Hard Drive Death...help!!!

[Apotherix]

Okay, I'm building a computer for my friend, and he bought all that parts except the hard drive, because he already had a 20 GB one and he's low on cash. He wanted me to format it on my machine and install windows for him, so it would all be ready to go when his parts arrived.

So I put his drive in as drive E on my machine, as a slave, and fomatted it in windows xp. then I installed windows and everything is good, right?

Wrong.

When my friend got his parts, I go to plug in the HD and it comes up with the message. "NTDLR is missing", or something of that sort. I'm thinking it has something to do with the way I formatted it as a slave drive, so I took it back up to my house to format it again, and not install windows, to see how it went. Nothing, still the same.

So I format it as FAT32 instead of NTFS file system, and it comes up with a message "remove media" or something and won't let me into the prompt. The drive runs fine as a slave, but my friend only has one drive, and he needs it to run as master.

What do I do? We were gonna have a LAN party this weekend, but it is looking pretty bleak now. I don't want to have him have to buy a new HD, but I ruined his by formatting on my machine. I knew I should have just waited and done it on his...it ran fine as a master before.

Please help me!!!

 

[thorin]

Try booting it as master on your sys.

Thorin

 

[JediJeb]

Have you tried putting it in his computer and formatting it there? the NTDLR error was probably because the bootloader was on your C: drive and when you moved the drive it was still looking for your C: drive. The bootloader is what starts Windows NT, 2000 and XP.

 

[Viper96720]

Get a low level format utility from the drive maker and write zero's to the drive then format and install XP when it's in his computer.

 

[Apotherix]

Originally posted by: thorin
Try booting it as master on your sys.

Thorin

I did, and I get the same message...does anybody know exactly what NTDLR means?

 

[Apotherix]

Originally posted by: JediJeb
Have you tried putting it in his computer and formatting it there? the NTDLR error was probably because the bootloader was on your C: drive and when you moved the drive it was still looking for your C: drive. The bootloader is what starts Windows NT, 2000 and XP.

I would, but I can't even load the drive on the prompt to do it.

Did I do something to forever doom the HD to being a lowly slave?

 

[KDKPSJ]

As far as I know, it is a bootloader for NT series. Like command.com, IO.sys, and MSDOS.SYS in DOS and Win98, WinME.

 

[JediJeb]

NTDLR is what sits in your boot sector and tells windows to start. If you don't have it there it won't start, and if you loaded windows on it as a slave drive or formatted it as a slave drive it won't be there. One thing you can try it to put it in as master and boot from a Win95/DOS boot disk and run FDISK /MBR to reset your Master Boot Record, then do a reinstall of windows on it while set as master.

 

[thorin]

Originally posted by: JediJeb
NTDLR is what sits in your boot sector and tells windows to start. If you don't have it there it won't start, and if you loaded windows on it as a slave drive or formatted it as a slave drive it won't be there. One thing you can try it to put it in as master and boot from a Win95/DOS boot disk and run FDISK /MBR to reset your Master Boot Record, then do a reinstall of windows on it while set as master.

I don't think that works for NTFS drives, or even any NT based OS (including XP) IIRC.

Apotherix Just reformat it (don't install anything on it) and throw it in his sys (boot from a cd or boot floppy) and see if you can see the drive.

Thorin

 

[JediJeb]

Originally posted by: thorin

Originally posted by: JediJeb
NTDLR is what sits in your boot sector and tells windows to start. If you don't have it there it won't start, and if you loaded windows on it as a slave drive or formatted it as a slave drive it won't be there. One thing you can try it to put it in as master and boot from a Win95/DOS boot disk and run FDISK /MBR to reset your Master Boot Record, then do a reinstall of windows on it while set as master.

I don't think that works for NTFS drives, or even any NT based OS (including XP) IIRC.

Apotherix Just reformat it (don't install anything on it) and throw it in his sys (boot from a cd or boot floppy) and see if you can see the drive.

Thorin

I had to use that procedure to recover from a bad install of linux in dual boot system. It is listed on the microsoft website to use if something has messed up the MBR. But thinking about it more I dont think his MBR is messed up, but definately try a format and install with it as the only HD in the system while booting from floppy or CD, that sounds like best advice Thronin.

 

[Apotherix]

Originally posted by: JediJeb
NTDLR is what sits in your boot sector and tells windows to start. If you don't have it there it won't start, and if you loaded windows on it as a slave drive or formatted it as a slave drive it won't be there. One thing you can try it to put it in as master and boot from a Win95/DOS boot disk and run FDISK /MBR to reset your Master Boot Record, then do a reinstall of windows on it while set as master.

Would you provide step-by-step instructions...thanks.

 

[JediJeb]

Originally posted by: Apotherix

Originally posted by: JediJeb
NTDLR is what sits in your boot sector and tells windows to start. If you don't have it there it won't start, and if you loaded windows on it as a slave drive or formatted it as a slave drive it won't be there. One thing you can try it to put it in as master and boot from a Win95/DOS boot disk and run FDISK /MBR to reset your Master Boot Record, then do a reinstall of windows on it while set as master.

Would you provide step-by-step instructions...thanks.

Start by making a Win95 startup disk or DOS boot floppy which has the Fdisk program on it. ( you will need access to a computer running Win95(maybe 98 not sure) or DOS, or download a bootdisk image.).

You install the HD on your friends system as Master then boot using the floppy.

type FDISK /MBR

once that runs ( only takes a couple seconds) reboot with the WinXP CD in the drive and do a complete install allowing it to format the drive.

 

[Viper96720]

Should be able to format the drive if you have a XP cd. Just boot the computer with the CD in and make sure the cd drive is the first boot device.

 

[thorin]

So what happened?

Thorin