"NTLDR missing" issue with Seagate SATA drive (7200.9 SATA2)

[skdevnath]

Hi,

I am getting this problem after moving to Seagate SATA drive (7200.9 SATA2).

I keep getting following error, when I boot my system and select the SATA drive, which has the latest XP installed with SP2.

?NTLDR missing?

I don?t get any problem with my old XP installation on IDE Seagate harddrive.

I googled it and also searched in this forum and tried all solutions, which was suggested, however no avail.

Thinks I tried.
1). copy Drive:\i386\ntldr c:\
copy drive:\i386\ntdetect.com c:
editing boot.ini
from Microsoft following link
http://support.microsoft.com/?id=816793

2). Doing fixmbr, fixboot from recovery CD

One thing is if I use ?chkdsk ?p ?r?, I again can boot with SATA drive. Now after some software upgrade or any new software installation, my reboot again fails with ?NTLDR missing? message. Even if I don?t install new software, if I just reboot couples of times, I get into the same situation.

I can?t do ?chkdsk ?p ?r? every now and then, the reason is it takes hours to complete on 300GB hard drive. I had same issue with my old SATA drive from Seagate. At the end even ?chkdsk ?p ?r? solution also stops working. I end up returning that.

Here is configuration is as follows:
. Abit AN8 Ultra (BIOS v20)
. AMD 64 3800+ X2
. OCZ Platinum 2GB (2 x 1GB) DDR 400 (PC 3200) Dual Channel
. Video card - MSI RX800-TD Radeon X800 128MB
. PS - ENERMAX Noisetaker EG495P-485W
. Case - Thermaltake Tsunami VA3000SWA
. DVD RW ? Khypermedia - KDVRW8X
. XP Professional with SP2
. 200GB Seagate ATA/ 300GB SATA Seagate ST3300622AS-RK < =======
. UC-9FATR2 Card reader

 

[cubby1223]

I got past that error by doing this:

With the new drive, start a new installation of Windows and let it go to the first reboot. This way it is set to properly boot. Hook both the old & new hard drives to another computer. So you've got 3 drives on this computer. Boot into Windows and just do a straight copy of everything from the old to the new right from Windows Explorer.

 

[corkyg]

This is a common error - and is quite often fixed simply by going into BIOS on boot - check things over, then SAVE and EXIT. It usually fixes the problem.

 

[skdevnath]

Originally posted by: corkyg
This is a common error - and is quite often fixed simply by going into BIOS on boot - check things over, then SAVE and EXIT. It usually fixes the problem.

hmm. let me try this

 

[corkyg]

And here are a bunch of other possibilities that can come into play . . .

NTLDR

 

[skdevnath]

Originally posted by: cubby1223
I got past that error by doing this:

With the new drive, start a new installation of Windows and let it go to the first reboot. This way it is set to properly boot. Hook both the old & new hard drives to another computer. So you've got 3 drives on this computer. Boot into Windows and just do a straight copy of everything from the old to the new right from Windows Explorer.

Thank for the reply cubby1223. So you are suggesting that I shouldn't have two XP installed drives on same computer at a time?

If yes then, what will happen to the second computer, where you are now putting these two drives and both has XP? Do you want me to set the order of sequence as
existing-xp-drive-on-new-computer(1) -> my-pc-old-xp-drive(2) -> my-pc-new-xp-drive(3)?

Does XP automatically changes the boot sector, if I do above in bad way
i.e. suppose if on another PC I put 2 as the first boot drive and boot the system in following boot sequence (2->1->3) in BIOS. Will XP screw other PC's old installation on 1?

 

[skdevnath]

Hi Guys,

Thanks a lot for the help. During the week days I applied your advice and it worked.

I installed new XP on my SATA drive, however this time I made sure following.
1). No existing XP installation hard drive is in the system
2). Made sure that from BIOS I choose SATA drive as the first bootable hard drive.

After installation, the SATA drive came as C:. I also had two DVD writers, which were always connected to single IDE channel. These DVD drives came as D: and E:.
Then I put my DATA harddrive(ATA) reboot the system, I see it came as F: and G: ( it has two partitions). Then I put my old XP and it came as H: drive. I was surprise, why my old XP drive didn't come as C: drive? I was in doubt that, putting old XP drive can screw-up my SATA XP installation, but luckily it did 🙂

Note: in all of above bootup my BIOS was pointing SATA drive as the first boot device.

So with my experiment I concluded that. XP installation tries to be smarter to identify any existing windows installation, if it finds one then it makes that drive as primary boot drive and in that drive?s boot.ini file, it makes a new boot entry for new installation. So it doesn?t copy or put necessary files needed for new hard drive to be bootable independently. Please correct me if you guy find any mistake in my learning🙂