NTLDR is missing - recovery methods

[DarkHorse]

I've been working on my sister's computer, a prebuilt Compaq with a 1.6GHz Intel, 128MB RAM and a 40GB Maxtor hard drive running WinXP. It had been running poorly lately, so I did my best by installing Firefox and cleaning out spyware (Spybot and Adaware.) Later on, my sister mentioned lost performance, so I repeated the spyware check and then dug through the registry for the items that resisted removal. Things were running well for weeks until today, when I again did a spyware check and removed (I thought) two of the same items I had before. I rebooted, and made it all the way into windows before it spontaneously rebooted.

I received the UNMOUNTABLE_BOOT_DEVICE BSOD, and after a bit of research did the recommeded. That is, use Repair Console from the WinXP CD to "chkdsk /p" and "fixboot." Chkdsk failed (The drive may have one or more unrecoverable errors) but fixboot was successful. I rebooted and got the "NTLDR is missing" error. I tried the methods for fixing it suggested by Cricket but am unable to fix NTLDR nor my boot.ini file.

I have tried slaving the device to my computer, and I can access the RESTORE partition (it is a Compaq, remember, and came with ME - I am reluctant to resort to this, if it even works) fine, but not the actual drive.

Any suggestions? At this point, I merely want to recover the data, the OS can go to heck for all I care. Is there a way to make an image of the drive and extract the data? Or is there still hope for the drive?

P.S. Her computer was rife with spyware and I think viruses, and being an upgrade from ME to XP wasn't exactly a stable platform. She had no antivirus, no firewall, and until I intervened no spyware removers and IE on no security. I've convinced her to let me set up the computer, but only if she recovers her data (no backups either.)

Oh, and congrats on the new look, it's been a while since I've been here.

[Harry]

I did what you did. I deleted the NTLDR as well as the 4 or 5 other files that are used on bootup because I thought they were some junk files but little did I know that it is vitally important for bootup. I fixed the bootup by retrieving the files by way of Dos. Here's how:
if you didn't empty out your trash recycle bin, you could retrieve the NTLDR by way of Dos by doing the following:

Go to the "DOS Prompt" or "Command Prompt"

Change to the drive you want to access the recycled files for. For example, if you deleted a file from the drive C, it will go to the recycle bin on the C drive.

Change to the "RECYCLED" directory (this is a hidden directory which will not show-up on a regular DIR command).

For example:

CD \RECYCLED

Files in the "Recycled" directory are hidden as well, so apply the following command to make them visible:

ATTRIB -R -S -H *.*

Then just use the dos copy command: copy NTLDR C:
and that file will be restored to where it belongs.
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If you emptied the recycle bin then you can try to do a system repair.
The Repair option is the option you get when you first begin to install Windows.

The other solution which will absolutely work is to install windows over itself. Of course, then you will have to reinstall all your programs which is time consuming though not so bad if you install the programs only as you need them.

[doctorgonzo]

Did you try a repair install? It's not the same as the repair console Insert the XP CD and boot from it. When the installation process starts, choose install (not repair). It will find that you have XP already installed. Now choose repair. Hope this works.

[DarkHorse]

Sorry for not replying sooner, I was visiting Washington D.C. with my grandparents (Grandpa was a WWII vet, saw the new memorial!)

Thanks for the advice doctorgonzo, I wanted to do that earlier, but feared that it would not do a repaired install and would format the entire drive. In the meantime, I downloaded Ontrack EasyRecover (on dialup, no less) and found many of the files were still viable. My next question is whether the repair install will only overwrite the WinXP files, and that if it is about to do a format that I can abort. I would be willing to try this if I was certain I wouldn't be any worse off than I am now (that is, I can still recover the files easily as they have not been overwritten.)

Harry, your advice was the first thing I tried, unfortunately I couldn't read the drive in DOS or slaved to my computer; the partition table or something like it is mutilated. Still, I'm going to keep your list, it will keep me from reinventing the wheel each time Thanks for you help guys, any more advice would be greatly appreciated.