New evga 680i and NTLDR is missing?

de8212

Diamond Member
Jan 2, 2000
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Connected my raptor to my 680i and did a fresh install of windows with no problems. After that I shut down and connected my 250GB backup SATA drive. Again, no problems. Updated windows, etc. Rebooted several times during the evening.

One time when I rebooted i went into the BIOS and just looked through all/most of the screens. Did not change anything at all. Escaped and when it tried to boot win xp I get NTLDR is missing. I tried to go back to default settings in BIOS even though I know nothing was changed. Still had same error.
Reseated sata cables and problem still persited.

Finally, I diconnecteed my 250 GB drive and reseated the main sata cabels and it booted up fine??????? Is this board finicky or would anyone know why it would all of a sudden act up and then go back to normal?
BTW I already got the newest bios off evga's site.
 

skrewler2

Senior member
Aug 28, 2005
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just make sure the raptor you installed windows xp to is the first in the boot priority in your bios.
 

yyrkoon

Member
Jun 25, 2006
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If what the last user said doesnt work by its self, boot from the XP install CD, then do a "Repair". Dont remember the steps to get there once XP setup starts, but if you poke around (without actually installing, or re partitioning, reformatting, etc), you should have no problem finding it.
 

Capt Caveman

Lifer
Jan 30, 2005
34,543
651
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Originally posted by: skrewler2
just make sure the raptor you installed windows xp to is the first in the boot priority in your bios.

This is your problem. Just go into your bios and make sure your raptor is listed as your first boot drive. Save.
 

de8212

Diamond Member
Jan 2, 2000
4,021
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76
I'll doublecheck the BIOS but i think it's right because it's been booting up with both connected. It booted fine again last night so I went to bed. This morning I did a restart and it is back to the ntldr is missing.

I can still try the repair also but I seem to remember from past experiences having problems getting to the repair option.
 

de8212

Diamond Member
Jan 2, 2000
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Ok, so I unplug the 250GB sata drive and didn't touch anything else and it booted fine.

One thing I notice that may or may not be an issue is that I plugged my main drive into SATA port 1 (according to the mobo manual) but when it's booting it shows that SATA Channel 5 is my main drive??????

SO I thought the manual was backwards so I plugged it into SATA port 4 (according to the mobo manual) and it's not showing on boot that it's in Channel 3??????

Not sure if it matters which drive is plugged into the lowest Channel # port or not??????

I'm off to look into the BIOS.