Couldnt find NTLDR

T

tcompton2

Limp Gawd
Joined
Oct 2, 2002
Messages
148
Hey Im trying to install Windows XP again after my hard drive crashed, so I reformatted it and also got another Maxtor 120 gig. I installed both, but now when I try to boot from the Windows XP cd in order to install it, before I even get the chnace to do anything it says this:

Boot from CD: CDBOOT: Couldn't find NTLDR.

How can I fix this. Im just basicaly starting over. Both hard drives have nothing on them, so....any ideas?:(
 
Make sure you don't have a floppy in the drive and that you CD player is set to first in the BIOS order. ;)
 
I have a similar problem in where about every other 2 or 3 times I restart it says it can't find NTLDR. I just did a fresh install of XP Pro on pretty much a brand new system. When it happens I go to the restore option after I boot from the CD and use BOOTFIX. But it only works for a little while and then i have to do it all over again :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad:
 
there is probably a setting in your bios for a delay IDE for X seconds.

Try and up that value. Maybe your HDD isn't completely being seen by the BOIS correctly.
 
I had this problem too. Its a problem with the MBR. I completely fomatted all my partitions (because it was easiet for me and I was gonna do it anyways). I just knowi t had something to do with my MBR and partition table.
 
i think zweterrion is right.

this happened to me when i installed XP on a hd that was in slave position. i imagine there is some way to fix it without formatting again, but i couldnt figure it out. if anybody knows how, i'd love to hear it.
 
From what I've seen, Windows likes to make odd partitions active.

For example.

my Primary boot drive (IDE 0). Is not the active drive.

It's drive 4 (on a PCI IDE Controller card). Strange stuff indeed. To tell you the truth , with my setup, booting has been a pain in the ass to say the least.

1 IDE on onboard
3 IDE on controller card
2 Sata
3 Rom Drives IDE onboard.

Seems each time I install xp a different drive becomes active.

I'd just reformat all of em, but having as much shit as I do (porn + mp3s), that's not an option until I decide to burn everything to DVD :p

Cheers,

Mr. Pain
 
From the sounds of it my problems are being caused by the fact that I have 2 drives. One of the drives had XP Home on it so I took all of my media files off the other one and pplaced them on the master drive. Then i formatted and installed XP pro on what was the media drive moved the media files over to the new master drive then formatted the old master..... I think maybe i just need a couple Raptors to fix my problem :D
 
Originally posted by Catuela
I have a similar problem in where about every other 2 or 3 times I restart it says it can't find NTLDR. I just did a fresh install of XP Pro on pretty much a brand new system. When it happens I go to the restore option after I boot from the CD and use BOOTFIX. But it only works for a little while and then i have to do it all over again :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad:
Click to expand...

It's probably your overclock corrupting data. i.e. XP2500 at XP3200 or something along those lines.
 
when you install windows on a slaved hard drive (D:), it still puts the master boot record on the master hard drive (C:). it does this because having the boot record for the D: drive's OS on the C: drive allows you to choose which one to use when you boot up, assuming that you will leave the hard drives in the current master/slave configuration. (when you boot up, BIOS checks the mbr on the C: drive by default.)


so, when you format and reinstall, be sure you do so with only the one hd in the computer.
 
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