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18 Posts
Hi guys,
I'm hoping someone can help with this problem I'm having with my system. Its an "NTLDR is missing" problem with a few other details. Sorry for the long winded explanation, just wanted to get all the info in. I will be forever indebted to anyone that can help as I'm at my wits end.
This problem started when I opened my DVD Drive (yep that's all) my system became peculiarly slow and unresponsive so I re-booted only to be greeted with, not the XP splash screen, but a black screen with "DISK BOOT ERROR" in white writing. I have had this message before but have fixed it by unplugging things inside the machine and putting them back in.This time however my usual tactic didn't work. It also became apparent that the system didn't recognise my HD (when its booting it said one wasn't attached, just a DVD drive).
As I became more frustrated I thought I'd try my hand in the 'setup' screen accessed by pressing DEL while the system boots. I had a nosey round in there, saw nothing that looked like it might help (unsurprising, being as I don't know what this is really for) before casting my gaze on an option to restore factory defaults. I figured this may help (as far as I knew a ghost in the machine may have changed something) so restore those factory defaults I did. However it would appear the 'factory defaults' differ from the defaults when I received my machine (from MESH btw) as now when I boot I got a fancy MSI logo rather than the usual mundane black screen with details of my DVD drive etc.
I tried using FIXBOOT and FIXMBR from the console you can get to through the XP disk but to no avail. However, as the boot process continued (still didn't recognise any attached HD) rather than go to "DISK BOOT ERROR" it now booted to "NTLDR IS MISSING" , when I pressed enter it brought up the usual "DISK BOOT ERROR" message.
So I read a few things and copied NTLDR + NTLDRCOM (or something similar) to C:\. Re-booted and exactly the same process ensued. Tried copying NTLDR over again and this time it asked if I wanted to overwrite the existing NTLDR, so it did recognise that the file was there.
Tried installing XP again but it said the HD was only 400mb big (no other available space or partitions or anything recognised) so wasn't big enough to install.
So, I figured it was a HD problem and I'd buy a new one (I needed one any way) and recover the data from my old drive. Got my new 1TB drive yesterday, booted from XP disk, formatted the drive at which point I was prompted to press enter to re-boot as part of the setup process. When it re-booted it recognised I had a 1TB drive in (some margin of success I suppose) but still went to "NTLDR IS MISSING" when I pressed enter the XP installation process continued as normal until completion at which point the system appeared to be working.
After a reboot though the same problem happened - NTLDR is missing - and when I press enter it goes to "DISK BOOT ERROR"
So that's where I'm up to at the moment. I'm not sure if I have made things worse by restoring the factory defaults from setup, and I'm not sure what else I can try.
Any support is very welcome, I'm completely clueless from this point on. If you need details of my system etc please ask and I'll post them.
Thanks in advance
Richard
I'm hoping someone can help with this problem I'm having with my system. Its an "NTLDR is missing" problem with a few other details. Sorry for the long winded explanation, just wanted to get all the info in. I will be forever indebted to anyone that can help as I'm at my wits end.
This problem started when I opened my DVD Drive (yep that's all) my system became peculiarly slow and unresponsive so I re-booted only to be greeted with, not the XP splash screen, but a black screen with "DISK BOOT ERROR" in white writing. I have had this message before but have fixed it by unplugging things inside the machine and putting them back in.This time however my usual tactic didn't work. It also became apparent that the system didn't recognise my HD (when its booting it said one wasn't attached, just a DVD drive).
As I became more frustrated I thought I'd try my hand in the 'setup' screen accessed by pressing DEL while the system boots. I had a nosey round in there, saw nothing that looked like it might help (unsurprising, being as I don't know what this is really for) before casting my gaze on an option to restore factory defaults. I figured this may help (as far as I knew a ghost in the machine may have changed something) so restore those factory defaults I did. However it would appear the 'factory defaults' differ from the defaults when I received my machine (from MESH btw) as now when I boot I got a fancy MSI logo rather than the usual mundane black screen with details of my DVD drive etc.
I tried using FIXBOOT and FIXMBR from the console you can get to through the XP disk but to no avail. However, as the boot process continued (still didn't recognise any attached HD) rather than go to "DISK BOOT ERROR" it now booted to "NTLDR IS MISSING" , when I pressed enter it brought up the usual "DISK BOOT ERROR" message.
So I read a few things and copied NTLDR + NTLDRCOM (or something similar) to C:\. Re-booted and exactly the same process ensued. Tried copying NTLDR over again and this time it asked if I wanted to overwrite the existing NTLDR, so it did recognise that the file was there.
Tried installing XP again but it said the HD was only 400mb big (no other available space or partitions or anything recognised) so wasn't big enough to install.
So, I figured it was a HD problem and I'd buy a new one (I needed one any way) and recover the data from my old drive. Got my new 1TB drive yesterday, booted from XP disk, formatted the drive at which point I was prompted to press enter to re-boot as part of the setup process. When it re-booted it recognised I had a 1TB drive in (some margin of success I suppose) but still went to "NTLDR IS MISSING" when I pressed enter the XP installation process continued as normal until completion at which point the system appeared to be working.
After a reboot though the same problem happened - NTLDR is missing - and when I press enter it goes to "DISK BOOT ERROR"
So that's where I'm up to at the moment. I'm not sure if I have made things worse by restoring the factory defaults from setup, and I'm not sure what else I can try.
Any support is very welcome, I'm completely clueless from this point on. If you need details of my system etc please ask and I'll post them.
Thanks in advance
Richard