Milamber

iTrader: (2)

Oh bugger. Wake up after having shut the pc down and unsurprsingly it won't boot. I know what NTDLR is and thought that simply booting from the XP disc and choosing recovery console would fix it. Apparently not.

I have 2 HD's. C:\ which I just store data on & F:\ which I boot from.

Recovery console only seems to let you work on C:\

Even better, I chose to just install a fresh operating system over the top of the old one without formatting the drive (don't really want to lose the data if I can avoid it) however when XP reboots itself the first time, it just comes up with the NTDLR error again and I can't progress it anywhere.

I do (luckily) have an old 40gb HD laying round in a drawer with XP on it so shall I just unplug one of the HD's, and put my old drive on to see what is happening on the remaing drives?

Any other ideas?

I am not panicking too much as I last backed up about 2 weeks ago but dont really want to lose any data if I can possobly avoid it.

bioforger

iTrader: (1)

This is usually down to a faulty HDD, or bad bootblock. Try the recovery options again, u might be able to fix it by rebuilding the bootblock. I wouldnt trust that HDD for too long though.

Milamber

iTrader: (2)

The recovery option just isn't working no matter what I do to it, it says it cannot find F:\Windows Guess it can't repair it if it isn't there!

dir reveals some stuff still on the disc so it hasn't gone and formatted itself.

I virus check every day, run a firewall and spam/ad/malware checker x2 so am pretty sure its nothing sinister.

bioforger

iTrader: (1)

Your f:\ drive is on an ATA or SATA controller? Repair console cant find it I think until, you supply the 3rd party disk controllers. So you boot from the CD, do F6 to supply the drivers, and then goto recovery console, then u should be able to get to f:\

Milamber

iTrader: (2)

Nope, just plugged in as master on the ide cable. Its only F:\ becuase I wasn't paying attention when I installed it. Hasn't caused a problem until now.

C:\ Western Digital Caviar 120GB
F:\ Western Digital Caviar 160GB 7,200 rpm 8mb cache

Kieran_Burns

iTrader: (1)

is the disk set as active? can you auto-detect the disk in BIOS?

Miles

Have you tried booting to the Recovery Console and then runing fixmbr?

Failing that, get a set of diagnostics from the manufacturer of the machine (assuming it's a Dell or HP or summat), failing that, get some generic diagnostic utilities to check it out.

Milamber

iTrader: (2)

If I unplug all of my drives and set the jumpers to master and then only plug in the faulty drive the bios doesn't even recognise it as a drive.

However, If I change the jumpers and set it as slave, then plug in an old HD with XPsp1 on it then the bios will recognise it and I can even access the contents with no problem.

I cannot Re-install windows onto it no matter how hard I try.

I have tried to repair, copy over NTLDR from the cd, rebuild and format/fresh install of windows.

Everytime XP reboots it just hangs and states that NTLDR is missing.

It is like the boot sector is damaged but even that is mappable so should not make a difference with a format/fresh install.

Any thoughts anyone?

Hanslow

No but I have the same issue with a friend's laptop disk. I've managed to get the important data off it that he wanted, but thought I'd have a go at repairing the disk to see if I can get it to boot normally to save him having to completely wipe the disk.

I've done all the usual copying of ntldr and ntdetect.com, repair install, fixboot, fixmbr, etc. and it still comes up with missing NTLDR The important thing for him is that his data is safe as I've already taken it off. Just need to find out now if the drive is completely pooped or not. It's detected fine and when connected as a USB drive (through a USB caddy) it can be accessed with no problems at all. Just appears to be a boot issue.

If I manage to fix it I'll let you know what I did as it may help you out as well....

Milamber

iTrader: (2)

Please do, I'm stumped at the moment.

C'mon everyone all ideas considered, the drive is now formatted so I have nothing to lose.

You may say that HD's are so cheap nowadays why don't I just buy a new one but thats not the attitude!! I want to learn from the experience and increase my meagre IT skills.

Hanslow

My next option was to delete all the partitions and then recreate one and see if it goes on then. Have you tried that (seeing as though your disk is now blank)?

Hanslow

Well I ended up deleting the partition and creating a new one and that has seemed to have done the trick for me

Milamber

iTrader: (2)

Actually, I haven't tried that.

Western Digital have a diagnostic tool for their drives on the website. When I can find the drivers for my cable modem I'll go and download it.

I now have a freshly formatted 40gb HD with a clean install of XPsp2 on it for emergencies. A freshly formatted 160gb "dodgy" drive and a 120gb drive full of data but can only plug 2 in at once.

In so far as partitions are concerned I read an interesting comment about these that made me laugh.... When your bedroom gets untidy you just put things away you don't erect stud walls to make the room more manageable!!

bioforger

iTrader: (1)

Yeh sometimes this NTLDR problem is not just down to the bootblock, but the actual partition structure sometimes gets screwed up. I've seen that before to. And as you guys have done, re-partitioning is the only way to fix it. If you had used partition magic to recreate the partition onto another new one, and then copied it back again, after creating a new partition on c:\ it would of worked to, but with no loss of data

Milamber

iTrader: (2)

Yeah but, no but..... I didn't have any partitions before. Just sensible folder management.

XP gets funny with adding new partitions and I'm not entirely convinced that using a 3rd party application would solve my problem (as there was never a partition in the 1st place?)

I'll try and re-format it and add partitions again as part of my xp installation. Now the data has gone I can do what I like with it to get it working again!

bioforger

iTrader: (1)

Dun matter PMagic works from dos on a hware level, so it could of done something for you Even if the partition was screwed, it would of seen that it was formatted, and I believe you would be able to copy it to another partition. Im sure I've done this on machines in the past.

What I do now is, image my c:\ drive to DVDR, with Ghost. If I ever get a failure like yours, I would just wipe it n restore the image, takes about 1-2hours all in to get my desktop back with everything installed n working as before, job done

Hanslow

The disk I was looking at also had only one partition, but it still managed to throw a wobbly. All I did was remove the partition completely and recreate it again. That fixed the problem for me. All the other known fixes did absolutely nothing

Milamber

iTrader: (2)

Where were you when it all went wrong

As I have said I back up regularly so am not really bothered about the data, probably time for a fresh install anyway. I'll give it a go with partition magic later.

Thanks