NTLDR mystery

[Guest]

I have a Dell 2650 Inspiron Laptop. It came preinstalled with XP Home. It has
been running fine for 3 years. Last weekend it did an automatic download of
security updates. When complete I switched it off. When I rebooted I got the
dreaded NTLDR is missing screen. Using the Recovery option I had to do a
complete reinstall of XP, plus SP2, plus all of the drivers and security
updates.

I spent 3 days trying to resolve it and eventually got back to the point
where I could boot up using a downloaded quick boot floppy. I have copied the
Boot.ini, ntldr and ntconnect.com files to C:\ but it will not boot up from
the HDD. I have tried every cure I can find on the net. The HDD has never had
any other OS installed and apart from the security update nothing else was
touched that day.

I took it into work today and let one of the IT managers loose on it. After
2 hours he was stumped too. He also went through everything he knows
including checking the HDD, Fixboot etc. Checked the boot.ini configuration
etc. He is a contributor on MSExpert so his credentials are pretty good.

My HDD has a 30mb FAT32 partition and a C: partition that is 80% full.
The c: drive is the active partition.
The boot up sequence simply will not recognise the boot files on the root c:
partition.

His only solution is to borrow my pc, put the HDD in a caddy, copy off the
files, and then reformat the HDD and then copy it all back again.

Does anyone know if this will work?? I am pulling my hair out with this, the
boot files are fine as XP will boot up from the floppy and everything works
perfectly, there is something preventing the BIOS seeing the files during
bootup, but we are at a loss as to the solution?

It appears that this is a common problem, and an expensive one to fix in
terms of time and required hardware, so if anyone from MS is watching...are
you going to do anything about it?

 

[Steve Parry]

WibblyWobbly fumbled, fiddled and fingered:

I have a Dell 2650 Inspiron Laptop. It came preinstalled with XP
Home. It has been running fine for 3 years. Last weekend it did an
automatic download of security updates. When complete I switched it
off. When I rebooted I got the dreaded NTLDR is missing screen. Using
the Recovery option I had to do a complete reinstall of XP, plus SP2,
plus all of the drivers and security updates.

I spent 3 days trying to resolve it and eventually got back to the
point where I could boot up using a downloaded quick boot floppy. I
have copied the Boot.ini, ntldr and ntconnect.com files to C:\ but it
will not boot up from the HDD. I have tried every cure I can find on
the net. The HDD has never had any other OS installed and apart from
the security update nothing else was touched that day.

I took it into work today and let one of the IT managers loose on it.
After 2 hours he was stumped too. He also went through everything he
knows including checking the HDD, Fixboot etc. Checked the boot.ini
configuration etc. He is a contributor on MSExpert so his credentials
are pretty good.

My HDD has a 30mb FAT32 partition and a C: partition that is 80% full.
The c: drive is the active partition.
The boot up sequence simply will not recognise the boot files on the
root c: partition.

His only solution is to borrow my pc, put the HDD in a caddy, copy
off the files, and then reformat the HDD and then copy it all back
again.

Does anyone know if this will work?? I am pulling my hair out with
this, the boot files are fine as XP will boot up from the floppy and
everything works perfectly, there is something preventing the BIOS
seeing the files during bootup, but we are at a loss as to the
solution?

It appears that this is a common problem, and an expensive one to fix
in terms of time and required hardware, so if anyone from MS is
watching...are you going to do anything about it?

http://www.microsoft.com/resources/.../proddocs/en-us/bootcons_fixmbr.mspx?mfr=true

--
Steve Parry BA (Hons) MCP


http://www.gwynfryn.co.uk

http://www.petitiononline.com/X30WM5/petition.html

 

[Guest]

We did go down that route (root? lol) but as the warning message states that
there is a risk of wrecking the partitions and losing all of the files, we
decided against it until the data is backed up.

I am just mystified as to how this happens in the first place, especially as
the cure is so drastic.

I was hoping for a safe fix as backing up 17gigs of data is going to be a
chore?

