Hi, this didnt really fit into any of the topics so I just put it here. Yesterday I put my PC running XP SP2 into hibernate. When I turned it on the next time, it didnt go on and said: "NTLDR is missing Press Ctrl+Alt+Delete to restart." I didnt mess with the OS files and before that I didn't have any problems with it. I got my XP Installation Disc, opened Recovery Console and replaced the original NTLDR in F:\. I restarted but it still din't work. Looked it up on "Computerhope.com". There it said that I also had to replace "ntdetect.com". Did it. Still doesnt work. What could the problem be? I'd really appreciate any help.
Before getting too technical, lets check the obvious. Make sure you don't have any USB sticks plugged in. Make sure you don't have a floppy disc in the floppy drive (if you have one). Make sure all your CD-ROMs are empty. Once you're sure that you computer is booting directly to the hard drive and you're still having this problem, then we'll move to the next step. Update: Here's a good link that I ran across that explains most of the steps that I would have you perform next. http://pcsupport.about.com/od/findbyerrormessage/a/ntldrmissingxp.htm
Also try doing a chkdsk c: /f . Unless you deleted the file manually the file will still be there. But if the computer had a abnormal shutdown, some of the system files might have got corrupted. When this happens windows xp won't load because it can't find certain files (not because they are missing but because they are corrupted). A chkdsk will usually fix this problem. You can use the recovery console command prompt to run the chkdsk command. The only other time I have seen this problem is on a dual boot hard drive. Also when you try to restore an image backup and you restore it on different partition you might get this problem.
Did Chkdsk /r (you said i should do chkdsk /f but that doesn't exist in recovery console). It did fix "one or more errors" that the volume had but it still said that ntldr is missing. I also tried unplugging everything before i turned it on but it didnt work either. Isn't there some command in recovery console that repairs all of the windows files without installing windows new?
Here you go tells you everything you need to know about the NTLDR missing. http://tinyempire.com/notes/ntldrismissing.htm
Good site it almost fixed my problem. I followed the instructions on tinyempire.com to make a usb dos boot disk. I tried all the boot options. The 6th boot option worked. It brought up the Windows loading page: But after that instead of the select user screen came the bluescreen error "fatal system error": Then I restarted and tried boot option no. 6 in safe mode. First the normal safe mode load screen came. But then the bluescreen came again. This time it was a different error: Help greatly appreciated...
take the harddrive out and connect to another pc and copy the windows file to the harddrive and then put it back and then boot it
Sounds like you have a bad hard drive. You should perform a diagnostic test using the manufacturer's own utility. Here's a link with some further information. http://pcsupport.about.com/od/toolsofthetrade/tp/tophddiag.htm
That doesn't mean your hard drive is good. Most hard drive failures are due to sectors that go bad. You can usually recover the bad sectors, but it's a sign that the drive is starting to go bad.
ok, so how can i check if my hdd is bad with recovery console or dos? Is that with chkdsk? I did chkdsk and it said that it fixed one or more errors. I did it again and it didn't find any errors. So could I still have a faulty hdd?
I've had bad hard drives out of the retail box, test that bitch. Also, replace your IDE cable, I have encountered faulties in the past. Also, just out of curiosity, in repair console type fixmbr.
Download the utility from your hard drive's manufacturer. It's usually a boot disc that you can save to a floppy or CD. The utility will boot to a DOS based utility and scan your drive. If it finds any problems, it will give you an error code. This code can then be used to replace the drive if it's still under warranty.
Ok, so I really tried everything. Then I just reinstalled Windows from a recovery partition that was on the same HDD as the corrupt(or whatever) Windows files. The recovery partition worked fine. Now my computer's running normally again. Still, thanks for all the help.
