hard drive dilemma

[sherryl21]

Hi! Hopefully someone out there can help me with my problem. I don't know much about computers so I am just gonna apologize in advance if I don't use any correct terms. Okay, here it goes:

With the help of a friend, I purchased a new motherboard and cpu. I followed all the directions given to me and when I booted the computer up, i go a "NTLDR Missing". Now I know there is an ongoing thread about this problem and believe me, I tried everything that was suggested. When nothing worked, I decided to format my hard drive and install a fresh copy of XP. (BTW, I used my brothers computer to do this since I can't get past the error message on my computer.) When the OS booted up properly and everything seemed to be in its correct place, I moved my hard drive back to my computer. But I still recieved the "NTLDR Missing"!!!! Well, thinking it was my motherboard (ECS K7VMA), I took out my brothers hard drive, which also has XP and hooked it up to my computer. And IT WORKED!!! I can't possibly figure out what could be wrong. My hard drive is just not working in my computer.

ANY suggestions are greatly appreciated.


Thanks!
Sherryl

Have you got a floppy disk in the floppy drive?

Check your BIOS settings and make sure the HDD is being recognized.

Also, it's not a good idea to setup on one PC and then move the HDD to another. Unless of course, all the hardware in both PC's is EXACTLY the same. Your just asking for trouble, especially if they both use different chipsets, etc . . .

[sherryl21]

Thanks for the advice. I won't try the hard drive switching again But I guess I was just curious to see if it was my hard drive that was causing the problem. Yes, I checked my BIOS settings and it all seems okay and I made sure there were no disks in the other drives. Thanks anyway!

What is your "Boot Order" set at in the BIOS?

If your HDD is coming before the CD or FDD, then that could be your problem.

Put the XP CD in, check and make sure it's set to boot from the CD-ROM first. This should start your XP installation where you can reformat/partition the drive.

[meese]

Something to try with the NTLDR problem is to do a reinstall of the OS up to the first reboot. Then discontiue the install and try and boot the system.