Different NTLDR Problem

I have a problem with installing Windows XP Professional SP2 on my hard drive: when I boot from the CD, it gives the standard NTLDR message. When I searched this forum, I found solutions to the problem, but they were for hard drives with XP already installed. Mine is a 40G Seagate hard drive which had XP on it before. XP was corrupt, so I used an "Ultimate Boot Disk" to wipe it. I then used another tool on the same CD to create an NTFS partition on the hard drive. My computer is set to boot first from the A:\ drive, then the CD and HD drives. I think I might need to get NTLDR on the Master Boot Partition, but I have no idea how to do that. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

Hi Wender Iggin and welcome,

From what you are saying:

You aren't booting from the XP install CD but the hard drive instead. That message is rendered when the hard drive doesn't have system files installed properly or at all.

Try resetting your BIOS boot sequence to have the CD ROM drive as the first device in the sequence to be polled. Save the setting and exit.

Then when it boots, you should see a message on screen that asks you to press any key to boot from the CD. Press the space bar or the enter key and it should begin the XP install routine. If you press no key, you'll get the NTLDR message as before.

 

My BIOS is set now to boot 1:ATAPI CD-ROM and 2:IDE HDD. When I boot the computer with the Windows XP Pro SP2 re-install CD, it does not give me an option to boot from CD; it just gives the NTLDR message.

 

Then consider what Steve posted as some possibilities...

It seems obvious that the CD ROM drive has a problem reading or the disk may be damaged.

Try booting the CD on your working computer to see if it works as intended and gives the proper message about pressing any key...

If so, then the CD ROM drive on the other computer will be suspect.