Please help!! Will not start without a boot disk

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gibblr · #1 Post by **gibblr** » Mon Dec 17, 2007 12:38 am

Good day, (well, not for me or my computer anyhow!)

Do not know what happened, but went to boot up tonight and I got a message, cannot find ntldr.

I checked out C: drive and ntldr was there.

Now it will only boot if I have the Windows CD in there and set to boot from the CD, but when it asks me to boot from the cd I do not hit any key, then it starts from the hard drive.

I could really use some help here, I have a friends 3gb movie sitting on my hard drive and I really do not want to lose it.

What I have tried so far;

Pressed F8 at start up and loaded last known good configuration, did not work.
Tried system restore, only could go back as far as yesterday as this was a fresh install, did not work.
Copied ntldr, boot.ini, ntdetect to a floppy from my Desktop, tried copying them to C: drive, no luck. (First I copied the original files to a .rar file and stuck it on D: drive so I still have the originals.) did not work.

Operating system in question; Windows XP

Many many thank yous if you can help!!

sugo · #2 Post by **sugo** » Mon Dec 17, 2007 1:02 am

Is it XP Service Pack 2?

#3 Post by **ryengineer** » Mon Dec 17, 2007 1:09 am

Try the following:

When the computer reboots, it cannot find NTLDR, and so it does not run FBA.

Workaround

After you complete disk partitioning but before you run Setup, ensure that the partition that is to serve as the system partition is marked as Active, using tools such as Disk Management (Diskmgmt.msc). You also can mark the partition as Active after Setup has finished.

Another way is to try using Recovery Console of Windows XP Setup disk.

gibblr · #4 Post by **gibblr** » Mon Dec 17, 2007 1:45 am

@ Sugo

Yes it is service pack 2

@ ryengineer

I setup of the software yesterday and had a full load on it, (everything installed)

I tried the recovery console, but I did not enter an administrator password when I set the system up, now it does not seem to do anything for me without that password.

Sounds like I will have to redo everything.

Is there not a file like the old autoexec.bat where you can enter in some lines telling it where to find what it needs to boot?

Thanks people for the thoughts.

#5 Post by **ryengineer** » Mon Dec 17, 2007 3:14 am

gibblr wrote:snip....I tried the recovery console, but I did not enter an administrator password when I set the system up, now it does not seem to do anything for me without that password.....snip

Leave the field empty/blank, just press enter.

#6 Post by **carbon_unit** » Mon Dec 17, 2007 6:58 am

After you get to the recovery console run

Code: Select all

chkdsk /r

#7 Post by **RealBlackStuff** » Mon Dec 17, 2007 8:11 am

A dirty old trick if you don't have a service partition:
Boot from a Windows 95/98/ME startup floppy disk.
Then from the A: prompt type sys c: and hit Enter.
This will transfer the info needed to boot from your hard drive. Remove the floppy and reboot.

Or for a more complicated way:
http://xphelpandsupport.mvps.org/how_do ... _or_nt.htm

gibblr · #8 Post by **gibblr** » Mon Dec 17, 2007 8:47 pm

Thank you everyone!

I am not sure which one actually worked but it is fixed now!

I tried all the tips including doing the repair off the Windows install cd, tried the fixboot switch, when I remembered to change the boot order & take the CD out it was working again!

So thank you all for the help, appreciated it greatly.

Hope you all have a great day and Xmas!

Please help!! Will not start without a boot disk

Please help!! Will not start without a boot disk

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