OS Problem

[Jekyll and Hyde]

Hi everyone,

I am a bit weary of asking this here bearing in mind these are Vista Forums, but I hope I may be excused just this once, as I have looked around the net and cannot find anything of use for my problem which is:

I have two OS's Vista and also XP and its XP that is the problem in so much as I cannot get it to boot, I get the error ntldr is missing, and no matter if I put the disk in and try to boot from the disk, the system still won't play ball, it just tells me to ctrl-alt-del to reboot, this is despite me pressing any key to boot from the disk.

I really do not know what else to do, getting XP to work is not a major issue for me, but it would be nice to see what I have on that drive.

As a point of note, I have both my operating systems in caddies, so I can remove Vista and slide XP in whenever I want to, incase some of you have not heard of caddies, but I expect most will have :D

Hope a clever stick out there can sort me out at somepoint

Sorry again for asking this on a Vista Forum

Jekyll and Hyde

 

[SIW2]

Hi - good to hear from you again,


Is this any use ?

http://www.tinyempire.com/notes/ntldrismissing.htm

How to troubleshoot the "NTLDR Is Missing" error message in Windows 2000

http://computer-vet.com/weblog/2004/11/08/ntldr-is-missing.html

Hope it helps

SIW2

 

[Jekyll and Hyde]

Hi and good to hear from you also

I remember that first website, as I found that a long time ago, but to be honest I find alot of that going over my head, might be easy for most but I am nervous of trying anything that means going into the Bios, although I did do awhile back and asides from trying to set the CD to boot first, I left everything else alone, but that little thing I did did not help, the other sites are useful yes and thank you for giving me the links, but as I say alot of it goes way over my abilities to follow

Tomorrow I may try again and see but I am extremely worried that if I get it working through whatever method, that then the Vista HD will come at me with the same error or different, just can't understand what the hell went wrong, it was fine a few months back

Thank you for your help though, appreciated

Jekyll and Hyde

 

[Everlong]

I used to get problems like that with XP all the time, randomly. Like one time I went on holiday for a week, shut down my PC properly the night before. Came back a week later and I had that error :S

Is it a seperate computer you have it on? Or a dual boot?

 

[mansrm81]

Its a separate drive that he has it on I think.

 

[Jekyll and Hyde]

Yes mansrm81 is correct, as I said in my first post, I have two caddies, which contain a HD (one for Vista) (one for XP)


Jekyll and Hyde

 

[Dwarf]

Hi Chris,

Try the Recovery Console. For more information, see the following link: How to install and use the Recovery Console in Windows XP Note that this is quite detailed in places, so you might like to print the information out so that you can refer to it as you go along. Good luck, and I hope that this helps.

 

[Jekyll and Hyde]

Hello Dwarf,

Thank you for that, only problem is that I do not have a Printer I used to but my old PC did'nt seem to like it, and I had constant problems, and since then I have not been able to get a new one, and now its totally out as I do not have the room for one, no matter how small lol

So I have to kind of either write things down or try to do it from memory and the latter is reallly to big of a risk to try, as I am sure everyone would agree lol

I'll take a read through it though, so many thanks

Chris

 

[Home4thewinters]

For booting issues specific to ntldr.dll, this method seems to fix it.

This step-by-step article describes how to create a bootable floppy disk for Windows XP to access a drive with a faulty boot sequence on an Intel-processor-based computer.

The Windows XP installation CD-ROM is a bootable disk and can be used to start Windows. When you use the Windows XP installation CD-ROM to start your computer, you can use the Windows Recovery Console to help recover the system software. For more information, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:
314058 (Description of the Windows XP Recovery Console for advanced users ) Description of the Windows XP Recovery Console
Note The procedure for RISC-based computers is different and not documented in this article.


Back to the top
Requirements

• A blank floppy disk
• The Windows XP CD-ROM or an operational Windows XP-based computer

Back to the top
Create a boot floppy disk by using a Windows XP-based computer

1. Format a floppy disk by using the Windows XP format utility. To do this follow these steps:
   1. <LI type=a>Insert the floppy disk that you want to use into the floppy disk drive.
   2. Click Start, click Run, type format a:, and then click OK.
2. Copy the Ntldr and the Ntdetect.com files from the I386 folder on the Windows XP installation CD-ROM, from the Windows XP installation floppy disk, or from a computer that is running the same version of Windows XP as the computer that you want to access by using the boot floppy disk. To do this, follow these steps:
   1. <LI type=a>Insert the Windows XP installation media into the disk drive of the computer. <LI type=a>Click Start, click Run, type <DriveLetter>:\I386, and then click OK.
      
