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OK, I'm out of ideas. PLEEEEEEEEASE help me.

I

Ilmater

Diamond Member
OK, I was getting BSODs in Win 2k over and over. So, like any other sensible person, I backed everything up and tried to reinstall windows. Reboot to CD, get to the first reboot, boot to SCSI... NTLRD missing. OK, that's weird. So I restart and boot to CD. OK, now I'm in the second phase of the installation. I finish everything up and I'm restarting for the second and final time. Boot from SCSI. NTLDR missing.

Now, I know I'm loading the drivers for my SCSI card and all the obvious things. Here are the things I've tried:

New motherboard (and different PCI slots)
Two different SCSI cables (I know they both work)
Two different SCSI controllers
A whole new set of IDE cables all around
3 different Windows CDs

I low-level formatted the hard drive, so I don't think that's it. The CD-RW is fairly new, so I don't think that would be it. The RAM and CPU are also fairly new, and both have worked stably before.

The most puzzling thing is, I'm definitely installing things onto the drive and the installation never locks up, I just can't get NTLDR to install.

AHHHHH!!! HELP!!!! (most of my setup is in my profile)

(UPDATE BELOW!)
 
My guess is that either you're trying to boot from the wrong partition, or the boot partition is not active. Have you checked the boot priority in your BIOS?
 
Originally posted by: jaeger66
My guess is that either you're trying to boot from the wrong partition, or the boot partition is not active. Have you checked the boot priority in your BIOS?
Click to expand...
I'm sure I'm trying to boot from the right partition. My boot priority is set to SCSI and I unplugged all of my other drives, so that kind of limits the options. I also know that I'm installing to the right partition.

UPDATE: Right after I wrote the original e-mail (right before I passed out), I realized that it would make sense to try my DVD-ROM drive. I put the CD in and the installation was going even slower (I forgot to mention earlier that everything seemed to be loading slower off of the CD). It was barely crawling along. But, then again, it's only a 2x DVD-ROM drive. The installation stops at one point (87%), and says that it can't find ntdll.dll. ? That's new. Well, it couldn't find the file when I retried, so I just skipped it to see what would happen. Installation finishes (many moons later) and I reboot to SCSI again, the same as I always have.

GOOD LORD IT BOOTED!! The setup screen was loading! But then, BSOD. AHHHH F***ING SH*T!!! I rebooted again with the same results: BSOD at the same point before I even got to the setup screen. BTW, it was some sort of stop error, and it said the usual, "Try restarting, if this problem persists," blah blah blah. I'm pretty sure that this was related to the ntdll.dll file. Call me crazy, but I'd say it's a strong hunch, especially since it happens at the exact same time during the loading of the setup program. Stopping at the same point tells me it's not just a random error from the memory or the CPU (which were earlier suspects in the case).

If this sounds like good news to you, that's because it is. However, there is one caveat. If the CD was my problem all along, then why wasn't installation working when I used other CDs? AHHHHH!!! Now what? Any more suggestions?
 
Not finding the NT Loader basically just means that the boot.ini file either cannot be found, or the boot.ini file is pointing to the wrong drive or partition on the hard drive. You may need to manually edit the boot.ini to point to the SCSI device.


Not installing the .dll file points to a bad disc after the fact. If you are using SCSI and RAID this will happen occasionally on install.
 
Originally posted by: miken
Not finding the NT Loader basically just means that the boot.ini file either cannot be found, or the boot.ini file is pointing to the wrong drive or partition on the hard drive. You may need to manually edit the boot.ini to point to the SCSI device.
Click to expand...
But I'm not booting to the CD after the first restart. I'm booting to the SCSI drive. If it's the only drive connected to the system and it only has one partition, how could it possibly be pointing to the wrong place?
Not installing the .dll file points to a bad disc after the fact. If you are using SCSI and RAID this will happen occasionally on install.
Click to expand...
I'm only using SCSI, not RAID. And I tried three different windows CDs before I switched motherboards. How could that be the problem?
 
not sure if this is germane (oops ..sorry about such a word..) but I did have a system come to me where with OS CD in a drive ..machine would bootup fine..no OS CD..no boot....just an obscure anecdote (woops..sorry..did it again 😀)
 
Originally posted by: wolfeyes03
Does your SCSI adapter have a bios? if it doesn't you need ntbootdd.sys for it to boot.
Click to expand...
Yes. I have the Adaptec 29160.
Originally posted by: ScrapSilicon
not sure if this is germane (oops ..sorry about such a word..) but I did have a system come to me where with OS CD in a drive ..machine would bootup fine..no OS CD..no boot....just an obscure anecdote (woops..sorry..did it again 😀)
Click to expand...
Well I have the OS CD in because I'm trying to install windows, so I don't think this is the problem.
 
You may have to edit the BIOS in your SCSI card then, the BIOS may not be set to boot. Boot with a startup disk and see if your main partition is active as well.

