Missing NTDRL file?

[LuckyTaxi]

Just reinstalled Windows xp for a friend of mine and before i gave it to her, everything booted up fine.

She takes it home and tries to start the computer up only to be confronted with a message telling her
NTDRL is missing. besides reloading xp, are there other alternatives?

 

[bacillus]

I know it sounds basic but have you enquired if she has a non-bootable floppy in the floppy drive?

 

[LuckyTaxi]

niothing in there

 

[Jonitus]

She needs to do a repair of the installation using the recovery console. Enter "FIXBOOT" to re-install the NTLDR, and the problem should be solved.

 

[KF]

>Enter "FIXBOOT" to re-install the NTLDR, and the problem should be solved.
Allthough this does put a new boot sector on the system partition, it doesn't put the files NTLDR, or NTDETECT.COM on the hard disk. In order to get that error message, the boot process has already loaded the boot sector. The boot code could be corrupt, so that might help.

Since you most likely have a single HD, what that message probably means is the basic file system has become unreadable so that the file NTDLR cannot be found. If that is the case, it is unlikely that you have an installation of XP that can be made to work without a format and reinstall. But it could be it could be as simple as a bad or loose cable, or an OCed buss.

 

[NogginBoink]

It could also be that the wrong partition was marked active.

Format a floppy under winXP/NT/2000. (Don't do a quick format)

Copy ntldr, ntdetect, and boot.ini to the floppy.

Edit boot.ini on the floppy to ensure the ARC path is correct.

Boot to the floppy. See if that gets you booted.

 

[LuckyTaxi]

Originally posted by: Jonitus
She needs to do a repair of the installation using the recovery console. Enter "FIXBOOT" to re-install the NTLDR, and the problem should be solved.

worked like a charm!