NTLDR is missing

January 27th, 2020

I installed a cd rom in my pc and it did not work(its an old one and I’m not bothered about getting to work) but when I unplugged it and booted up I get this ‘NTLDR is missing’ at boot up. If I hit F12 at the first boot screen I can select the HD to boot from and it boots up fine, however this is not ideal. I have tried to do repair from my XP disc and ran the ‘fixboot’ and ‘fixmbr’ commands but this has done nothing.
I also tried to copy the ‘ntldr’ and ‘ntdetect’ files over but I got a ‘you do not have authority’ message while trying to do this.
Any suggestions before I resolve myself to the re-installing the os.
Thanks for your attention.

Answer #1
There can be several casues for this:
1. Computer is booting from a non-bootable source.
2. Computer hard disk drive is not properly setup in BIOS.
3. Corrupt NTLDR and/or NTDETECT.COM file.
4. Misconfiguration with the boot.ini file.
5. Attempting to upgrade from a Windows 95, 98, or ME computer that is using FAT32.
6. New hard disk drive being added.
7. Corrupt boot sector / master boot record.
8. Seriously corrupted version of Windows 2000 or Windows XP.
9. Loose or Faulty IDE/EIDE hard disk drive cable.
Do you any idea which one these it could be?
Answer #2
Man i had this problem once, I don’t exactly know what I did to solve, but I just booted the PC from the XP CD, and i did some repair or something, I can’t remember sorry
Answer #3
@ kap160
It was something to do with installing the cd rom drive, which has I guess somehow corrupted the mbr or something. All the leads are firmly in place, I have tried 2 spare IDE cables one of which was brand new. Otherwise it doesnt really fit in with the list of possibilities you posted.
:/
Answer #4
It may be a stupid question but have you checked that the BIOS is configured correctly?
Answer #5
Many threads like that, after a search for NTLDR (in message text) :
http://www.google.com?t=265777&highlight=ntldr
Then u should do a repair install from the windows CD (it is non destructive) (say thank you to )
Answer #6

kap160 wrote: Select all

It may be a stupid question but have you checked that the BIOS is configured correctly?
Yes everything is as it should be in the bios.
Thank you , I will look now.
EDIT: from my first post : I also tried to copy the ‘ntldr’ and ‘ntdetect’ files over but I got a ‘you do not have authority’ message while trying to do this. This is perhaps where I am doing something wrong but I followed the same instructions from a web page after googling for a fix.
Answer #7
Thats not a bad idea .
Problem is those ‘non-destructive’ installs can totally f**k your registry. I would try and fix it manually and if thats not possible then go for the reinstall.
Answer #8
hmmm, dont want to mess with my registery, thats an area I have very little knowledge of.
Answer #9
I would say you can be 99.999999% sure that it won’t, but it happened to me once and I have warned people about it since.
Answer #10
I never did a repair install but if microsoft did its job then windows should work…
You may just have to remove/configure/reinstall stuff (???)
Answer #11
I only just installed this OS a week ago and have just got it the way I want it with all my apps, games and stuff, I really dont want to have to re format if I can help it :/
Answer #12
if microsoft did its job then windows should work...
That was a joke right?
@
Have you run a disk diagsnotic utlitity? like Seagate SeaTools, Western Digital DLG Diagnostic or really any disk dianostic tool.
If you have did it come up with any faults? now matter how minor or inconsequential they seem…
Answer #13
when you run F12 where is your boot drive listed, 1st – 2nd
if it boots from F12 menu then your BIOS is NOT right
try changing the 1st boot device
Answer #14
when you run F12 where is your boot drive listed, 1st - 2nd
if it boots from F12 menu then your BIOS is NOT right
try changing the 1st boot device

Absolutely right.
Note this is about the sequence of booting, not the sequence in which each hdd should boot.
In other words, your pc is trying to boot from the(I suspect) cd drive and there is nothing there to tell it what to do. That or you’ve managed to mess up the hdd file system.
If you’ve established that the boot sequence is correct, what you can try is to get Digiwiz’s BartPE disc from WW-B appz’s. Then renaming the NTLDR to end with .old and then extract the NTDLR file from your windows disc. That way there is only one NTDLR file and windows knows excatly where that is. If that fails, use the digiwiiz disc to move the data you want to keep, prioir to reinstalling or reairing the existing installation. Dont forget to take your email files, any partially complete torrents, favourites, desktop and documents as well as your more obvious data and other stored items.
Answer #15
hey peepz my boyfriend has a big problem with his computer and he thinks it has something to do with the fact that he deleted some files from his (illegal!!!) Windows XP. Now when he wants to start his computer it says (in french but I translate it for you guys, so its not the excect text): NTDLR missing, please restart your computer with contr alt del. If he does that he gets the same message and so on…
I read that we can fix this with the XP CD but since he has the illegal version (downloaded via a friend) he doesn’t have a cd-rom…
Can somebody help us please!!
Thanks
Answer #16
Hi
Download this and put on a floppy
http://www.tinyempire.com/notes/files/fixntldr.exe
Read up here.
http://www.tinyempire.com/shortnotes/files/ntldr_missing.htm
Hope it helps you
Answer #17
http://www.tinyempire.com/notes/files/fixntldr.exe
That will fix it, BURN TO cd ROM,
Boot from CD
stewart,

Edit

opps sorry, didn’t notice that there
Answer #18
I encountered this error a few times. What i did was putting a XP CDrom into my pc and boot into the setup. then press r for a recovery console and i ran the fixmbr and fixboot thing.
Answer #19
Alright i just solved this problem when my computer got this error.
I did a bootable USB from this guide and resolved the problem… Then I reformat windows…
Note: Make sure Boot Sequence is in the right order… Floppy at 1, CD at 2, and lastly IDE at 3. http://tinyempire.com/notes/ntldrismissing.htm
Answer #20
Just do this Windows XP users
1. Insert the Windows XP bootable CD into the computer.
2. When prompted to press any key to boot from the CD, press any key.
3. Once in the Windows XP setup menu press the “R” key to repair Windows.
4. Log into your Windows installation by pressing the “1” key and pressing enter.
5. You will then be prompted for your administrator password, enter that password.
6. Copy the below two files to the root directory of the primary hard disk. In the below example we are copying these files from the CD-ROM drive letter “E”. This letter may be different on your computer.
copy e:\i386\ntldr c:\
copy e:\i386\ntdetect.com c:\
7. Once both of these files have been successfully copied, remove the CD from the computer and reboot.
Answer #21
lf it boots from any selected disk I would make sure your boot.ini file is set to boot from that disk