Hey folks,
Getting a weird message and my pc won't boot to windows. The message is NTLDR is missing. Anybody? I have weekly data drive backups and a monthly c:\ partition backups. But I can't get to windows. TIA. Jordan

Jordan,

Have you made any changes to your computer lately? Edits in the BIOS, opened the case and adjusted HDs or cables? Any boot manager changes that could try to boot a data partition? Recent restores that could have gone to the wrong partition?

Or did the NTLDR message just appear spontaneously?

Brian wrote on Apr 2^nd, 2011 at 4:28pm:

Jordan, Have you made any changes to your computer lately? Edits in the BIOS, opened the case and adjusted HDs or cables? Any boot manager changes that could try to boot a data partition? Recent restores that could have gone to the M6 170g 2% milkfat cottage cheese 90g blueberries 20g almonds partition? Today I used Nero for the first time on some mini-DVD disks and had major problems with my computer. I had freezes and had to reboot the machine several times. I can't say exactly what created the problem but I didn't physically change any cables or open the case. Sorry I can't answer better but this gives a picture of what went on prior to this problem. Or did the NTLDR message just appear spontaneously?

Jordan,

I've forgotten about your setup. Are you multi-booting WinXP? What is your partition layout? When was the last C: drive image taken?

Any floppies or USB flash drives attached to the computer?

Brian wrote on Apr 2^nd, 2011 at 5:35pm:

Jordan, I've forgotten about your setup. Are you multi-booting WinXP? What is your partition layout? When was the last C: drive image taken? Any floppies or USB flash drives attached to the computer?

Hello Brian,
The machine runs XP. The last c:\ drive back up should be from April 1st. Is ther e some way to get the machine back, or is it something that has to be changed in how it is now?

Jordan,

I don't understand why you are getting that message. It usually occurs when you try to boot a non-bootable partition. OK, what I'd do is restore the April 1st image.

Brian wrote on Apr 2^nd, 2011 at 6:12pm:

Jordan, I don't understand why you are getting that message. It usually occurs when you try to boot a non-bootable partition. OK, what I'd do is restore the April 1st image.

OK I restored the c:\partition but nothing changed. I believe the drives information is corrupted in the bios. Should we check that next? Btw what time is it in Australia?

It's 1010 here. Daylight Saving Time finished last night.

Can you disconnect all HDs except HD0. Reseat the data cable for HD0 at both ends. Make sure you don't have a floppy in the drive or any USB devices attached to the computer.

How many partitions are on HD0?

Brian wrote on Apr 2^nd, 2011 at 7:12pm:

It's 1010 here. Daylight Saving Time finished last night. Can you disconnect all HDs except HD0. Reseat the data cable for HD0 at both ends. Make sure you don't have a floppy in the drive or any USB devices attached to the computer. How many partitions are on HD0?

Believe SATA 1 (A0) has 3 Partitions c, d,and e. I disconnected SATA 2 (A1) and rebooted after resetting the (A0) cables with no luck. I reconnected SATA 2 (A1) and it booted to windows. this is very confusing. I dont know what I should do next. I now have SATA 1 (A0) disconnected.

What would happen if I switched the SATA 1 and SATA 2 connections? Would it then recogniize SATA 2 as the disk to boot from?

That's what it was. I went into the bios and swapped the boot drives and everything works now. Can you explain that?

IRS only working one time, then of goes back to NTLDR not found. I don't know ants wrong. Any ideas?

Do you have WinXP on each HD? Why do you think your boot configuration has changed since a few days ago? It sounds like the wrong HD is attempting to boot.

Brian wrote on Apr 2^nd, 2011 at 9:37pm:

Do you have WinXP on each HD? Why do you think your boot configuration has changed since a few days ago? It sounds like the wrong HD is attempting to boot.

That's right  but even if I change the hard dri e to boot from of still reverts to the wrong hard dri ve when I reboot.

If you have HD0 attached as the only HD, can you make it boot every time? If not, that's what you need at this stage. Only work with one HD until booting is correct.

Yeah Brian, SATA2 (A1) will boot every time... is that what we want to know?

That's great. Now you have to add the other HD and get both booting correctly. I don't understand your booting method. Do you use a boot menu or do you swap HDs in the BIOS.