The NTLOADER problem is that The OS can not find the OS files. The OS will install itself to the drive, then insert it's mark on the FAT of the drive, but then if it can not find the system files from boot.ini it will give you this error. I still think it's the boot.ini file. Boot to the startup disk and try to find boot.ini, copy it down and post it here.

How did you get three copies of the same OS?

It may be as simple as needing to reflash your SCSI BIOS since you were having Blue Screens before, or your HD could be going bad. A lot of possibilities.

Oh, and make sure your main BIOS has SCSI in the boot order somewhere....
 
Originally posted by: miken
You may have to edit the BIOS in your SCSI card then, the BIOS may not be set to boot. Boot with a startup disk and see if your main partition is active as well.
Click to expand...
I'm sure that the BIOS on the SCSI card is set correctly. I double-checked both cards I tried.
The NTLOADER problem is that The OS can not find the OS files. The OS will install itself to the drive, then insert it's mark on the FAT of the drive, but then if it can not find the system files from boot.ini it will give you this error. I still think it's the boot.ini file. Boot to the startup disk and try to find boot.ini, copy it down and post it here.
Click to expand...
I will do this when I have the chance, but I'm at work now. What should I use as a startup disk? I do understand what the NTLDR itself is, that's why I don't understand why this could be happening with different CDs.
How did you get three copies of the same OS?
Click to expand...
3 friends. 3 Win 2k fanatics.
It may be as simple as needing to reflash your SCSI BIOS since you were having Blue Screens before, or your HD could be going bad. A lot of possibilities.
Click to expand...
But I tried a different SCSI card (that was brand new) and it had the exact same problem. This SCSI card has worked in the past. Since then, it had a SCSI drive plugged into it that fried (literally). So, while I doubt this particular problem is related to the SCSI card, I'm not 100% sure that the SCSI card works perfectly.
Oh, and make sure your main BIOS has SCSI in the boot order somewhere....
Click to expand...
I understand that some people might overlook this by accident, but I'm not one of those people. Trust me, I've done this plenty of times. My BIOS is set to boot from SCSI and I use the Esc key (oen of the coolest functions of the 8RDA+ IMO) to bring up a boot menu when it's loading. That's where I choose CD-ROM. Then, after I do the first stage of installation, I let it boot from the SCSI drive again without hitting Esc and changing it. If everything were working properly, then it would boot to the setup screen. Trust me, you don't have to boot to the CD-ROM when it restarts and let it say "Booting from CD..."
 
Originally posted by: Ilmater
Originally posted by: miken
You may have to edit the BIOS in your SCSI card then, the BIOS may not be set to boot. Boot with a startup disk and see if your main partition is active as well.
Click to expand...
I'm sure that the BIOS on the SCSI card is set correctly. I double-checked both cards I tried.
The NTLOADER problem is that The OS can not find the OS files. The OS will install itself to the drive, then insert it's mark on the FAT of the drive, but then if it can not find the system files from boot.ini it will give you this error. I still think it's the boot.ini file. Boot to the startup disk and try to find boot.ini, copy it down and post it here.
Click to expand...
I will do this when I have the chance, but I'm at work now. What should I use as a startup disk? I do understand what the NTLDR itself is, that's why I don't understand why this could be happening with different CDs.
How did you get three copies of the same OS?
Click to expand...
3 friends. 3 Win 2k fanatics.
It may be as simple as needing to reflash your SCSI BIOS since you were having Blue Screens before, or your HD could be going bad. A lot of possibilities.
Click to expand...
But I tried a different SCSI card (that was brand new) and it had the exact same problem. This SCSI card has worked in the past. Since then, it had a SCSI drive plugged into it that fried (literally). So, while I doubt this particular problem is related to the SCSI card, I'm not 100% sure that the SCSI card works perfectly.
Oh, and make sure your main BIOS has SCSI in the boot order somewhere....
Click to expand...
I understand that some people might overlook this by accident, but I'm not one of those people. Trust me, I've done this plenty of times. My BIOS is set to boot from SCSI and I use the Esc key (oen of the coolest functions of the 8RDA+ IMO) to bring up a boot menu when it's loading. That's where I choose CD-ROM. Then, after I do the first stage of installation, I let it boot from the SCSI drive again without hitting Esc and changing it. If everything were working properly, then it would boot to the setup screen. Trust me, you don't have to boot to the CD-ROM when it restarts and let it say "Booting from CD..."
Click to expand...

well first my lil anecdote was just backing up miken..machine I was dealing with was still pulling its boot.ini info from the OS CD..can't remember if I regeditted it or not..
This SCSI card has worked in the past. Since then, it had a SCSI drive plugged into it that fried (literally). So, while I doubt this particular problem is related to the SCSI card, I'm not 100% sure that the SCSI card works perfectly.
Click to expand...
you need to test that card on someone else's setup to isolate that as not being the culprit..
 
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