Another NTLDR error, yet different!

[radio1_mike]

Hey,

I just built a friend a computer w/XP Pro with 2 hard drives. It is not a dual boot system and it was a fresh install of XP Pro.

(This was a few weeks back)

So, he went to do a system update, and updated all other patched and etc... He reboots the next the day and gets the dreaded, "NTLDR is Missing" Please reboot.

All the info I can dig up, deals w/dual boot systems or installing XP over pre-XP OSes, neither is the case here.

Any suggestions? Should I just tell him to boot in the XP CD and do a repair installation? Would this repair it? Or would it just overwrite all his settings and etc... I am new to XP, and my usual answer (wipe and reinstall) is sort a hardship, since we have to wait several weeks for us to get togther for me to do that.

Thanks!

[troyt75]

How about fix boot in the recovery counsel?

I think that might work.

[JimG]

Ya know, that's weird .... I did an install of XP ... installed Office .. installed Norton SystemWorks 2002 (NSW). Soon as I rebooted, "NTLDR is missing". Cursed it out and resintalled Win2k. After May 22, when I graduate from this place, I plan on experimenting to figure out what went wrong.
As for your problem, the only solution XP would offer that would have fixed it is to reinstall (wipe and install from scratch) WinXP. That's my decision point to put 2k back on there.

[radio1_mike]

Interesting.

That's what I told my friend. Wiping and rebooting is not such a big hassle. But getting his computer here is, and then updating is the other problem...

In the past week or so, we have tried a few different things. But it looks like a wipe is necessary. What I do not understand, is why it happened in the first place.

Mike

Fixboot from the recovery console in the booted winXP CD will fix this.

The worry is why did an update kill the bootloader?

Another example of M$ incompetence, I wonder?

Cheers
Mick

Originally posted by JimG
Ya know, that's weird .... I did an install of XP ... installed Office .. installed Norton SystemWorks 2002 (NSW). Soon as I rebooted, "NTLDR is missing".

Norton System-don't-Works will do that. I tend to only install Norton AV now, and leave the rest of the so-called "tools" out. Safer.

Cheers
mick

[radio1_mike]

Originally posted by mickwish
Fixboot from the recovery console in the booted winXP CD will fix this.

The worry is why did an update kill the bootloader?

Another example of M$ incompetence, I wonder?

Cheers
Mick

Hmmm. Dealing with a 3rd party is difficult... Perhaps that will work, I told my friend to go through that recovery process. but he said it did not help. Perhaps, he did not do something.

<So, we just run recovery and choose, 'fixboot'?>