NTLRD missing, how do I fix this

[Krutt]

Hope you have some time, this is a relitivly long problem, but I've been as specific as possible in what happened and what all I have done. Please if you have the knowlege give me a hand, I'm running out of ideas.
OK well I've been having a lot of problem with my PC, a lot of memory conficts with what I believe is the video card. Anyway I was exiting out of a MMORG, SWG. and upon exiting it I get an error and the blue screen that tells me that my PC was flushing my physical memory. I restart my PC and then it tells me NTLRD is missing. My Windows XP cd would not do a restorfor some odd reason, next I tried to insall Win 98, seeing that the missing file is obviously a NT file. Well that freezes up and the thing won't even boot now. I took it over to my bros PC and hooked it up there, worked fine for stoage, but I had to use my bros HD to boot. I did a quick format, no change. Did a regular format, still no change. Also after I formated it both times my PC didn't recognise the manifactuer of the HD, usualy it says Maxtor 80 G HD, something like that, this time it just has 2 white blocks where the name sould be. My bros PC however did pick this up so it atleast knew what was attached to it. At this point I grab my Maxtor CD and diskett that allows me to basicly turn my HD back to its original manufactures perset, I can even low-level format using it, but it says that it can't detect a Maxtor HD on the system and just shuts down (this is while the only HD on the PC is my Maxtor) I was trying to install Windows XP pro all over again using my bros HD as the master and my HD as a slave (storage only) but unfortunetly I don't think I can choose what HD I want to install it on w/o over writting crap on my bros much smaller HD. I also Tryed putting the sys.com on the HD like a web site said would fix it but that also was a no go. Well if you read this far, I would apresheate any ideas.

[Chuckiechan]

I'd try a couple of things.

First, I'd try it on another IDE channel and see if it works better. Set HDD set up to AUTO in the BIOS. Maybe also try a brand new cable.

If that still won't work, try another HDD on your machine to see if your board is bad.

There is probably some diagnostic stuff available from Maxtor to check the condition of your drive.

BTW: Welcome to Techimo!

[Ultima]

Krutt,

is that machine overclocked in any way?? I recall I got the same error upon boot a few times when I had overclocked it a bit too far.

If so, try putting it back on default speed, maybe it'll work.

[Krutt]

OK well I actualy go this far: I was able to get the HD to boot and got Win 98 on it, but when I try to install Windows xp pro from that point it will go through set up and restart then start to format the drive, then at that point it tells me that the set up program has decided that C:\ drive is courupt and can't be repaired

[Chuckiechan]

You may want to do a search of the boards for "restore MBR". I bet your master boot record is corrupted just enough to halt your upgrade, but I'm still guessing!

Also, go into win98 in safe mode and do a scan disk and see if there are any errors it can correct that may solve your problem.

[John Prophet]

NTLDR is "NT Loader". basically its just a boot file. You need it in the root directory of the c: to be able to boot. By 'root directory'..I just mean it needs to be sitting loose on the c:\ drive...not in a folder etc.

you need to get the ntldr file off of your xp cd.

Boot from the cd and choose the 'recovery console'

from there it is like dos..you have to copy the ntldr from the cd to the c:\

JP

[Krutt]

thanks for all the help, at this point I got past that and got win 98 loaded then upgraded to XP pro. At 1st it worked fine then I got a memory confilct error with a file, finnaly I relpaced that file and then I had a problem with win32k.sys. unfortunetly now when I boot up it tells me that the boot failed and to insert a system disk or somethign like that. If I turn the power off from the PC, anf I mean either unplugging the powercord or just using the power switch on the back of the powersupply to cut off the power. Anyway if I do that for say 7 or more minuets then start the PC (after power is re-connected/turned on) it will boot with no problem until I get that same win32k.sys error. I'm trying to boot up in safemode with command promt so maybe I can relpace the existing win32k.sys with another one from a working PC. If that dosent work, I would greatly appreshiate an names of softwhere that can push a boot over a LAN to my PC from my lap top. I.E. Boot from LAN.