ntlr missing when loading xp

[dfarrales]

ok, i've been using xp pro for about 2weeks now w/ no problems. i upgraded from win2k. between the upgrade, i installed a 40g hd and partitioned it so that the c: was 3g, d: was 27g, and e: was 10g. i also made them ntfs. anyway, tonight i decided to combine c: with d: using partition magic 7.0 and after rebooting i'm getting the msg "ntldr is missing. press ctrl-alt-del to restart".

can someone please help me? i tried reinstalling winxp, but when it does the first restart it gives the same error msg. i don't want to have to reformat if i don't have to.

thanks,
deo

 

[colonelR]

The error your getting is normally caused by the path in the boot.ini file pointing to an incorrect disk or partition - as you've been playing with your partitions it seems pretty likely this is the cause.

Unfortunately I can't offer a solution - having formatted your drives to NTFS it means you can't boot into them and change the boot.ini or replace missing files.

I'm suprised that an XP reinstall/repair doesn't sort it out though - perhaps Partition Magic has messed things up when you merged the partitions (I've only tried it once and it sure messed my machine up!!!).

Good luck - if I come across a solution I'll be right back !

 

[colonelR]

bootdisk.com has some useful utilities that might be able to help

 

[dfarrales]

thanks, yeah i searched through bootdisk.com last night looking for way to fix it but no luck yet. i checked the boot.ini file it looks like it's pointing to the right partition (1). i'm sure i had to do w/ what i did using partition magic. maybe the combo of me using partition magic and my files being ntfs? i don't know... just taking shots in the dark right now.

 

[OmegaStarRed]

No what you need to do is boot off of xp cdrom and do a repair install.

 

[dfarrales]

tried that... after the first restart, it gives the same error msg at start-up.

thanks,
deo

 

[NogginBoink]

<< The error your getting is normally caused by the path in the boot.ini file pointing to an incorrect disk or partition - as you've been playing with your partitions it seems pretty likely this is the cause. >>


Actually, this isn't the cause of this error message, although a boot.ini that points to the wrong partition will give error messages at the same phase of boot.

This error is caused because the bootcode loader in the partition boot sector can't locate ntldr. (Ntldr then loads the boot.ini file.) This code is VERY low level codel; it's not even in a file, it's embedded in the partition boot sector.

You can attempt a FIXBOOT command from the recovery console, but I'm not too confident that this will work. You can also attempt to copy ntldr to the root of the drive from the recovery console. That may, or may not, work.

This is why I avoid this type of partition management software.

 

[kp1126]

<< You can attempt a FIXBOOT command from the recovery console, but I'm not too confident that this will work. You can also attempt to copy ntldr to the root of the drive from the recovery console. That may, or may not, work. >>



I had the same exact problem. None of those options worked for me. Gonna have to do a clean install.

 

[Colt45]

boot to a dos or win98 bootdisk

A:\>FDISK /MBR

then install winXP again

the "fdisk /mbr" clears the main boot record. Whenever things won't boot for me, even when i reinstall, this does the trick.

 

[dfarrales]

crap... i did that yesterday (fdisk w/ the win98 disk) but i just tried to reboot after and got the same error. i didn't try reinstalling after that, though. do you think that would've worked even though i got the same error msg after just rebooting? oh well... i ended up just doing a clean install. luckily i had most of my files backed up on another partition.

thanks anyway!
deo

 

[obenton]

Perhaps an issue of where ntldr and other boot files were relocated on the newly-created partition. I would assume that a repair install would fix boot file location errors, but perhaps not.