NTLDR, Caused by failed Video Card?

O

oneil

Limp Gawd
Joined
Jul 12, 2006
Messages
451
Apparently today my video card decided to stop on me. When my monitor is unplugged it shows "No connection" and when plugged it just goes black and the power light goes amber.

Anyways, after I took out the dead card, I tried booting on my integrated video (for which I'm pretty sure I removed the drivers). It shows up on the monitor and goes through the mem check and IDE check but instead of loading XP it hangs on a missing NTLDR, CTL+ALT+Del error prompt.

According to web sources, the NTLDR is a missing/corrupt boot file on the hard drive.

I'm running HP's Media Center (w/ recovery partition) that came with the box, and of course they dont give a Windows CD for it. The only XP cd I have is for my old Dell's Home edition so it's useless for recovery.

Hitting F10 at boot to access the recovery causes the screen to hang at a blinking underscore prompt.

Is there any way that this is related to my failed VGA/driver-less integrated or do I have another problem on my hands, one with my OS HDD?

Today sucked, I'm completely out of ideas and desperately pissed off :(
 
Are you sure you pc is booting from the proper harddrive, as usually NTLDR is a sign of booting from the wrong harddrive, although it could also be corrupt boot sector.

Go into your bios and see if its set to boot from the correct harddrive....

also a broken videocard would/should make the motherboard beep when you turn on the pc, so maybe your bios is corrupt ? since it isnt beeeping and ntldr is showing ????
 
It only beeps when I boot without the video card in the box, and the comp was booting fine up until the video card failed - hell I had been gaming all day on it, rebooting a few times from installs etc.

I'll go see if I can get into the BIOS, but it gets by the first screen where it checks the ram and IDEs so I'm assuming it would fail there if the BIOS was corrupt?
 
na, your bios could be corrupt and it could still be possible to boot into windows, but the corruption could mess with things once in windows, its happened to me 1 or twice.

normally when a vid card dies and gives a blank screen, your mobo should give out a beep saying that vid card is fuxored, but since you have ntldr and a vid card problem, i suspect that it is your mobo thats the cause....

both your vid card and hdd usually wont die at the same time, so i have a feeling that maybe your bios is corrupt or that your mobo is damaged in some sort of way ?

Or, it could just mean that you need to reset the bios with its jumper and that may work ?

or it could be that infact your vid card has died and your mobo isnt beeping, and when the card died, it corrupted your harddrive along with it....

but if your harddrive isnt corrupt, then I suspect that you have the boot order set wrong for NTLDR to show up...
 
I just turned it on again, went into the BIOS and it's booting from the correct hdd. I also tried booting into the recovery console and it gave me the same error - the console is obv. on the same drive as the OS.

Hopefully to god the hdd didnt fail, or that's 200G of data down the drain... :eek:

The video card problem has it's own thread here.

So, what are my options for verifying different possibilities? I've been meaning to change the mobo considering it's a pos that came with the comp (MSI brand) so if there's a way to pin-point it to that then I'm all ears..
 
Well if both things went at the same time, I would look at the power supply, as a dodgy power supply can do that...

I would try the harddrive in another pc if possible, dont try and boot from it, hook it up as the slave on another pc, save your files if it works, then once thats done, then try and boot off it from the other pc, if that also works then you know the mobo on your pc is bad....

But if I had to guess and since both your vid card and hdd are looking shagged, I would say that its a power supply problem...

first thing i personally would do is and only after I had done this is, reset the bios jumper, so that the bios goes back to its defaults and then see if it works, if it still playing up, then I would try the hdd in another pc, but as stated above, since the vid card and the hdd went, in my experience it is usually a bad psu that is the problem, but not always the case....

P.S.

If its still under warranty, get the company to repair it for you....

I also read your vid card post, dont think cuz a psu is brand new that it isnt faulty, I had a brand new enermax 600 watt noisetaker £150 worth of psu, kill a £2800 pc, and that psu was "brand new".
 
Have you tried holding down F8 and booting in safe mode? If not, try and repost results ;) I wouldn't start pulling my machine apart just yet.
 
yea, if you havent aready tried f8, do that and restore to a previous time if possible.
 
EVIL-SCOTSMAN said:
Well if both things went at the same time, I would look at the power supply, as a dodgy power supply can do that...

I would try the harddrive in another pc if possible, dont try and boot from it, hook it up as the slave on another pc, save your files if it works, then once thats done, then try and boot off it from the other pc, if that also works then you know the mobo on your pc is bad....

But if I had to guess and since both your vid card and hdd are looking shagged, I would say that its a power supply problem...

first thing i personally would do is and only after I had done this is, reset the bios jumper, so that the bios goes back to its defaults and then see if it works, if it still playing up, then I would try the hdd in another pc, but as stated above, since the vid card and the hdd went, in my experience it is usually a bad psu that is the problem, but not always the case....

P.S.

If its still under warranty, get the company to repair it for you....

I also read your vid card post, dont think cuz a psu is brand new that it isnt faulty, I had a brand new enermax 600 watt noisetaker £150 worth of psu, kill a £2800 pc, and that psu was "brand new".
Click to expand...

The power supply is an OCZ PowerStream 520W, been in the system without issues for about 8 days.

You mention if it's still under warranty, to get the company to fix it - which hardware are you referring to? If it's the computer I can forget about that option: bought it refurbished at Future Shop and changed everything but CPU+mobo.

