also wondering if you got a bootsector virus
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Browse All TopicsI have a system with XP sp2, formatted NTFS. When I booted the machine today, it came up with the NTLDR missing message. I searched the web and tried the following things:
1. Booted from CD to and got to the repair console. Copied NTLDR, NTDETECT.COM over. Tried rebooting. No help.
2. Tried CHKDSK just in case. Found nothing. Tried rebooting - same problem.
3. Tried FIXMBR. This is a dell machine, so I tried it on the primary boot partition also which is the second partition on the machine. I also tried it on the dell specific partition. Same NTLDR missing on reboot.
4. Tried FIXBOOT. Same NTLDR missing
5. Tried a repair install of WinXP. Same NTLDR missing
6. Tried a reinstall of WinXP. Same NTLDR missing when it rebooted the machine.
At this point I realized I'm in over my head. Therefore I'm hoping you can help me achieve any of the following
1. In a dream world, I'd be able to reboot the machine without needing to repartition the drives. I am amenable to buying partition software if that would help.
2. If that's not possible, I'd like to be able to save some of the files on the hard drive -- it is formatted NTFS, but not encrypted and not compressed if that helps. I can yank the drive and throw it in another machine if it'll let me get the files off of it.
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you can also see here
the part about disk probe
http://www.microsoft.com/r
Hi Steve,
Thanks for the help! --- the NTFS DOS product lead is a good one 'cept I can already read the drive through the recovery console of XP --- I checked out boot.ini and it does point to the correct drive/partition --- Since Dell sets up a partition for testing programs and such, it is pointed to partition(2) which is correct (partition 1 is Dell's) - but maybe it's worth trying partition(1) just to see... The recovery console doesn't let me run edit.com or anything, but maybe I can burn a CD and try copying a file from that. A bootsector virus - I hadn't considered that --- I guess I'd be surprised because I run it in a very secure environment (i.e. haven't recently installed anything, don't get html e-mail, run under a non admin account, etc.) - but anything is possible :) Anything I should try to see if it is a bootsector virus?
You could try ranish
http://www.ranish.com/part
free
Its because you formatted in NTFS..
Put in in another machine trabsfer the files...Good idea but also:
1. Find a boot disk/XP Bootable CD/Xp Boot floppies and format in FAT32 (Copying System files) this will make it bootabble. Thsi should work.
2. USe a disk utility--Partition magic to change files sytem and other options--Might loose some data though..
3. Check the BIOS settings (Boot options) etc for the HD--If everything is correct then finally try to Flash the CMOS batteryfor 30 min..Put it back---or Reset BIOS on the CMOS jumper on the MB.
Good luck
MD
Thanks so much for the help/advice!
Arggh, I guess that's why this is a Monday. I tried bootcfg /rebuild, setting the active partition, eating 18 hard boiled eggs, drilling a weather vane into my skull, none of it has worked so far... Although I do really enjoy seeing the NTLDR missing message about 95 times so far :)
I'm wondering what I've missed? Fixboot writes the boot sector, Fixmbr should make sure the file system is visible?, then bootcfg should make it so it can find NTLDR and NTDETECT.COM? So, if I understand it correctly, all of those have been done, so it should have been the active partition (i.e. windows was trying to find the boot sector on the right partition) which is also ok. I feel like this shouldn't be so hard - heck it can boot a CD-ROM, why can't I just get the files onto the hard drive in a way that it can boot from there? Am I missing something?
you can also copy the ntloader and ntdetct.com to a floppy and try and boot it from that
also here is barts pe builder
http://www.nu2.nu/pebuilde
should let you see what;s on the drive
You're right, I don't have a floppy... The bios boot order is correct. The 'barts' tools were pretty cool and I was able to use them to get a bootable CD-ROM with partition magic's dos tools on it .. I messing with those now, but it looks like it may be to no avail :(... I wonder if it was some kind of MBR virus or something - it's just strange that even if it was that I couldn't use any of these tools to even make it bootable at all! So strange.
Thanks very much for your help, everyone! I ended up putting the drive in another computer, copying the contents over, and then reformatting and reinstalling on it (I tried just about everything including setting up a tiny boot partition with partition magic, and still couldn't get it to boot! So strange).
I'm not sure the protocol on points here, but I figure the right thing to do is give them all out and divvy them up based on how much everyone tried to help. Please let me know if that isn't the right thing to do - I'd much rather err on the side of giving away too many points than being stingy!
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by: stevenlewisPosted on 2004-12-19 at 18:39:01ID: 12863930
>> If that's not possible, I'd like to be able to save some of the files on the hard drive -- it is formatted NTFS, but not encrypted and not compressed if that helps. I can yank the drive and throw it in another machine if it'll let me get the files off of it. ts.htm
that should be possible, but we'll see if we can get this fixed
try this get ntfs dos
http://www.ntfs.com/produc
the free version is read only, but you should be able to read the boot.ini and see if it still points to the right drive/partition