BIG problem--NTLDR not found

I convinced our school's business manager to update her computer from Win 98 to Win 2000. I've done it many times before without any major problems.

But on this computer (the one with all the payroll, accounting, etc on it), it's been a disaster! The computer will not boot to Windows--it gives a 'NTLDR not found' message when it tries to boot.

I made a floppy disk and copied NTLDR, NTDETECT and Boot.ini from another Win 2000 computer, so I CAN boot the computer up with this floppy inserted. But the Business Manager isn't happy about having to use a floppy all the time.

I've tried re-installing, I've done a FIXBOOT, I've copied the 3 files from the floppy drive to drive C:\, I've insalled them from the installation CD--nothing seems to help. Drive C DOES have NTLDR in the root directory (and always has--even before I copied the set of files from the floppy to the hard drive).

What else can I try? I'm off site right now, one possibility when I get back there will be to see if the boot sequence got messed up in bios, but that's a long shot and I have no other ideas.

 

You've pretty much answered your own question. Since the system will boot using a floppy and won't boot even though all the same files are present on the root of the boot drive, it follows that the MBR on the HDD is likely corrupt. Booting with a floppy uses the floppys MBR and gets around the problem.

To be safe, boot using the floppy you prepared and run a full drive virus scan to eliminate the possibility of a boot sector virus. If one is found, pitch that boot disk, unless you had it write protected all the while.

When you are sure the drive is virus free I would suggest booting to a Win98 boot disk that was made on a known clean machine (and write protected) and running FDISK /MBR from the A: prompt.



edit: Just to cover all bases, there is also the possibility that when you upgraded you failed to disable the boot virus protection in the BIOS (if such is on that machine). That will cause the same problem and will not render any error message. I just leaves you wondering what happened.

 

Hi JE


I just recieveid your email. Sorry so long getting back to you.

I agree 100% with Zep.

I will only add that you also do a verified backup. Especially if you want to get paid! Smile!

And the paymaster is not a good person to have on your wrong side.

Mike

 

backups were made of the accounting and grading data before I did the update, so that's not a problem. I'm going back to the school tomorrow and hopefully the bus manager will come back to a working computer on monday morning.

Thanks for the advice!!

 

Good luck!

I will be here mostly but in and out. So let us know!

Mike

 

You're almost there. I ran into the same problem a couple of months ago. The following MS KB article explains the problem and how to fix it;

NTLDR is Missing

The following article particularly describes this issue on a system in which Win2000 was installed over Win95/98 or ME

"NTLDR Is Missing" Error Message When You Upgrade or Install Windows 2000 Over Windows 95, Windows 98 or Windows Millennium Edition

HTH

 

Rod

One of the articles you referred to says that the error occurs 'when [Windows 98] was improperly cloned.on a different-geometry drive...'

This computer came from Gateway with Win 98 already on it--I haven't cloned it from another hard drive or modified it at all that I can remember.

Could it be that Gateway did it wrong? or is this probably not the cause of the problem on this computer?

(I'd sure like to be able to tell the school board that it was Gateway's fault)

 

It's probably not the cause of the problem, I was simply pointing out the article as another resource. The first article I listed I believe is more appropriate to the problem you are experencing. Have you tried any of the solutions offered in the 318728 article?

Rod

 

I haven't been at that school at all today. I just work at that school occasionally, and it's a 20-mile drive. I'm going over there tomorrow with a handful of printouts of things to try. I'm hoping one of them holds the answer!!

 

Good luck jepeters and keep it simple at first. Normally it's not all that big of a deal.

Personally, my gut reaction says you need to disable the Virus Protection in the BIOS as well as any other and do a reinstall of 2k. That should allow the MBR to be emended and point to the proper location of the ntldr file.

Good luck.

 

Well, I've tried about everything today, and still no go. I did an FDISK /MBR, tried to re-install Win 2000, tried the Repair option again, the FIXBOOT command, etc etc., nothing worked.

there was no option in BIOS for anti-virus stuff. We run Norton Corporate Edition on all computers in the schools so they are up-to-date, but I ran a full scan anyway and found nothing. I updated the BIOS, but that didn't help.

Since her accounting data is saved both on CD and the server, I'm thinking about just re-formatting the hard drive and installing from scratch.


So, the big question is: Will re-formatting the hard drive get rid of the problem with the boot sector? If I can be assured that will, I'll go back there tonight and do a fresh install.

 

Yes if that is indeed what it is!

Get it backed up fdisk and clear the disk. Remove all partitions.

Reformat to dos make sure it boots to c:. Then restore.

I had high hopes!

Are you still there?

Mike

 

JE

After some thought.

Do the above then do a basic striped minimal whatever install of W2k. Just enough to get it up! Save the boot.ini ntloader files etc.

Then restore.

This will for sure tell you that W2k will boot to c: properly.

If after full restore using the backed up boot files you still have the problem then kick in the ones you save from above.

I am now in for the evening so will be available.

Mike

 

Yeah, I had hoped it would be easy too. Murphy is working overtime.

I would sell them a new hard drive. Something weird is going on with the boot sector here and given the importance of this machine to the user, they deserve the best you can provide.

Even if you get this drive resurrected, I wouldn't want it even for my use. It wouldn't be the first time a drive has failed while
doing an upgrade.

 

I just noticed that you say you have tried the fixboot command while running the console but I don't see where you ever tried the fixmbr command. It's certainly worth a shot since you have little to lose at this point. It just might work where the fdisk /mbr doesn't.

 

Where do you execute the ' fixmbr ' command from? Is it done from the command promt when doing a Win 2000 Repair?


I have no idea how to do a striped minimal install.


I'm headed over to the school soon (I be there around 8 pm central). I'll try the fixmbr first. I think I'm going to bring an extra HD and do a drive copy first, then go from there with the re-format.

(as you can see, this is somewhat beyond my 'expertise')

 

You run the FIXMBR command from the Recovery Console (Repair Console), the same way you did the FIXBOOT command. Both of those are available in the Recovery/Repair Console only.

Mike's reference to a stripped install would mean to install while selecting a minimum of options and unplugging all peripherals such as scanner, printer and any usb hardware.

You're doing fine, I'm glad you are taking the new drive with you. As much as I would like to know what the actual problem is and how to fix it, I realize that you must get the job done for the customer. Results are all that count there!

 

10-4 to Zepher

Not so sure the drive is physically bad but you now just need to get the job done!

mike

 

Welcome back Mike! I gotta go for the feed trough so I'll check back later.

 

well, FIXMBR came back with 'This computer appears to have a non-standard or invalid master boot record......

It gave a warning, but i went ahead and pressed 'y' to fix it but it didn't help. I'm wondering if somehow this DID get a non-standard boot record from some process that I wasnt involved in or don't remember. It's only got a 10 gb hard drive, so I don't think it would have ever needed EZ-BIOS or the like.



anyway, I'm going to re-format. I've checked the hard drive carefully and am quite sure I've saved all important data to the server.

Thanks for all the help. I'm sure if you guys were sitting at this computer you would have figured it out.