Alright I so when I reboot my computer now I get the NTLDR not found press ctrl-alt-delete to reboot. I googled around and found a couple things but they require me to dig out a floppy and I don't think they'll solve the problem either. You see I was playing the dark messiah demo and it froze so I restarted and all the sudden my BIOS wasn't detecting my harddrives. I figured I'd check the connections. So I pulled out my system noticed that the drives felt really hot. So I unplugged and plugged everything back in then got a big box fan out left of the side of the case and have that running on it. So I rebooted and it detected my drives but now I'm getting the NTLDR error. The other thing is that I was having weird boot issues where it would boot fine up to the login screen and it would hang there saying windows is starting up until the screensaver came on then it was fine.
Specs: DFI Lanparty mobo, 2.8 celeron at 3.0, 1Gb Ram (1 rosewill one crucial maybe), 2x 80Gb HDD 1 Seagate 1 Western Digital, Kingwin? 400w PSU

Thats should be everything you need. I'm going to go dig around for a floppy any ideas would be appreciated.

Try popping your BIOS battery to clear the CMOS... if this doesn't resolve the problem, then nothing short of a new harddrive or reinstallation of windows will fix it.

Yep BIOS reset or format

BIOS reset didn't help anyone fixed this problem without a reformat because I would really prefer to not have to do that.

I don't think you're gonna be able to recover the drive. Best bet is to back up as much data as you can, if the drive is even accessible, and then reformat. It's a sad fact my friend...

Try getting into the recovery console and using the fixboot command. If that doesn't work you might try this:

1. Insert the Windows XP bootable CD into the computer.
2. When prompted to press any key to boot from the CD, press any key.
3. Once in the Windows XP setup menu press the "R" key to repair Windows.
4. Log into your Windows installation by pressing the "1" key and pressing enter.
5. You will then be prompted for your administrator password, enter that password.
6. Copy the below two files to the root directory of the primary hard disk. In the below example we are copying these files from the CD-ROM drive letter "E". This letter may be different on your computer.
   
   copy e:\i386\ntldr c:\
   copy e:\i386\ntdetect.com c:\
7. Once both of these files have been successfully copied, remove the CD from the computer and reboot.

If that doesn't work then your only option is to format.

NO NO NO!!! dont reformat or anything! First CHECK THE jumpers on your HDD's Several Times I've gotten the NTLDR thingie and its cause I've moved the hard drives around and they are either set wrong with the jumpers, or on the wrong channel on the cable (even with cable select)

So try that first.

EDIT: well if you havent moved the drives, look what the others have said...

Quote: Originally Posted by Dreyco NO NO NO!!! dont reformat or anything! First CHECK THE jumpers on your HDD's Several Times I've gotten the NTLDR thingie and its cause I've moved the hard drives around and they are either set wrong with the jumpers, or on the wrong channel on the cable (even with cable select) So try that first.

He didn't change any jumpers or channels. He said his comp was working fine then froze. When he rebooted he got the error.

I would say reformat. That issue has happened to me on a few occasions, the only thing that fixed was a reformat. Trust me i was heartbroken. I had to reformat my complete first and second seasons of Ghost in the shell. AND I DIDNT BACK THEM UP!!! . you could try the CD repair but i doubt it'll work. If it does let me know how you got it to work.....

i HATE THAT ERROR.

I have this error when I OC my ram too much, so that just adds to the pile of possible causes!

Do some heavy duty googling, there is a program by Microsoft that will fix it, though if you don't manage to find it on the web I think Microcrap will charge you to call their support and download it. I know the same thing happened to me, however it was just a funky hd, no jumpers moved, cable stayed the same, but my master came up as secondary in bios, and I got NTLDR not found.

Quote: Originally Posted by Gzim I have this error when I OC my ram too much, so that just adds to the pile of possible causes!

You are lucky to get that error when overclocking too much. What kind of RAM do you have? Mine just gets to the XP loading screen and then blue screens and restarts.

Quote: Originally Posted by Sn0wMan You are lucky to get that error when overclocking too much. What kind of RAM do you have? Mine just gets to the XP loading screen and then blue screens and restarts.

It's GSkill. But after reading this thread, i'm starting to think that the OCin' isn't the true cause...although I guess this could be chalked up with many other things as what I call "Computer/Electronic Voodoo"

Sounds to me like one of my very popular "windows likes to delete its own files" isntance.

All I ever did is pop in the cd and do a recovery console thang.

Just one more reason why I have a ubuntu/xp dual boot.

Before you reformat id check and see what your boot order is for your drives. You might have the wrong HD selected to boot from......it happens to me whenever i reset my bios it automatically wants to boot off of my WD 250GB IDE instead of my raptors.

Hope this helps!

Nearly everytime I've encountered this problem, it isn't even that the file is actually missing, but that windows is messed up, and that's just the first thing that it sees as wrong. I've had this happen, used a recovery cd, and even seen that the file sizes were the same of the NTLDR file on disc and on drive.

Try booting off a windows disk. to a prompt.

at C:\ (or whatever)

type: bootcfg /rebuild

Quote: Originally Posted by Sum_12_fear Alright I so when I reboot my computer now I get the NTLDR not found press ctrl-alt-delete to reboot. I googled around and found a couple things but they require me to dig out a floppy and I don't think they'll solve the problem either. You see I was playing the dark messiah demo and it froze so I restarted and all the sudden my BIOS wasn't detecting my harddrives. I figured I'd check the connections. So I pulled out my system noticed that the drives felt really hot. So I unplugged and plugged everything back in then got a big box fan out left of the side of the case and have that running on it. So I rebooted and it detected my drives but now I'm getting the NTLDR error. The other thing is that I was having weird boot issues where it would boot fine up to the login screen and it would hang there saying windows is starting up until the screensaver came on then it was fine. Specs: DFI Lanparty mobo, 2.8 celeron at 3.0, 1Gb Ram (1 rosewill one crucial maybe), 2x 80Gb HDD 1 Seagate 1 Western Digital, Kingwin? 400w PSU Thats should be everything you need. I'm going to go dig around for a floppy any ideas would be appreciated.

OH SHIZNIT! I just reread your post as I was about to start that same demo up, is this a recorded problem? or do you think (from what you've seen) that this is just you...

Quote: Originally Posted by Gzim OH SHIZNIT! I just reread your post as I was about to start that same demo up, is this a recorded problem? or do you think (from what you've seen) that this is just you...

I'm almost positive thats just me. Besides to play that demo would almost be worth a reinstall. Looks like I'm digging out the windows disk and fixing this after work tommorow.