NTLDR error at startup

[TheNiceGuy]

UPDATE: On a whim, I tried powering down and then unplugging the D: drive, manualy. Rebooted completely fine. Reconnected the D: drive, rebooted - been working as new.
I figured it might be something like this with the A8N-SLI (or perhaps its my Seagates). Anyway, thank you for your help.


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Out of the blue, my PC started doing this a couple days ago. If I fit F8 while starting, then select HD 1 as boot device, everyhting starts as normal. What's up?
Thanks for your help, a true gentleman and scholar!

 

[gsellis]

Start with CHKDSK C: /R (answer yes). Restart. Find something else to do for awhile. Many times, it is just a bad block that starts doing this. /R scans, repairs, and recovers.

 

[mrbill14]

Sure you don't have a floopy or bootable CD in your drives? (Got to start with the obvious...)

 

[Cynicist]

NTLDR (nt loader) is the boot loader windows xp uses. Its stored in the MBR. (master boot record)

The best way to fix this error is to overwrite the mbr, thereby getting rid of ntldr.

One way to do this is

Install linux and make sure that grub is installed in the mbr. Grub is another boot loader that a lot of linux distributions use. You can always reformat and reinstall windows xp afterwards if you dont want linux.

Using the Ubuntu LiveCD you could backup your data and then take care of the problem.

You could also try just installing grub to the mbr using a linux livecd. That way you wouldnt have to have linux or reformat.

 

[lopri]

I've been getting this alot lately especially with OC'ing. Sometimes it's fixed with lowering clock frequency, and other times it's fixed with using different HDD, CD/DVD-ROM, or even different installation CD. I still have no idea what's causing this and what the best way to deal with. (Installinging and toying with Linux is somewhat too much for me)

Especially this seems to happen alot with SATA HDDs and optical drives in PATA ports. How do you guys work this out? I didn't have this problem with PATA HDD / PATA Optical.

 

[Smilin]

Originally posted by: Cynicist
NTLDR (nt loader) is the boot loader windows xp uses. Its stored in the MBR. (master boot record)

The best way to fix this error is to overwrite the mbr, thereby getting rid of ntldr.

One way to do this is

Install linux and make sure that grub is installed in the mbr. Grub is another boot loader that a lot of linux distributions use. You can always reformat and reinstall windows xp afterwards if you dont want linux.

Using the Ubuntu LiveCD you could backup your data and then take care of the problem.

You could also try just installing grub to the mbr using a linux livecd. That way you wouldnt have to have linux or reformat.

Stop making sh1t up. Stick to linux and stop giving bad Windows advice. ntldr is NOT stored in your MBR.

bios loads mbr
Boot code in MBR loads, reads partition table, finds the active partition (80h)
boot sector is loaded off the active partition
ntldr loads
reads boot.ini
yada yada.

If you are having problems loading ntldr then you likely have the wrong partition flagged as active, or your bios is trying to boot from the wrong drive.

Other causes: corrrupted filesystem (chkdsk /p from recovery console), old bios version, fried due to overclock , ntldr truly missing (longshot but easily fixed).

 

[Tarrant64]

Smilin is right. WTF Cynicist. "One way to do this"? How about, last way or not at all.

The above mentioned about using CHKDSK C: /R is a start. You can also use the option to FIXMBR or FIXBOOT or whatever. This is all of course an option when you boot with the Windows install and it asks you to repair using the repair console.

mrbill14
Having a floppy or bootable cdrom in the drive isn't something that would normally cause a NTRDL. I don't think anyways...

 

[Tarrant64]

Originally posted by: lopri
I've been getting this alot lately especially with OC'ing.

Hmm...

 

[SleepWalkerX]

Originally posted by: Smilin

Originally posted by: Cynicist
NTLDR (nt loader) is the boot loader windows xp uses. Its stored in the MBR. (master boot record)

The best way to fix this error is to overwrite the mbr, thereby getting rid of ntldr.

One way to do this is

Install linux and make sure that grub is installed in the mbr. Grub is another boot loader that a lot of linux distributions use. You can always reformat and reinstall windows xp afterwards if you dont want linux.

Using the Ubuntu LiveCD you could backup your data and then take care of the problem.

You could also try just installing grub to the mbr using a linux livecd. That way you wouldnt have to have linux or reformat.

Stop making sh1t up. Stick to linux and stop giving bad Windows advice. ntldr is NOT stored in your MBR.

You need to chill out. If a mistake was made, correct it. There's no need to be an ass.

Originally posted by: Tarrant64
Smilin is right. WTF Cynicist. "One way to do this"? How about, last way or not at all.

Cynicist was saying one out a TON of ways to do this would be to grab a linux livecd and install grub which would overtake the mbr and allow the OP to boot his windows partition.

All of you need to chill out or leave. Don't bring your rude behavior here. This is not off topic. :|

 

[SleepWalkerX]

For the OP, try grabbing Microsoft's boot disks and use them to boot the Windows XP cd. Go to the recovery console and type 'fixmbr'. I had a similar problem and I believed this fixed it. If you don't have your windows cd let us know. There's other ways to fix this problem.

 

[Smilin]

You just told a dude to overwrite his MBR for no reason.


You should expect me to jump your sh1t. Sorry if your feelings got hurt.

 

[Tarrant64]

Originally posted by: Smilin
You just told a dude to overwrite his MBR for no reason.


