NTLDR is missing...

ElliottElliott Brentford, London
edited December 2005 in Hardware
My old hard-drive broke and my friend gave me his old one. It is 20gb and I hae set it up correctly. The message - "NTLDR is missing, Pres Ctrl-Alt-Del to restard." I restart and it still comes up. I have been going throgh many forums and sites and none of them have helped me. I have a Windows 2000 start up disk but it still doesnt boot from it and I have tried changing the boot sequence and still nothing. :mad:

I also downloaded somehtihg called fixntldr and put it on a floppy disk but still it doesn't work, can anyone give me simple steps to how to get my PC to work again? :)

Comments

  • profdlpprofdlp The Holy City Of Westlake, Ohio
    edited December 2005
    Did you do a format and install on the drive your friend gave you? :)
  • ElliottElliott Brentford, London
    edited December 2005
    profdlp wrote:
    Did you do a format and install on the drive your friend gave you? :)
    I don't know how to do that, can you tell me please? :eek:

    Embarrasing eh :wtf:
  • ArmoArmo Mr. Nice Guy Is Dead,Only Aqua Remains Member
    edited December 2005
    theres your problem :) you cant take a machine with windows and swap it into a new machine, they have totally different components... unless they dont... what cha need to do is get yourself a copy of the operating system you want to install, be it, Win98, Win2k, or XP. load that bad boy into the CD ROM drive and restart your computer. then you need to do into the bios and make sure its going to try to boot from the CD first. when your machine starts its going to look ath the CD and say "hey i can load off of this!" and take you through the installation process.

    thers just a rough rundown of the process, i dont have a whole lot of time right this minute, but if you need anymore helop let us know./
  • ElliottElliott Brentford, London
    edited December 2005
    Well I will try that and if it doesn't work I will get back to you. Cheers Guys. :)
  • profdlpprofdlp The Holy City Of Westlake, Ohio
    edited December 2005
    The only thing I'd add is that it might be a good idea to delete all the existing partitions when you reach the point where setup asks you where to install Windows, then allow setup to format the drive. Since this is a second-hand drive it would pay you to wipe it clean to be sure you don't carry any lingering problems over to your fresh install. :)
  • ElliottElliott Brentford, London
    edited December 2005
    I tried all this and I changed the boot sequence to every possibility with the Windows 2000 disk in the CD ROM drive but still nothing. This message did appear though:

    Verifying DMI Pool Data.........
    Boot from ATAPI CD-ROM . Failure ...

    NTLDR is missing
    Press Crtl-Alt-Del to restart

    I don't know what to do because I am 15 and have waited for a PC in my room for years. Then when I do get one, the Hard-drive broke then when my friend gives my one, that one doesnt work so it seems having a PC just aint ment to be...

    Does anyone have any ideas of what else I could do? :confused:
  • FormFactorFormFactor At the core of forgotten
    edited December 2005
    Elliott wrote:
    Verifying DMI Pool Data.........
    Boot from ATAPI CD-ROM . Failure ...



    Is the disc scratched up?
  • ElliottElliott Brentford, London
    edited December 2005
    Nope it is fine, a few very minor light scratches but no apart from them, nothing...

    I will try and borrow an XP disk off my mate tomorrow but do you know what I could do for now?
  • FormFactorFormFactor At the core of forgotten
    edited December 2005
    Maybe copy the CD? See if you get read errors.

    Try making a boot floppy or downloading one and boot to DOS, then run the x:\winnt command to start the install.


    x reps the letter of your cdrom drive.
  • ElliottElliott Brentford, London
    edited December 2005
    Well Ill give it a go but if I put the Windows 2000 disk in a different machine, would it install it?
  • FormFactorFormFactor At the core of forgotten
    edited December 2005
    Not without you clicking on something to initiate the install. If you put it in, and it brings up a menu, just close the menu.

