Deleted NTDETECT

Hi, and thanks for reading:
Well, yesterday, Sunday the 6th I decided to delete a few "unnecessary files ". Before I get started, I'm running dell laptop, Winxp pro service pack 2, zonealarm firewall,and avg for av software. About a month ago or so, I recognized a few files that seemed out of the ordinary. These files were transparent. So I figured they could be system files, but wasn't sure. To find these files. I go to My computer, local disk(c), and then i see the folders, then at the bottom i see these files. I didn't put them there, and I have no clue how they got there, and what their use is. Last night, on sunday, i tried deleting them(bad mistake). I got the access denied error, files already in use error. But there was one file that I successfully deleted and it was named: NTDETECT . Everything still operated fine, had no problems. I turned off my laptop. Today, being monday, I turned it on and when the Dell screen came up(the boot up screen) where I have the option to go to bios or boot menu, then It would try to go to the blue screen(user names) but then went back to the dell screen. This process would repeat itself non- stop until one shuts the computer off. But in the gap of the screen change, i.e dell start up screen to user name screen, it would say: NTDETECT failed . So i troubled shooted quite a bit. But have not come to a conclusion.

The laptop lets me get to the bios, boot menu, i can boot from a cd(including system recovery), however safe mode does not work.

I have a bad feeling about all of this. I don't want to re-install windows.

If you have any ideas, comments, suggestions, tips, solutions, I would be greatly appreciated. Thank you in advance.

Justin

 

NTDETECT.COM is used during the hardware recognition phase of boot up, it is no surprise that you are having problems without it.
I'd try the following to get your computer working again:

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.
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Hope that helped.

 

That did work. Thanks a lot. Now, when I boot it says to highlight operating system and click enter. Is there any way to change this setting so when I boot I don't have to click the os?

 

Go to Control Panel > System Properties > Advanced Tab > Startup and Recovery Settings > Default Operating System.

 

Thank you. Now my machine is up and running like before. Thanks for your time.