You should expect me to jump your sh1t. Sorry if your feelings got hurt.

 

[TheNiceGuy]

Thank you all for the help.

I tried the CHKDSK C: /R. I believe it found no errors.
I also checked the BIOS, and it looks like it did before (boot priority #1 CD, #2 HD). I tried making HD #1, but no change in NTLDR error.

What do you recommend next?

Just a thought, as I mentioned earlier, everything works fine if I hold F8 at startup and select HD#1 as boot. I believe this MB (in my sig) has occasional problems recognizing drives correctly. Since I have 2 identical drives, is it possible that unpluging the #2 HD would work?

Sorry, as you can tell I have no idea what I'm doing.

 

[SleepWalkerX]

Try typing 'fixboot' in recovery console.

 

[Woodie]

Check to see if you have any USB drive-type devices connected. The number 1 cause for this error is having another "bootable" device left connected.

 

[Smilin]

Try this:

format a floppy with NT, 2k, XP, 2003 box (no dos or 9x !!)
copy the following files to it from XP: ntldr, ntdetect.com, boot.ini

check the "map arc" command in recovery console to see what the boot.ini should contain.

Change your boot order to boot from the floppy.

If you get a missing ntoskrnl message, double check the arc paths in boot.ini. Otherwise it should boot right up. That will get you by temporarily until we get this fixed. Please post results.

 

[Barkotron]

Originally posted by: Tarrant64
mrbill14
Having a floppy or bootable cdrom in the drive isn't something that would normally cause a NTRDL. I don't think anyways...

Sorry, but having a non-bootable floppy which was formatted under Windows XP/2k/2k3 etc in the drive is the number 1 worldwide cause of this error. I used to see it all the time - customer calls up raging that we've destroyed his server and NTLDR has gone missing because of something we've done, tech asks customer to check floppy drive, customer says something about "that isn't there every time", tech asks customer to remove floppy just in case, server boots and all is hearts and flowers .

 

[Smilin]

Originally posted by: Barkotron

Originally posted by: Tarrant64
mrbill14
Having a floppy or bootable cdrom in the drive isn't something that would normally cause a NTRDL. I don't think anyways...

Sorry, but having a non-bootable floppy which was formatted under Windows XP/2k/2k3 etc in the drive is the number 1 worldwide cause of this error. I used to see it all the time - customer calls up raging that we've destroyed his server and NTLDR has gone missing because of something we've done, tech asks customer to check floppy drive, customer says something about "that isn't there every time", tech asks customer to remove floppy just in case, server boots and all is hearts and flowers .

Yeah, a dos/9x floppy won't do this since the boot code isn't from NT and isn't looking for ntldr. Drop a floppy in that was formatted on NT 4.0 or 5.x and you'll get that error.

 

[ajskydiver]

For something different than above...

I expereienced this problem completely out of the blue and only every so often...but it was repeatable enough to be very frustrating.

I swapped out the cable (it was a ribbon cable - not SATA) with a new one and the problem went away completely.

So, in my case, the cable went bad (after two+ years) -- probably because I had frequently plugged/unplugged it into various drives over the years...

Good luck,
AJ

 

[TheNiceGuy]

I disconected all printer, cam, multidrive cables except for keyboard, internet, etc.

no difference.

Sorry, but I'm a bit confused now. There seems to be some disagreement about the next step. I don't want to fry my C: and have to reformat. What would be a safe next step?

PS- I have the windows CD.

Thanks again for your time all.

 

[jaffa]

I guess you get the "missing ntldr" error message... if so.

Try to press F8 and get into the "safe mode" menu. Choose "last known good configuration". See if it helps.

Otherwise.

Try to boot from your Windows CD.

At the first blue screen, press "R" to repair a windows installation from the recovery console.

When inside the recovery console, type the following (exactly).

cd..
copy d:\i386\ntldr c:
copy d:\i386\ntdetect.com c:
exit

If you are asked if you want to overwrite a file, the answer is yes....
"d" is your cd/dvd drive (adjust if necessary).
"c:" is the hard drive on which the windows installation resides (adjust if necessary).

Restart your system.

Still no go.. then you will probably have to reinstall Windows....

 

[TheNiceGuy]

See top.

 

[skdevnath]

Originally posted by: TheNiceGuy
Thank you all for the help.

I tried the CHKDSK C: /R. I believe it found no errors.
I also checked the BIOS, and it looks like it did before (boot priority #1 CD, #2 HD). I tried making HD #1, but no change in NTLDR error.

What do you recommend next?

Just a thought, as I mentioned earlier, everything works fine if I hold F8 at startup and select HD#1 as boot. I believe this MB (in my sig) has occasional problems recognizing drives correctly. Since I have 2 identical drives, is it possible that unpluging the #2 HD would work?

Sorry, as you can tell I have no idea what I'm doing.

Dude, I too had same problem. Do following.

Remove the old drive where XP is there. Go to the BIOS and make new drive as main boot device. Now install XP on the new drive. Make sure not drive is there with existing XP intallation during XP installation.

I have tried repairboot, repairmbr nothing works. Unless you always boot with old drive and have boot entry in old drive's boot.ini file.

So with my experiment I concluded that. XP installation tries to be smarter to identify any existing windows installation, if it finds one then it makes that drive as primary boot drive and in that drive?s boot.ini file, it makes a new boot entry for new installation. So it doesn?t copy or put necessary files needed for new hard drive to be bootable independently.