I was messing around with the partitions on WinXP and I guess I messed up something in the system files. Now I can’t boot. Keep getting the message NTLDR is missing. Tried booting to safe mode (F8) but I still get the same message. And no, I don’t have a backup. :smack: Is there any way to boot this thing and use the return to yesterday feature? Or am I screwed?
I dont think so…I don’t know the fix offhand but I know it’s out there somewhere…Sorry I cant be more of help. If I remember correctly you need a Windows CD to repair the install and you have to get into some command line I beleive.
This usually means the system can’t find the Boot! file. If you have been playing with partitions check the BIOS that the partition with your operating system is the first Boot.
If you’ve been poking around inside the computer make sure none of the connections to the drive/s have come loose.
Do “NTLDR is missing” Google lots of easy solutions there
Boot to recovery console and run FIXBOOT and FIXMBR
I don’t have a WinXP CD so I downloaded the file to create 6 floppies and installed them. Got to the recovery console and ran both fixboot and fixmbr. Restarted and still got the NTLDR is missing message. Also tried booting without the recoveryconsole and was instructed to insert the CD. I thought that’s what the floppies were for. To take the place of the CD. So what do I do now. I’m planning on buying a new computer in the next few days as it’s time to upgrade anyway so I really don’t care what the hell is corrupt or not. I just want to be able to save some of the files. Pictures, music, a few documents. No more than a few gigs.
The NTLDR message is a bit generic. From your second description, this is not simply an issue with the boot and boot.ini files being offtrack, but you are missing some core DLLs and/or the corresponding registry entries are missing or corrupt. The recovery console is asking for the CDs because it has decided it needs to do a partial or full reinstall to get you back in business.
It sounds like there are decent good odds that while the OS install is borked, the file system is otherwise undamaged. Your easiest course of action is to get the new computer, and then pull the current drive out of your old system and put it in the new system as a secondary drive. You can then just copy whatever data you are after, and then either remove or reformat the old drive.
If that sounds too techy for you, most computer shops and a number of consumerish places like Best Buy can probably deal with transfering the hard drive for you.
Okay.
Pull the old hard drive out, install it briefly into the new computer, then try to pull your files off of the old hard drive onto the new hard drive.
If you still got partitions, it should work.
Of course, none of us even know if you still have a filesystem, so…
Hold on a sec here. Reinstalling the system? That’s a little drastic at this stage.
Is the ntldr file actually missing, is the boot sector damaged, or are the partitions even present? Boot into the recovery console and check the root level of the boot (probably C) drive; look for “ntldr”. You can copy it from another WinXP machine if it’s gone. Run fixmbr and fixboot after replacing it.
If the partitions are gone you can put the disk into another computer and use the free utility testdisk to attempt to recover them. If the only thing altered was the partition table there’s a pretty good chance you can bring it back.
Can the OP give some details on how he was messing with the partitions?
boot.ini doesn’t come in to play here, since it’s read by ntldr to create the boot menu. Also, it’s not necessary for booting. Without it the system will default to the first partition for booting. It’s only needed in multi-boot setups or to give parameters to the kernel.
Generally fixboot and fixmbr will fix this as the boot process is broken and it cannot load the nt loader. Most likely it cannot find the nt loader. I believe both these tools only look at the first few dozen sectors of the disk. So if you moved or damaged the partitions then these tools cannot help.
If youre buying a new computer you can just mount this disk into your new machine. The easiest way to do this is to buy a usb enclosure, put the disk in it, and mount the disk like a USB drive. If this disk mounts and windows offers to format it, say no. If the disk is corrupt or the partition table damaged, you should NOT format it, even if it asks.
Or ifyou cannot wait you could boot with an ubuntu live disc. It should read the drive and you can copy your documents to a removable drive. If you are not comfortable with linux you can make a UltimateBootDiskForWindows but that requires a working XP install.
[quote=“Cleophus, post:8, topic:511824”]
Can the OP give some details on how he was messing with the partitions?QUOTE]
I was resizing the partitions with a utility I’d used before. A little too overconfident I didn’t bother to re-read the instructions and did something wrong. My own damn fault.
Looks like the best thing for me to do is follow the advice given by several of you to temporarily install the offending hardware on the new computer and move the important files to the new disc.
Wish me luck.
Last time this happened to me, it was due to my Motherboard dying on me, in pieces. But it was very old and creaky by that time, so it wasn’t too surprising.
Have you been messing around with the internals? Last time this happened to me I had a loose IDE cable.