      Note<DriveLetter> represents the root location of the installation media. <LI type=a>Right-click the Ntldr file, and then click Copy. <LI type=a>Click Start, click Run, type a:, and then click OK. <LI type=a>Click the Edit menu, and then click Paste.
   2. Repeat steps 2b through 2e for the Ntdetect.com file.
3. Create a Boot.ini file, or copy one from a computer that is running Windows XP, and then modify the Boot.ini file to match the computer that you are trying to access. The following example lists how to create a Boot.ini file for a single-partition Integrated Device Electronics drive that has Windows XP installed in the \Windows folder:
   1. <LI type=a>Click Start, click Run, type notepad, and then click OK. <LI type=a>Type the following text: [boot loader]timeout=30Default= multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\windows[operating systems]multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\windows="<OperatingSystem>"
      
      Note The value that is represented by the <OperatingSystem> placeholder depends on the configuration of the Windows XP computer that you are trying to access. For example, if you are trying to start a Windows XP Professional computer, this value is as follows: Microsoft Windows XP Professional
      <LI type=a>Click the File menu, and then click Save As.
   2. Select 3 ½ Floppy (A from the Save in drop-down list, type Boot.ini in the File name text box, and then click Save.
   Note If your computer starts from a SCSI hard disk drive, you may have to replace the multi(0) entry with scsi(0). If you are using scsi(x) in the Boot.ini file, copy the correct device driver for the SCSI controller that is used on the computer to the root of the boot disk, and then rename the device driver to Ntbootdd.sys. Change the disk(0) number to represent the SCSI-ID of the hard disk drive you want to start. If you are using multi(x) in the Boot.ini file, you do not have to change the code in the Boot.ini file.
4. Insert the floppy disk into the floppy disk drive of your computer, and then restart Windows XP.

Back to the top
Create a boot floppy disk without a Windows XP-based computer

1. To download and to create the Windows XP Setup boot disks from a computer that is running Microsoft Windows 95, Microsoft Windows 98, Microsoft Windows 98 Second Edition (SE), or Microsoft Windows Millennium Edition (Me), refer to Microsoft Knowledge Base article 310994. For more information, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base: 310994 (How to obtain Windows XP Setup disks for a floppy boot installation ) How to obtain Windows XP Setup boot disks
2. Delete all the files from the newly created Setup disk 1.
3. Copy the Ntldr and the Ntdetect.com files from the I386 folder on the Windows XP installation CD-ROM, on the Windows XP installation floppy disk, or from a computer that is running the same version of Windows XP as the computer that you want to access by using the boot floppy disk. To do this, follow these steps:
   1. <LI type=a>Insert the Windows XP installation media into the disk drive of the computer. <LI type=a>Click Start, click Run, type <DriveLetter>:\I386, and then click OK.
      
      Note<DriveLetter> represents the root location of the installation media. <LI type=a>Right-click the Ntldr file, and then click Copy. <LI type=a>Click Start, click Run, type a:, and then click OK. <LI type=a>Click the Edit menu, and then click Paste.
   2. Repeat steps 2b through 2e for the Ntdetect.com file.
4. Rename the Ntldr file to Setupldr.bin. To do this, follow these steps:
   1. <LI type=a>Right-click the Ntldr file, and then click Rename.
   2. Type Setupldr.bin, and then press ENTER.
5. Create a Boot.ini file or copy one from a computer that is running Windows XP, and then modify the Boot.ini file to match the computer that you are trying to access. The following example lists how to create a Boot.ini file for a single-partition Integrated Device Electronics drive with Windows XP installed in the \Windows folder:
   1. <LI type=a>Click Start, click Run, type notepad, and then click OK. <LI type=a>Type the following text : [boot loader]timeout=30Default= multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\windows[operating systems]multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\windows="<OperatingSystem>"
      