    Good luck man. Let us know how it goes.
  • profdlpprofdlp The Holy City Of Westlake, Ohio
    edited December 2005
    FormFactor wrote:
    ...Try making a boot floppy or downloading one and boot to DOS, then run the x:\winnt command to start the install...
    Good advice. :)

    You can get a bootable floppy disk here. Look for the one near the bottom called Custom XP Fresh Install Bootdisk. I know you're trying to install Win2K but this ought to work just fine even though it says "XP".

    Put your CD in the drive, set the first boot device as A:, insert the floppy disk and reboot. I would recommend that you print out the Read Me file first.

    If you get stalled, just holler - you came to the right place for help. :wave:
  • ElliottElliott Brentford, London
    edited December 2005
    Thanks alot guy and you have been a great help, I know where to come if I get a new problem. I have contacted the guy at the site profdlp and see if he will help me. I will get that boot disk that profdlp recommended and I will tell you guys how it went.

    Cheers :thumbsup:
  • profdlpprofdlp The Holy City Of Westlake, Ohio
    edited December 2005
    I was a little confused by what you just wrote, then I went back to the site I had mentioned only to discover that he's now charging $4 for access to the disks! :rolleyes:

    If you'd rather save the dough I'm sure we can show you how to make your own - at no cost to yourself.
  • TexTex Dallas/Ft. Worth
    edited December 2005
    I can't believe bootdisk.com is now charging for boot disks.

    I have zhitloads of them already downloaded and I can host them on my website if short-media doesnt want to have some here in your downloads to use.

    Tex
  • ElliottElliott Brentford, London
    edited December 2005
    Would you be able to hook me up with 1 or 2 please mate? ;)

    I would appreciate it very much...
  • TexTex Dallas/Ft. Worth
    edited December 2005
    email me. I'm off to work right this second but would be glad to email you whatever you want.

    Tex
  • profdlpprofdlp The Holy City Of Westlake, Ohio
    edited December 2005
    Tex will get you exactly what you need. :thumbsup:

    If you don't want to wait, you can do this:
    CREATING A WINDOWS 2000 BOOT DISK

    To create a Windows 2000 Professional bootable diskette you will need four 1.44MB diskettes and the Windows 2000 Professional CD.

    Click Start / Run / browse to the CD-ROM drive.
    Open the "BOOTDISK" folder and double-click makeboot.exe and click ok to launch the program to create the diskette.

    More options available at this site.
  • ElliottElliott Brentford, London
    edited December 2005
    Thanks for everything guys, I got a new Hard-drive off a mate and it works brilliantly. But a new problem! :mad:

    All his previous Documents are on there and his brother has delted items and hasn't uninstalled them so they are stuck on there so I want to wipe the Hard-drive clean but the disks don't work, is there another way to wipe it without installing Windows again?
  • profdlpprofdlp The Holy City Of Westlake, Ohio
    edited December 2005
    Wiping a drive clean means that Windows is going out the door too.

    Personally, the first thing I do with any drive I get is to erase the thing; I don't want to bring someone else's problems into any machine I'm building. Our Spyware/Virus/Trojan forum is full of people who imported someone else's malware.

    Having said that, did you do a new Windows installation on the drive in addition to a previous one leftover from your friend's brother? In that case I'd definitely wipe the whole works and start over. I know you're chomping at the bit to get this thing going, but in the long run you'll be glad to know that whatever problems you encounter are not due to residual glitches you inherited from someone else.

    Having said that, if all you have are a bunch of documents, etc, you could delete all Users (except yourself, of course; make sure you have administrative privileges first!), then hand delete the stray files. If there are odd programs remaining from the previous owner you can uninstall them, then use a registry cleaner like RegCleaner. Be careful with that program, though. If your not sure about something you should ask before you send it bye-bye. :p
  • ElliottElliott Brentford, London
    edited December 2005
    Thanks alot profdlp.

    I will try that out and I will get back to you, I am very grateful for all of your help. :thumbsup:
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