boot up problem

[engineer]

hello. tried to install a "promise ultra 100 " controller card. this is when problem started. during boot up had an error-"ntldr" is missing. cannot get past this point. have no idea what this means.please help. msi k8n neo platinum,amd 64 3200, windows xp pro. also disconnected the controller card and still have this problem.

[DougL]

First question have you left any floppies in drive?

Try pressing F8 on boot up, options then are to load last known good configuration or failing that safe mode and remove any entries for the controller card from device manager.

Doug

[engineer]

hello dougl.removed the floppy that was in the drive. still had this error. i disconnected my second harddrive and left my primary drive as master. now i was able to boot. i am just a begineer so bare with me. what could i have done wrong.is "ntldr" a driver?

[Zend]

NTLDR is basically a boot loader which loads the OSes. it requires 2 files : ntldr.exe and boot.ini

[pam123]

Originally Posted by engineer hello dougl.removed the floppy that was in the drive. still had this error. i disconnected my second harddrive and left my primary drive as master. now i was able to boot. i am just a begineer so bare with me. what could i have done wrong.is "ntldr" a driver?

Read all about it here : http://www.pcguide.com/ref/hdd/bios/...troller-c.html

The line you need for controller card set up is this one : If you are putting the card into a PCI-based system that has the hard disk controller built into the motherboard, you should disable the controller in the BIOS setup program or the two controllers may conflict and your system will not work.

It sounds like, from your description, that you will have to move some hard drives around to get the set up you want.
I would suggest you try the primary hard drive on the controller card.

[engineer]

okay. thanks zend, and thanks pam123 for that bit of info.that helped a lot.

[kev7555]

Pam, I think you just answered a long standing question for me.

When formatting a drive and re-installing on older Dell computers with the promise ultra card in them I have come up with this same error message. Most of these customers are only using one hard drive anyway, so I have solved it by removing the card and plugging the primary master straight into IDE 1.

So....I need to disable the MB IDE controller in BIOS so that the controller for the PCI card can control the drive?

And further...What the heck is the purpose of installing these promise ultra cards in the first place?


Thanks,

-Kev

[pam123]

Kev,
My evening is over-run.
I have, what I think is, an answer but I'll have to reply ( think it through ) later.
I'm getting back to you, I just can't do it now.

[glc]

Kev, what you need to do is disable the primary onboard IDE controller. The secondary will still work. This is a common issue with Gateway and Dell boards using the Intel 440 LX/EX/ZX/BX chipset.

The purpose of the card is twofold - to get ATA100 instead of ATA33, and to overcome a hard drive bios size limit.

[pam123]

Kev, I lost track at some point (sorry about that) so I'm glad glc got the answer to you.