NEED HELP-Ntldr is missing

[jodypress]

my uncle's pc on boot up has this problem.
Ntldr is missing problem press ctl+alt+del to restart.

i tried recovery console, but when i get to copy the Ntldr file windows is now on the D: drive.

my uncle has 2 hd's, one 80gb sata (new with new pc) and old 20gb hd with just docs on.

i formatted and installed xp pro fresh onto the sata drive when he got pc new.

now it seems that something has swapped the drive letters. the 80gb sata with windows on is now d: the other is c:

i can not change back. i have tried fixmbr, fixboot [d:]

but no joy.

short of reformatting the drive, how can i restore it back to original install.

it is just a lot of time to reinstall and re add all software/drivers etc. (good 3-4hrs)

i just want to know what caused it. i tried googling for virii/trojans, but no joy.

thanks in advance for any help.
jody

[Plotloss]

Unplug the old disk, just the molex will do, leave the IDE in.

Reformat and reinstall to the only HDD (the new 80Gb one) that XP can see.

Then once that is done reconnect the old disk and it will be called D: as expected.

Ahh, just seen the without reformat bit.

Tricky.

There is instruction on the web on how to change the primary drive letter but as windows tokenises a load of things down to tokens such as %SYSTEMROOT% this isnt always a comprehensive solution as Windows doesnt expose everything in the registry...

>> Edited by Plotloss on Tuesday 1st February 15:20

[BliarOut]

Boot floppy, FDISK Change drive letter?

[Plotloss]

The reason it was caused was the XP enumerates the hardware on initialisation.

That old disk has a boot sector.

Even if its set as a slave device if XP see's it first and its got a boot sector it assumes its the C: drive

Hence the above advice to unplug the old one first...

[GreenV8S]

This is a problem I've run into on some NT machines.

The symptoms are that a workstation fails to reboot, the console displays the message NTLDR is missing.

The specific problem is described here:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;Q155892

It also contains the following summary:

The file NTLDR is missing from the active system partition or the allocation for Ntldr's $DATA attribute has become so fragmented that the whole $DATA attribute is not in the base FRS (file record segment).

Microsoft also have a more general knowledge base article describing the underlying problem in more detail:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;228734

I've successfully fixed the problem by following Microsoft's recommended workaround:

Boot Microsoft Windows NT from floppy (using the NTLDR on the floppy disk).
Move the NTLDR file to a different physical location on disk (ren ntldr ntldr.sav, copy ntldr.sav ntldr).
Use an NTFS defrag utility to unfragment NTLDR.
Ensure the correct partition is marked active using either NT Disk administrator, or Boot to DOS and use FDISK.EXE to ensure the correct system partition is marked for boot.
Obtain the Bcupdate.exe program, which updates the boot code of the NTFS bootsector. For information on obtaining the individual software update, contact Microsoft Product Support Services. For a complete list of Microsoft Product Support Services phone numbers and information on support costs, lease go to the following address on the World Wide Web:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=fh;EN-US;CNTACTMS

Once you have obtained the software update create a Windows NT startup floppy disk and boot Windows NT using this disk. For additional information about how to create this disk, click the article number below to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

119467 Creating a Boot Disk for an NTFS or FAT Partition

- Extract Bcupdate.exe and NTLDR from the software update.

- Run Bcupdate.exe C: /F.

- Other command line parameters supported:

/q - Quiet mode (must include /y).
/y - Don't confirm.
/f - Force update of in use volume.
/t - Only test for old boot code.

[jodypress]

thanks all for the advice, i didn't have time to start opening up the pc today, but i think i will try unplugging the old hard drive and see what happens.
then if no joy i will use fdisk in dos to change drive letter and see what happens.

green v8s, is it worth using the Bcupdate.exe program.

also what worries me is how this happened in the first place. was it a virus/trojan, or just one of those things?
he doesn't need the extra 20gb, so can backup his docs and just use the 80gb drive.

will update once i have inspected further.
once again, thanks everyone for you help.

jody

[jodypress]

found the software, so if anyone needs it (tricky to track down)

its here:- Bcupdate.exe

www.autourdupc.com/index.php
?sPage=/Logiciel/NT4/DrvToolsNT.htm

[GreenV8S]

Nothing malicious, just that if the NTLDR file becomes too fragmented (specifically, if the fragments are too far apart) the bootstrap code that reads it can't cope.

[jodypress]

GreenV8S said:

Nothing malicious, just that if the NTLDR file becomes too fragmented (specifically, if the fragments are too far apart) the bootstrap code that reads it can't cope.

can a fresh install that is only a couple of months old get that fragmented?

i have a shuttle pc as my media server running 24/7 for over a year, and its totally stable. downloads torrents and plays video/music daily.

[GreenV8S]

I've had the problem on two or three servers, out of several dozen which have all been running for several years. The machines that suffered from this were all quite low on disk space, although I don't know if that's significant.