Now NTLDR is missing....

[bumble-b]

I have a BIG problem and have searched this site and can find no solution. Had a customer call and say a fan was going out. They are good customers, always keep virus files up to date and run spyware removal regularly. Some people do hear what you tell them. Anyway, there was a fan making some noise, so I opened the case and took my little soft brush and dusted the fans out along with the entire case. When I turned on the Comp, I received a "Non-system Disk error" message. I thought a repair install of XP would fix the problem, so took it to the shop and started, but it did not give me that option. Said the partition needed to be formatted. I attached it to my hard drive to at least pull the data off and when trying to access it, it says drive needs to be formatted. Thought maybe a bad boot sector or something. Reinstalled HDD in Comp and went in to repair console and did "fixboot" and then rebooted. Message now is "NTLDR is missing". I took it back to my comp and did a WD dignostic. DataLifeguard says it is OK and there is nothing wrong with it. There is about 5gb data on there and I would like to try to save some of it. I tried Ontrack EasyRecovery and it locks up before it shows the data. I believe it is not a hardware issue as it is not recognized in my Comp either. Please give me some ideas as to how I can save this data and then I will do a reformat, reinstall. Thanks in advance!

Beth

[DougL]

Hi Bumble b you could try the following recovery console procedure

Recovery Console.

Copy the Ntldr file from the Windows XP CD-ROM to the root of your system partition by using the following commands, pressing ENTER after each command:

1. Type cd .. to go to the root of drive C. (Note the space)
2. Type the letter of the CD-ROM drive
3. Type cd i386 to change into the right directory
4. Type Copy ntldr c:
5. Type Exit


Doug

[bumble-b]

Hi Doug,

Thanks for the reply, but been there, done that. No luck. Lately, it seems to be recognizing the drive as a Fat 12 partition. Will Partition Magic fix that? I also have Spinrite 6, but not sure if this will work. Seems I am doomed.

Beth

[rjfvillarosa]

Originally Posted by bumble-b I took it back to my comp and did a WD dignostic. DataLifeguard says it is OK and there is nothing wrong with it.

Just making sure, but is it a WD hard drive? because it certainly sounds like the drive failing.

[bumble-b]

Yes, a Western Dig, but I ran all of the dignostic tests (booted from floppy) and there shows nothing wrong with the drive. I did try GetDataBack and have recovered the data (great program!!), but need to try to find the Office XP registration numbers (have the disks, but not the #), but I think that should be another post.

What makes you think the drive is failing. All the tests were OK. Is this a characteristic of a WD Hard Drive?

Beth

[rjfvillarosa]

I cannot honestly say that it is characteristic of these drives, but they way you described a "noise" and then said no more after cleaning the fans, the drive giving you trouble imediately after reboot and cleaning, the number of problems that arose when you moved the drive from one machine to another to check it. I have had a few WD's go faulty on me and I am not a big fan of theirs, it all just made me very suspicious of the drive thats all.

[glc]

The drive is probably fine, just corrupted. A zero fill should restore it to factory condition, and I would highly recommend you do that before doing your reinstall.

[bumble-b]

Thanks a bunch for the replies. rjfvillarosa, I guess I left something out in my description of the problem. It was a bad chipset fan making the noise.

Thanks glc, I plan to do a zero fill as soon as all the data is saved on another source.

This site is the best. There is so much information here, I almost never have to post as I can always find the answer and everyone is so quick to respond to those in need of help. Thanks again, great bunch of people here.

Beth

[glc]

It's quite possible that the chipset was overheating and caused the corruption.