NTLDR problem; Re-installing XP

[Rox]

When using the XP install disk, I don't have any option to make it an active partition when creating it?? The only options that I have are what size to make it...

BTW, this is under the windows set up, where you choose which drive you want to install XP onto. Are you talking about the windows 98 boot disk? If so I don't have one, so are their any workarounds?

Edited February 14, 2004 by ndspeed3

[Farstrider]

This is my last shot, disconnect all other drives, leave only your boot drive (C:) and your CDRom and see what happens. Make sure your jumpers are set correctly on your HDD and CD ROM. I would use IDE 1 for HDD and IDE 2 for CD Rom. :blink:

By the way I do hundreds of XP installations and when you recreate partions you do not make the boot drive active, it does it on it's own!!

[Rox]

Will try that toejam, thanks for your help!

[devobitch]

i had to go into the bios and set the drive manualy to fix this

on my machine

it seems the autodetect drive didnt work right and i keep getiing

ntldr missing error

[Rox]

Early on when I was trying to fix this, someone suggested that I run a fixboot, and I think that before I actually did it, it said that the drives wil become inactive. Could this be the problem? How would I go about restoring or fixing it?

[+allan MVC]

No, but you know what, I should have told you to follow the fixboot command with a bootcfg command which creates a new boot.ini file for you. Still, fixboot does not make an active partition inactive.

[Rox]

Ok, I did that and still can't install XP. I don't have ANY data to save, so is there some way to reset everything on the entire computer so that I can solve this thing? Seems like nothing is working. I reset my BIOS also, and then put the boot order back to A, CD ROM, C still nothing. This is making me very frustrated, and I'll just about anything to get it back up and running! All I wanted to do was a XP re-install, but now it turned into this mess :(!

Does anybody have any other ideas? I have done everything listed on this thread and everything I can think of, and still nothing! I don't have any data to lose, so nothing to worry about there...

Thanks to everyone that has helped so far, definately brought up some things that I wouldn't have even thought of. Thanks again, please help me end this problem!

[SixSixSix]

have you tried installing XP after a low level partition/format .. if not try this script might help .

debug

-F 200 L1000 0

-A CS:100

xxxx:0100 MOV AX,301

xxxx:0103 MOV BX,200

xxxx:0106 MOV CX,1

xxxx:0109 MOV DX,80

NOTE: Type 80 for the Main hard drive - HD 0, or type 81 for the Second hard drive - HD 1

xxxx:010C INT 13

xxxx:010E INT 20

xxxx:0110 (Leave this line blank and press the <Enter> key)

-G

The message, Program terminated normally, appears.

Edited February 15, 2004 by Ajay

[+allan MVC]

I feel for you and can only tell you what I would do at this point. But based on the problems you've been having I simply can't swear it will work for you (though it should). It's basic stuff:

1) Remove the slave drive

2) Boot to a Win98 Boot disk and use fdisk to blow away the existing partitions and create new ones. Be sure to make the Primary partition Active

3) Set the CD ahead of the hard drive in the bios boot order and boot to the XP CD

4) Format the partitions from the XP CD

5) Install XP

Now I can't see any reason this shouldn't work. In fact, although I give advice on XP at tweakxp.com, I have to admit that when I work on computers I prefer fdisk to create partions (I'm an old DOS Command Line guy ;) ). But again, you've been running into so much trouble I'll just keep my fingers crossed for you :)

[neojoker]

Yes, I'm sorry, I forgot to mention that FDISK would be on a Win9x boot disk, not the XP CD or anything. Just like allan suggested right before me just now. Maybe that will work.

[Rox]

Alright, will do. One quick question though, what is the smallest partition I should make just for the OS? I will install the programs to another partition, but just for the OS< what you say?

[Rox]

Oh yea, and about the 98' bootdisk, does this look valid? http://www.bootdisk.com/bootdisk.htm

[+allan MVC]

It's really up to you. If you make it at least 4 or 5 Gb you'll have plenty of room. You could get away with smaller, but as long as you have room I wouldn't. And again, that takes into account programs and data going on another partition.

And yes, download a Win98SE boot disk from bootdisk.com

[+allan MVC]

Good luck :) I'll stop back in the morning and hope to see a successful ending.

[Rox]

Well, I think there may be some good new in the morning!! I'm installing XP right now, and so far so good. I got past the problem after the reboot, so I think all should go well now!! I'll let ya know for sure in a little bit when it is complete!! :p :D :D :D :D :D

[Rox]

YEP everything worked!!!!!!:):):) Wish I would have tried doing the 98' boot disk earlier. I didn't understand that I could download it or that fdisk was on the 98' disk until I got smart and searched on google. THANK YOU ALL SO MUCH FOR THE HELP, I CAN'T THANK YOU ENOUGH!!!! Thanks for sticking with me allan!!!! I have my computer back!!!!

[+allan MVC]

Glad it all worked out and sorry it took so long to get to the right (and easiest) solution. :D

[Rox]

It's alright it took so long, all I care is I have my computer back!

Thanks again for the help allan!

[+allan MVC]

You're very welcome.