NTLDR missing with with 98 boot disk??

[rande]

Where does this "NTLDR is missing" message actually come from? I'm using a 98 boot disk (even tried booting from Win98 CDROM) and I'm still getting this message!

I had been using an HDD with dual boot Win98/Win2k. I did something stupid with Norton NDD and corrupted the whole darn thing. I now want to re-do it the same way. I want to repartition the drive with FDISK, load 98, then load 2000 with the "Don't upgrade" option so 98 will remain as a dual. The disk has never been anything but FAT32.

Now, however, there's the notorious "NTLDR is missing" and I can't boot with the 98 floppy or CDROM at all, even when no HDD is present. Where is this message coming from? Is there something in the ROM chip which is expecting an NT/2000 type MBR?

-Rande-

[watchtower7]

do a search here on ntldr...that said, mine was a bad stick of ram issue-try one of the test programs on your ram if all else fails

[John Prophet]

If you put the floppy drive first in the boot order in the bios you should be able to boot to the floppy..then do fdisk and delete all the partitions and start over.....do your first partition for win98 however big you want it. Install W98. Next boot off of the win2k cd and start that install and choose the unpartitioned space and the drive...Win2k will setup all the dual boot stuff again for you automatically.

Just remember to do Win98 FIRST...then Win2k

JP

[rande]

Okay, it seems my boot disk was no good. The files were all there but something was obviously amiss. I went to bootdisk.com and downloaded a 98SE startup to my floppy and it works without the NTLDR thing happening.

Still don't know why I couldn't boot from 98cd but I don't really care. I'll just copy it onto the hard drive and run setup from there.

Thanks.