Regards

Rob G

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

There appears to be something fundamentally wrong with your
approach. If you have important files then you must back them
up at regular intervals, e.g. once a week. You don't wait until
disaster stares you in the face! The basic rule is: All important
files must reside on at least two independent storage media.

If you think that backing up 17 GBytes of data is a chore then
think how much more of a chore it is to restore 17 GBytes of
data from nothing! A 60 GByte 2.5" disk in an external USB
enclosure costs very little but is a highly effective backup
medium.

 

[Rock]

We did go down that route (root? lol) but as the warning message states that
there is a risk of wrecking the partitions and losing all of the files, we
decided against it until the data is backed up.

I am just mystified as to how this happens in the first place, especially as
the cure is so drastic.

I was hoping for a safe fix as backing up 17gigs of data is going to be a
chore?

Regards

Rob G


:

I don't understand your thinking. You should never be without a full
and complete backup. What if the drive crashed physically and can't be
accessed? How would you go about fixing that without a backup? Backup
of 17 GB to an external hard drive is easy. Use one of the drive
imaging programs on a regular basis.

 

[MAP]

I have a Dell 2650 Inspiron Laptop. It came preinstalled with XP
Home. It has been running fine for 3 years. Last weekend it did an
automatic download of security updates. When complete I switched it
off. When I rebooted I got the dreaded NTLDR is missing screen. Using
the Recovery option I had to do a complete reinstall of XP, plus SP2,
plus all of the drivers and security updates.

I spent 3 days trying to resolve it and eventually got back to the
point where I could boot up using a downloaded quick boot floppy. I
have copied the Boot.ini, ntldr and ntconnect.com files to C:\ but it
will not boot up from the HDD. I have tried every cure I can find on
the net. The HDD has never had any other OS installed and apart from
the security update nothing else was touched that day.

I took it into work today and let one of the IT managers loose on it.
After 2 hours he was stumped too. He also went through everything he
knows including checking the HDD, Fixboot etc. Checked the boot.ini
configuration etc. He is a contributor on MSExpert so his credentials
are pretty good.

My HDD has a 30mb FAT32 partition and a C: partition that is 80% full.
The c: drive is the active partition.
The boot up sequence simply will not recognise the boot files on the
root c: partition.

His only solution is to borrow my pc, put the HDD in a caddy, copy
off the files, and then reformat the HDD and then copy it all back
again.

Does anyone know if this will work?? I am pulling my hair out with
this, the boot files are fine as XP will boot up from the floppy and
everything works perfectly, there is something preventing the BIOS
seeing the files during bootup, but we are at a loss as to the
solution?

It appears that this is a common problem, and an expensive one to fix
in terms of time and required hardware, so if anyone from MS is
watching...are you going to do anything about it?

http://xperiencexp.blogspot.com/2005/11/bcupdate2exe.html

 

[Guest]

Ok I tried the bcupdate2.exe from the Run option in Windows (I assume that
this is permissable as the Recovery Console will not accept the command). No
change I am afraid??

Ho hum....off to Ebay for a back up drive I guess!

 

[Plato]

I have a Dell 2650 Inspiron Laptop. It came preinstalled with XP Home. It has
been running fine for 3 years. Last weekend it did an automatic download of
security updates. When complete I switched it off. When I rebooted I got the

Never use automatic download of anything.

 

[MAP]

Ok I tried the bcupdate2.exe from the Run option in Windows (I assume
that this is permissable as the Recovery Console will not accept the
command). No change I am afraid??

Read the site. You need to create a boot floppy with bcupdate2 included in
it,set your "a" drive as the first option in the bios and just start your
computer.

 

[MAP]

WibblyWobbly wrote:
This is option #2 from another post.


Try this:

Boot with your XP CD in the cd drive. Select 'To repair..' by pressing 'R'.
When in the Recovery Console type the following:

"copy X:\i386\ntldr C:\" - without the quotes.

Where X is the letter of your CD drive and C is the letter of your system
drive. Take the XP CD out of the cd drive and reboot into XP normally.

--


Will Denny
MS MVP Windows Shell/User
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