XP Crash

  • Thread starter Thread starter Airlie Paddy
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Airlie Paddy

XP crashed . . . won't reboot . . . gives message "NTLDR
Missing" . . . . any suggestions/solutions????
 
Hope you have all your data backed up. Last time I saw
that error, my hard-drive crashed (due to a bad cable). I
later recovered some data after weeks of work, new hard
drive etc.. Turns out the c: main directory was damaged,
which is where all the Master Boot Record stuff is,
including NTLDR. Good news is the sub directory data could
still be found using special recovery software.

If you have important data not backed up, DON't re-install
XP, otherwise the re-format will wipe it out.

I think normally you always have to do a re-install for
trouble like this, but One site for repair rescue help I
wished I new about before is at
http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/XPrepairinstall.htm

Good Luck
 
Airlie Paddy said:
XP crashed . . . won't reboot . . . gives message "NTLDR
Missing" . . . . any suggestions/solutions????
Click to expand...

start the recovery console (from the XP cdrom if you haven't installed it
locally), then run CHKDSK /P C: (assuming C: is your Windows drive) to
scan/repair errors on the drive. if there is more than one drive in your
system, repeat CHKDSK /P <drive:> for each one

remove cdrom, type EXIT in the recovery console to reboot the system
 
Hope you have all your data backed up. Last time I saw
that error, my hard-drive crashed (due to a bad cable). I
later recovered some data after weeks of work, new hard
drive etc.. Turns out the c: main directory was damaged,
Click to expand...

I'm taking a survey ;-)

Was the filesystem NTFS or FAT32 ?


Assuming your disk hasn't physically died you'll ba able to
plug it in to a good XP system as the secondary disk and
copy all you data off to a burned CD or some other media.
A local PC shop will be able to do this for you for a few
bucks if you or a friend witha PC don't feel like doing it.

There are lots of recovery options that other people will
contribute, here. My favorite is to boot a modern Linux from a
CDROM to copy the data.
 
I'm taking a survey ;-)

Was the filesystem NTFS or FAT32 ?
Click to expand...

i would be very interested in the results of your survey,
technically-speaking, NTFS is *supposed* to be more robust (and recoverable)
than FAT32, but i've witnessed some strange errors on NTFS volumes that
should have been squeaky clean. as for the missing NTLDR file issue, i've
also seen that on more than one occasion on some systems... they were all
NTFS volumes. in all cases, it was possible to correct the file system by
running CHKDSK /P C: from the recovery console, NTLDR was restored and the
system was back to normal. however, i'm beginning to be suspicious about
the perceived robustness of NTFS.

please post the result of your research/survey

thanks
 
i should add, on two of the systems where the NTLDR went missing, the client
had installed Executive Software's Diskeeper and set it to do a boot-time
defragmentation. i have since advised clients of mine to not use Diskeeper,
the lite version of DK that's built-in to the OS works quite well and is
apparently safer.
 
i should add, on two of the systems where the NTLDR went missing, the client
had installed Executive Software's Diskeeper and set it to do a boot-time
defragmentation. i have since advised clients of mine to not use Diskeeper,
the lite version of DK that's built-in to the OS works quite well and is
apparently safer.
Click to expand...


It's an informal survey, to say the least, but the OP didn't say.

There are was that you can get the infamous "NTLDR missing" message
when the file system, the OS, and NTLDR are fine. Messing up boot.ini
will do it. Unless you can recreate your problem and try it on FAT32
and NTFS it's hard to a say it's the fault of NTFS.

If a file system becomes unbootable, but you can put the disk into a
good machine and copy all the files I say you have an OS problem, not
a filesystem problem.

I have been responsible for a few thousand NT/w2k/xp business systems
for more than 10 years, and lots of 9x systems prior to that. The NT
systems were 95% NTFS and I can say that the 5% of the systems that
were FATxx lost more files due to reboots and hardware failure than
all the NTFS systems. There were zero problems where NTFS prevented
us from copying files. we lost no data due to NTFS.

FWIW; I use PerfectDIsk and have done ocassional boot-time defrags
hundreds of times for many years, with no problem.
 
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