ntldr missing...

[SirEvan]

ok so like i stated in the hardware forum, my agp slot just went bad the other day (not the card, just the slot on the mobo). While i was testing to find out what the problem was, I had disconnected the power to all 3 hard drives in my case, and then once i figured it out.. plugged them all back in (with the power off of course)

Now, whenever i boot my system, it gives me an ntldr missing message, press ctrl alt del to restart.

BUT.....

I haven't changed anything, except for unplugging and plugging back in the power cables. I have tried looking at boot.ini, but it still appears to be fine (0,0,0,1 (partition one on disk 0) and it still on C....

HOWEVER...

when i pop in my windows cd, and go to do an install, it shows my windows drive as being drive D, but in windows, my windows drive says C:. before I used to be able to do a repair install of windows, but now when i select the drive, it says that drive does not have a valid win xp partition on it.

Also whenever i start my computer if i hit f3 to boot, i can select boot from hard drive, then select the first hard drive and it boots into XP just fine.

Anyone have any ideas? I've tried doing fixboot and fixmbr from the recovery console... no luck

[CrispCreations]

Has the boot.ini entry got the /fastdetect switch after it? I've seen windows not recognize an installation because that's missing before now. The only other thing I can think of is did you also disconnect the ide cables to your drives, and maybe reconnected them in a different order?

[SirEvan]

never disconnected the ide chain, and reverse the order they were in... I did however dissconnect them from the motherboard, and try to power it on, but i plugged them back in the exact same way.

boot.ini does have the /fastdetect option.

Also, if i click the "check all boot paths" button in msconfig under the boot.ini section, it reports that all boot paths are fine. I may have to install windows yet another time if i have to get a new motherboard, but in the meantime I would like to be able to fix this so that I don't keep having to push f3 to get it to boot correctly.

[SirEvan]

ok well i seemed to have fixed it.. not quite sure how tho. just shut it down, rebooted with one drive plugged in, then plugged the other drive back in... and it worked.... weird. Neowin is a great place!

[CrispCreations]

:D

Not sure how much of an effect Neowin had on the resolution, maybe it's the good karma around the place ;)

Anyway, glad you got it sorted

[beh]

It was probably your BIOS recognizing the new hardware differently evertime u re plugged em back in.

[xodlike]

I had this problem a while ago..I did absolutely nothing, and it appears.

I tried many things in recovery console, but eventually simply repaired the XP install, and all was good, nothing was lost, etc.

[betasp]

In repair console, use FIXMBR and FIXBOOT. I think you can still use fdisk /MBR to wipe the record first.

EDIT: Your MBR got blown somehow (Master Boot Record). It is not that uncommon of a problem, especially for people who duel boot win and linux and wipe the linux partition.

[jwkuipers]

Before you do anything see if you have a floppy in your A: drive. That would explain why you are able to select the hard drive and it boots fine.

If this fixes your issue please help me get a gmail account:

https://www.neowin.net/forum/index.php?show...176465&hl=Gmail