What are the
voltages listed in the BIOS?

You could try posting your problem here:

http://vip.asus.com/forum/bbs.aspx?SLanguage=en-us&model=A7N8X-E Deluxe

I also found a step by step procedure for mixing SATA and PATA drives with
that motherboard in this thread:

http://hardwareanalysis.com/content/topic/6821/

Kerry
Click to expand...

Thanks Kerry. Apparently I was finally able to find the hardware and
discover that all the partitions seem to have been lost. I tried
recovering them with Acronis Disk Director but that didn't seem to
work properly. I can see the partitions rebooting into recovery
console but that's it. I rebuild the boot.ini file and now I get stuck
at "verifying dmi pool data..."

After looking at all the instructions at
http://www.computerhope.com/issues/ch000474.htm
I am unfortunately loathe to admit that the only potential fix
remaining is using the fixmbr command which didn't work. Now something
happened where my computer is going into setup mode and I cannot stop
it. There are no other options I have and it's time to reinstall
everything from scratch again. I can't wait until I have to call
Microsoft again to activate Windows because of how often these things
happen.

My point regarding the way the Mac handles things is that the system
files are separable and much easier to exclude when you need to. With
Windows it's a hopeless jumble and even booting up with an emergency
disk is a challenge. All you need is an "OS CD" for the Mac and you'll
at least get a desktop and access to your hard drives. I'd hardly call
the recovery console useful.

I appreciate your help. I have no explanation as to why the entire
disk became unpartitioned and why the partitions couldn't be
effectively restored on the SATA drives.

To answer questions as to why to use the SATA instead of IDE as
startup disks are because the SATA drives are RAID arrays and I would
mirror the drives for superior data and system file protection.

Ah well...
 
JSOUL dot com said:
Thanks Kerry. Apparently I was finally able to find the hardware and
discover that all the partitions seem to have been lost. I tried
recovering them with Acronis Disk Director but that didn't seem to
work properly. I can see the partitions rebooting into recovery
console but that's it. I rebuild the boot.ini file and now I get stuck
at "verifying dmi pool data..."

After looking at all the instructions at
http://www.computerhope.com/issues/ch000474.htm
I am unfortunately loathe to admit that the only potential fix
remaining is using the fixmbr command which didn't work. Now something
happened where my computer is going into setup mode and I cannot stop
it. There are no other options I have and it's time to reinstall
everything from scratch again. I can't wait until I have to call
Microsoft again to activate Windows because of how often these things
happen.

My point regarding the way the Mac handles things is that the system
files are separable and much easier to exclude when you need to. With
Windows it's a hopeless jumble and even booting up with an emergency
disk is a challenge. All you need is an "OS CD" for the Mac and you'll
at least get a desktop and access to your hard drives. I'd hardly call
the recovery console useful.
Click to expand...

Point taken. BartPe offers something similar (booting from a CD to a usefull
environment) but you would need to customise it for your RAID driver.

http://www.nu2.nu/pebuilder/

I appreciate your help. I have no explanation as to why the entire
disk became unpartitioned and why the partitions couldn't be
effectively restored on the SATA drives.

To answer questions as to why to use the SATA instead of IDE as
startup disks are because the SATA drives are RAID arrays and I would
mirror the drives for superior data and system file protection.

Ah well...
Click to expand...

I don't like the RAID built onto motherboards. For the most part it causes
nothing but problems with drivers, seems to slow down performance, and is
generally a pain in the butt. I'm sure there are some motherboards with a
decent SATA RAID controller built in but I haven't seen one yet. A good SATA
RAID card will work much better. I find it better to disable the RAID and
just use the SATA drives as standalone drives. As you are going to reformat
and install anyway I recommend downloading the Ultimate Boot CD and running
memtest86+ for at least a few hours first. It wouldn't hurt to run some of
the HD diagnostics as well. This will make sure that it isn't a hardware
problem before you go through all the work of re-creating the system.

http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/

Kerry
 

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