NTLDR is missing after flashing BIOS?

Finnkc

Senior member
Jul 9, 2003
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Well I flashed my BIOS yesterday on my new DFI NF2 Ultra Infinity ... went fine no problems ... well until I restarted the PC.

It posts ok
It finds IDE devices ok

then right before Windows boot I get "NTLDR is missing press any key to restart"

WTF?

so I try a few things ... Windows 2000 recovery console (did a fix and a reinstall) and nothing worked.

So I gave up and formatted the drive again ... I have had this error before a long time ago when I 1st started using windows 2000 but anyway ....

why on Earth would flashing my BIOS screw up the boot files? Is it because I used DFI's BIOS flasher which is run in the Windows and not in DOS? This is the 1st time using this app to flash BIOS and I don't think I am going to do it again lol.

anyone got some insight?
 

ArachPres

Member
Apr 21, 2004
41
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Which BIOS version did you flash it with?

I had issues after flashing my Infinity Ultra but that is only because my BIOS settings were reverting to default. After changing a few BIOS settings I was up and running again.


I remember LOSING MY SATA boot when I cleared my CMOS. Crazy stuff but all can be fixed in the BIOS.

If you can, use AWDFLASH in the bios and do not do it from windows.
 

Tremulant

Diamond Member
Jul 2, 2004
4,890
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Very late response.. but I'd suggest making a floppy with NTLDR and NTDETECT.COM on it, just incase it happens again. http://www.computerhope.com/issues/ch000465.htm

It happened to a user at work, twice in the same week. We ran a check disk and it found bad sectors.. so, since we buy from Dell, we had the HDD replaced. Problem hasn't occured again (it's been about a month and a half), and we haven't seen that problem in any other PCs since. Although my boss used to see that problem a lot when they were on WinNT (W2K SP3 now).
 

mechBgon

Super Moderator<br>Elite Member
Oct 31, 1999
30,699
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If you leave the floppy diskette in the drive and the system is trying to boot from floppy, well... it's not going to succeed :D I've had that happen a few times myself. Take the floppy out of the drive, if that's the case.
 

Slammy1

Platinum Member
Apr 8, 2003
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I've had that a number of times due to the fact that I'm booting off a RADI array. It tries to default to the primary IDE after flashing, which isn't my boot drive therefore no NTLDR. If you manually set the boot drive in BIOS it's corrected after a few scary moments. I don't know if this is what happened to you. but FFR.
 

alper99

Senior member
Oct 24, 2000
248
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76
nothing to worry about, just re-go thrugh your boot up sequence. and detect HD's.
 

nvfx

Banned
Apr 6, 2004
199
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not to worry, this stupid problem made me nuts for 3 hours.

Any how here is what to do.

This problem occured to me when...

I had my newly assembled PC with WD SATA 160 GB

I took a Win CD from my friend and i thought it was bootable but it wasnt and i kept getting NTLDR error.

Since my HD was empty i still kept getting NTLDR.

Than realized that i need a proper Boot-up Device.

Used my OLD IDE HD and things went perfect.

Used Win2000 Bootable CD and things went perfect.

So your problem is definetly about Flashing the BIOS. MAke sure your BIOS has your SATA or IDE HD as the first Boot Device and if u have SATA check for SATA if its enabled.

Secondly, you can also press F8 before the Windows screen would come and select the Boot Device out from the List.

If your HD doesnt work, guess you'll be fukin Formatting or whatever ( No, actually no formating might be needed, i have an ASUS K8V Board so things were a little different )