Brian wrote on Apr 3^rd, 2011 at 12:32am:

That's great. Now you have to add the other HD and get both booting correctly. I don't understand your booting method. Do you use a boot menu or do you swap HDs in the BIOS.

I was using the boot menu but it wasn't letting my hard drive with the c:\ boot up so I swapped them in the BIOS and it worked one time but switched back after that. But it will always boot if I use SATA 2 (A1) and don't connect SATA 1 (A0). ok?

Is that the Microsoft Boot Menu? White text on a black background?

hi brian...long night  huh?

it's in the Boot Menu in the Award BIOS. And it's a blue on white background. If that is the right thing you asked about. Otherwise I got through the whole BIOS  menu which has everything in the BIOS in about ten menu items with drill downs.

OK. I'm not familiar with that.

When each WinXP is booted, does it see itself as C: drive?

Edit... Can you post the contents of the boot.ini in your current booting WinXP?

Brian wrote on Apr 3^rd, 2011 at 2:15am:

OK. I'm not familiar with that. When each WinXP is booted, does it see itself as C: drive? Edit... Can you post the contents of the boot.ini in your current booting WinXP?

Sorry Brian but I am not current with this. Where do I find the boot.ini ? I did a search and it coulldn't find one.

Right click My Computer, Properties, Advanced tab, Startup and Recovery Settings, Edit.  There it is. Copy and paste the text.

It's a late night for you. 1827 here.

Brian wrote on Apr 3^rd, 2011 at 3:28am:

Right click My Computer, Properties, Advanced tab, Startup and Recovery Settings, Edit.  There it is. Copy and paste the text. It's a late night for you. 1827 here.

There you go.

[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition" /noexecute=optin /fastdetect

Thanks for that. As expected. Good.

What happens if you connect the other HD (as the only HD in the computer) to the SATA port the current HD is using?

Brian wrote on Apr 3^rd, 2011 at 4:13am:

Thanks for that. As expected. Good. What happens if you connect the other HD (as the only HD in the computer) to the SATA port the current HD is using?

If I connect the other HD to the SATA port the currnet HD is using, as the only HD in the compter, it displays the "NTLDR is missing" message and won't boot.

Jordan,

With that current HD still in place, boot from the Ghost CD.....

Utilities
Edit boot.ini
In Select the source boot.ini drive, choose C:
dot in Edit
In the Filename field, type C:\boot.ini
Next
Finish

What is in that boot.ini?

Brian wrote on Apr 3^rd, 2011 at 1:17pm:

Jordan, With that current HD still in place, boot from the Ghost CD..... Utilities Edit boot.ini In Select the source boot.ini drive, choose C: dot in Edit In the Filename field, type C: oot.ini Next Finish What is in that boot.ini?

After entering Utilities and clicking Edit boot.ini it displayed a message ' No boot.ini files were found.'

I deleted boot.ini from my WinXP, booted from the Ghost CD and saw the same error you saw.

But my WinXP booted after showing an Invalid boot.ini message. Something nasty has happened to your WinXP. Can you restore an image to that HD? Or is that the HD you restored yesterday?

Brian wrote on Apr 3^rd, 2011 at 1:55pm:

I deleted boot.ini from my WinXP, booted from the Ghost CD and saw the same error you saw. But my WinXP booted after showing an Invalid boot.ini message. Something nasty has happened to your WinXP. Can you restore an image to that HD? Or is that the HD you restored yesterday?

Something nasty? Nothing is on that drive except ghost backup images.  How could it possibly boot from that? As I said everything works fine with just the one hard drive connected. It's the second drive connecting that is the problem. And that is where all the Ghost backups are.

Ah, I am certainly confused. I thought you had WinXP on both HDs and that's why I was I asked you to look for boot.ini.

So there is only one WinXP?

Brian wrote on Apr 3^rd, 2011 at 2:57pm:

Ah, I am certainly confused. I thought you had WinXP on both HDs and that's why I was I asked you to look for boot.ini. So there is only one WinXP?

Well, I remember last time we worked together it was something much worse and it took a while to fix. I hope this is easier. Yes, only 1 winxp. And that seems to work perfectly. Something happens when the second HD is connected. When both hard drives are connected the NTLDR is missing message comes up. That was how the problem started. With a normal bootup with everything connected.

Try this. Connect the WinXP HD to SATA port 0. It may be a different port from the one it currently works on. Make sure it boots. If so, connect the backup HD to any other SATA port. See if that works.

