NTLDR is missing

[Tim]

I get "NTLDR is missing, press Ctrl+Alt+Del to restart..."
when I start my PC. OS is XP home. It was working fine, I
haven't installed any HW or SW.
Here's what I did so far trying to fix it:

- made sure HDD (IBM 80GB)is OK, connecting to another PC
as a slave. I could get into the HDD.
- disconnected all the Disk drives from motherboard
leaving only the HDD, and replaced the cable between the
HDD and motherboard - it came up with the same error.
- the strangest thing is my HDD is recognized as a slave
in BIOS. I hadn't change anything in the BIOS and jumper
settings on the HDD. Master HDD is set to 'Auto', but it
still cannot detect the HDD as a master only a slave.
- reset the bios to factory defaults within the bios
itself, still sees the HDD as a slave.
I'm confused, help me...

 

[Marcos]

-----Original Message-----
I get "NTLDR is missing, press Ctrl+Alt+Del to restart..."
when I start my PC. OS is XP home. It was working fine, I
haven't installed any HW or SW.
Here's what I did so far trying to fix it:

- made sure HDD (IBM 80GB)is OK, connecting to another PC
as a slave. I could get into the HDD.
- disconnected all the Disk drives from motherboard
leaving only the HDD, and replaced the cable between the
HDD and motherboard - it came up with the same error.
- the strangest thing is my HDD is recognized as a slave
in BIOS. I hadn't change anything in the BIOS and jumper
settings on the HDD. Master HDD is set to 'Auto', but it
still cannot detect the HDD as a master only a slave.
- reset the bios to factory defaults within the bios
itself, still sees the HDD as a slave.
I'm confused, help me...

.
I had this before. The problem turned out to be a badly

fragmented disk drive, and if you make 'any' changes to
the root folder, you get this message when you boot-up.
The solution is in the Knowledge Base, and too sad to re-
type here. Good luck.

 

[Guest]

that cost me buck to find out .......go buy new cables first thing in the mor

 

[Tim]

as I mentioned before I relplaced the cable and it gave
the the same error, and still sees the HDD as a slave.

 

[Tim]

thanks, but the first thing need I figure out is to make
the HDD - master not slave within the BIOS.

 

[brian the lion]

This may work...

Try connecting the hdd on then END connector of the cable
NOT the middle one, some newer systems tend to use this
Cable Select method and the cable itself can determine if
it going to be slave or master!

You won't be able to change the state in BIOS of the
drives!!