      Note The value represented by the <OperatingSystem> placeholder depends on the configuration of the Windows XP computer that you are trying to access. For example, if you are try to start a Windows XP Professional computer, this value is as follows: Microsoft Windows XP Professional
      <LI type=a>Click the File menu, and then click Save As.
   2. Select 3 ½ Floppy (A from the Save in drop-down list, type Boot.ini in the File name text box, and then click Save.
   Note If your computer starts from a SCSI hard disk drive, you may have to replace the multi(0) entry with scsi(0). If you are using scsi(x) in the Boot.ini file, copy the correct device driver for the SCSI controller that is used on the computer to the root of the boot disk, and then rename the device driver to Ntbootdd.sys. Change the disk(0) number to represent the SCSI-ID of the hard disk drive you want to start. If you are using multi(x) in the Boot.ini file, you do not have to change the code in the Boot.ini file.
6. Insert the floppy disk into the floppy disk drive of your computer, and then restart Windows XP.

 

[Jekyll and Hyde]

Sorry to have to tell you this after you did that long post but I don't have a floppy drive not making this easy am I?

 

[MrNeeds]

Sorry to have to tell you this after you did that long post but I don't have a floppy drive not making this easy am I?

man you are in luck, i have experienced a severe arse kicking with this problem before, and thinking all hope was lost, i dug out my XP CD thinking it as a last resort, low and behold, i could repair an installation from the CD, choose this option and recover, you are not out of the woods yet though, after this, your boot options will no longer come up and automatically starts loading to xp now, but fear not as i dug out the vista DVD and did exactly the same thing but with vista and it worked a treat, its a lot of messing about but it was worth it keeping all my files and programs from xp and vista.
only drawback now is that vista's booting options now come up with earier versions of windows and windows vista home premium (recovered)

 

[SIW2]

Hi Mr Needs,

You can easily change the name of your boot entry if you like.

Boot into Vista whose name you wish to change - to get of the recovered bit, I assume, then open an elevated command prompt ( type cmd into Start Search box - when it pops up, right click and Run as Admin. )

type in the following :

bcdedit /set {current} description "Vista Home Premium"

Press enter.

That will change the name of the {current} boot menu entry to what you typed between the quotation marks.

You can do the same with the Legacy entry by replacing the word current inside the brackets with the identifier for the legacy entry.

You can find that by typing simply bcdedit into the elevated command prompt, then press Enter:



Or you could easily do it with the EasyBCD, like this :

Click Change Settings, choose the o/s in the drop down box, click on Name, type the name you want, click Save Settings



available free from here :
Download EasyBCD 1.7.2 - NeoSmart Technologies

Hope it helps

SIW2

 

[Jekyll and Hyde]

Hi MrNeeds,

I am not able to do this at present, but when I do, I will post back, but many thanks for the advice as to what to do, appreciate it :D

Actually, what the hell am I babbling about, (must be Hyde on his way) ok, my problem is such that when I put the XP disk in and boot, I get to the bit where it tells me to press anykey to boot from cd, I do this and I keep tapping the key as if I don't it simply tells me the ntldr is missing and to press ctrl-alt-del to retry, but even if I keep tapping a key to boot from cd, it still comes up telling me the error ntldr is missing, and to press ctrl-alt-del to reboot, so the upshot here is that it simply does not boot from the disk, its just trapped in a vicious circle

I just can't boot, I am sorry if this post is unclear, just can't seem to think straight at present lol if any of you find this difficult to understand or unclear, please let me know and I'll restart

Jekyll and Hyde

 

[MrNeeds]

Hi MrNeeds,

I am not able to do this at present, but when I do, I will post back, but many thanks for the advice as to what to do, appreciate it :D

Actually, what the hell am I babbling about, (must be Hyde on his way) ok, my problem is such that when I put the XP disk in and boot, I get to the bit where it tells me to press anykey to boot from cd, I do this and I keep tapping the key as if I don't it simply tells me the ntldr is missing and to press ctrl-alt-del to retry, but even if I keep tapping a key to boot from cd, it still comes up telling me the error ntldr is missing, and to press ctrl-alt-del to reboot, so the upshot here is that it simply does not boot from the disk, its just trapped in a vicious circle

I just can't boot, I am sorry if this post is unclear, just can't seem to think straight at present lol if any of you find this difficult to understand or unclear, please let me know and I'll restart

Jekyll and Hyde

i completely understand you, your keyboard might be unresponsive