Brian wrote on Apr 3^rd, 2011 at 3:40pm:

Try this. Connect the WinXP HD to SATA port 0. It may be a different port from the one it currently works on. Make sure it boots. If so, connect the backup HD to any other SATA port. See if that works.

There is only SATA 1,2,3, and 4. Also listed as (A0), (A1), (B0), (B1). Um I swapped the cables and got the 'NTLDR is missing message again. Originally the WinxP HD was connected to SATA 1. If that alone is connected the pc boots properly. But when the backup HD is connected to SATA 2 then the 'NTLDR is missing' error appears.
Sorry for typos I'm connecting from iPhone.

Your SATA port 1 must be equivalent to my SATA port 0.

When you connect your second HD, the BIOS tries to boot the second HD instead of the first HD. NightOwl understands your BIOS but he is out of town frequently these days.

What happens if you connect the second HD to ports 3 or 4? Same error?

Brian wrote on Apr 3^rd, 2011 at 6:39pm:

Your SATA port 1 must be equivalent to my SATA port 0. When you connect your second HD, the BIOS tries to boot the second HD instead of the first HD. NightOwl understands your BIOS but he is out of town frequently these days. What happens if you connect the second HD to ports 3 or 4? Same error?

No, it booted properly with the 2nd HD in SATA 3 or 4 (I can't differentiate except at boot time. Now it wants to use the 2nd HD as the 'new backup destination' I don't understand enough to say yes or no. But it boots with both HDs recognized. I wonder it would boot with HD 2 back in SATA 2 now? Then there would be nO reason to change the backup destination.

Can you post a screenshot of Disk Management? I recall the HDs were reversed in the last thread.

I used SATA 2 for HD2 and it booted properly. Not so nasty afterall. Needed to reset itself.

Have you been up all night? If so, take it from me, get some sleep and then some strong coffee.

Last minute checks? Or is everything alright now?

Brian wrote on Apr 3^rd, 2011 at 7:09pm:

Can you post a screenshot of Disk Management? I recall the HDs were reversed in the last thread.

I found disk management but I dont remember how to take and post a screenshot. Sorry.

It was certainly weird. I'm glad it is fixed.

In Disk Management, is the WinXP HD in the Disk 0 position?

No, backup HD is in Disk 0.

I'm lost. It was like that before. Leave it as everything is working.

Brian wrote on Apr 3^rd, 2011 at 9:02pm:

I'm lost. It was like that before. Leave it as everything is working.

Thank you Brian. I appreciate all the effort and glad we are successful. Should we bring in Nightowl?

He's most welcome to join in.

@ leftyx

Sorry I was not available to join in earlier on this thread.

Best I can tell after *speed reading*--it sounds like something went haywire with the BIOS and its setting for which HDD was the boot HDD.

What's weird is that I've been having some issues with my system maintaining the correct boot HDD setting this last week or so as I have tested booting from USB HDDs.  I have to change a setting in the BIOS in order for the BIOS to *see* a bootable USB HDD as being available for booting.  If I disable that setting, then the system looses track of which internal HDD was previously the boot HDD and I have to manually go back into the BIOS and re-set the boot order.  It was really unnerving the first time it happened--the system would just freeze early on in the boot process!

You said you had been installing CD-authoring software (Nero?), and having some problems with that.  Did you play around with boot devices at all while doing that?  In the past, I've had Nero software change the Windows logon sequence--requiring a password where it had not before!  Some time later (a year?), I either uninstalled Nero (or perhaps installed something else--can't remember now!), and all of a sudden the behavior reverted back to the previous behavior--still scratching my head on that one!

Anyway, if it happens again--re-boot and enter the BIOS and check to see what the current default setting for the boot HDD is (right now, write down the current boot HDD setting so you have it available if a next time ever occurs!).  See if it has changed!  If so, change it back to what it should be--make sure you *save* the change.  If not, then select the other HDD and save the change.  Then immediately re-enter the BIOS and set it back to what it should be and re-save the change (you do know that you have to *save* the changes if you want them to be remembered the next time you boot--right  ;) !)  The point being, you want to make sure the correct setting is saved to the CMOS so it's remembered correctly.  Now see if it boots properly.

Let us know what you find out if this happens again--but, looks like you have it sorted for now......