I can only possibly have access to another computer tommorow, so can resetting my bios via jumper be a viable option for tonight? You lost me in the sequence of events when explaining...

Sir_Loin said:
Have you tried holding down F8 and booting in safe mode? If not, try and repost results ;) I wouldn't start pulling my machine apart just yet.
Click to expand...

It dosent make it to the boot options where it chooses XP/Recovery/Allow me to boot into safe mode, therefore pressing/holding f8 only makes the speaker act up :p
 
The only option I see for you unless you have access to another pc, would be to reset the bios, if you know where the jumper is, but first make sure you record all the settings that are in the bios at the moment, so you know how to configure the bios after its reset.

As I also said previously, just becuase your psu is seemingly working without issue, doesnt always mean that.

In my last case, That enermax psu was working for a month or so til I ruled out every single other item in the pc, enermax took the psu back and it failed/died during there testing process, so it can happen...

Anyway, just try resetting the bios unless you have another pc handy to try the harddrive in.

If you overclock the cpu and ram, it could very well be the bios that is slightly corrupt, wouldnt be the first time ive had to reset my bios due to overclocking and the bios didnt like it.

Another thing, all this happens now, just 8 days after you put in a new psu, does that not make you suspect a faulty psu, even tho it could be perfectly ok ?

Anyway, i hope you get to the bottom of it and get it fixed...
 
oneil said:
It dosent make it to the boot options where it chooses XP/Recovery/Allow me to boot into safe mode,
Click to expand...
Don't wait that long. When you boot up, just before your machine exits the bios hold down F8. Don't try to boot with any media...just the hd in safe mode if possible.....
 
The mobo is a piece of shite, so is the bios they put on it. ie: It dosent even allow me to turn off the system/mobo fans when I'm watercooling my rig. The only settings I'd have to remember are the boot process :p

I've never seen or done a bios reset via jumper, so I'm going to go peak around and see if I can find something. Does it look like a hdd/dvd jumper and would it be near the batt/cmos?
 
to be virtually honest, I dont see resetting the bios doing anything, as NTLDR means one of 2 things, not booting from the windows harddrive or your harddrive bootsector is corrupt, now it could be a very slime chance that the bios is messed up, thus the boot order is being affected, but I think with your video card dieing that it is something more than that, so I would just leave it and wait til you can try the harddrive in another pc.

you can try, but I think its more of a hope than anything else....

If you are sure you can get hold of a pc tomorrow, wait til then, cuz you will have more scope to test things out then...
 
Scotsman and Sir Loin, thank you for your help.

I will go and try to boot the hdd into safe mode once more, otherwise I'll hold off until tommorow. I'm going to exchange the video card tommorow as well so I'll just grab my buddy's rig and bring it back with me to run some tests.

I'll keep whomever is interested posted, I am at a loss here and hope there are more people out there willing to toss up their thoughts.

If none of this works out, I was planning on changing the mobo anyways so I guess I could go with a new processor + replacement video card and just build myself a new rig.. But that's being pessimistic :)
 
Good man. If you can get to safe mode, at least you'll be able config the sys for the onboard video. I'd also go ahead and run defrag while in there, and set it to run scandisk on the next "successful" bootup. Good luck buddy.... ;)
 
Just a quick update: cant get it to boot into safe mode, trying different times before the bios boot is complete brings me to the same error.

If I can get it to boot into another computer tommorow, should I use the hp recovery console and have it fix whatever problems it finds? I've never used it so I'm not sure what it can do o_O
 
DONT connect that drive to another pc as MASTER, only connect it as SLAVE.

then if you can see the harddrive in windows, then start saving your stuff to cd/dvds or to the other pc's harddrive.

then come back on here and tell us how it goes, then we will take it from there.

Basically, dont try and boot from that harddrive on another pc, as it will have different drivers etc than what the other pc uses and it may even crash causing the drive to corrupt more files....
 
Well, if you can borrow an XP media center disc from a friend, you could try and go through the windows recovery. You could try with the XP pro cd though, but may not work. Here's what you could do...

Booting to the repair console off of any XP cd and type chkdsk /r /p

That's all I have left.....


BTW, I hate the shitty way manufacturers preconfigure their systems. They usually have them loaded with tons of crap that just bogs the system down...and then they turn around and only give you a recovery cd, so you can only restore it to their screwed up delivered state. I always do a clean install...better running system with less headaches.
 
Sir_Loin said:
Well, if you can borrow an XP media center disc from a friend, you could try and go through the windows recovery. You could try with the XP pro cd though, but may not work. Here's what you could do...

Booting to the repair console off of any XP cd and type chkdsk /r /p

That's all I have left.....
Click to expand...
format c: after that methinks :)
 
EVIL-SCOTSMAN said:
format c: after that methinks :)
Click to expand...

Looks like if I can backup my important files, I'm installing with the only other XP cd I have: My dell re-installation cd :D

At this point, I kinda feel like pulling an Office Space printer on this thing, either that or actually buying my own XP cd and running the show myself - no more pre-built rigs :mad:

edit: here's a good read :) link
 
I thought you had an XP Home cd? You could try that for recovery. If you can't use that cd for recovery, or if it just won't boot after the recovery process, I'd find a media center cd I could borrow from someone and reinstall with that (after you save your data to another machine of course..and if possible)....since you do have a valid license key for that 'strain' of the XP OS. You could hit up HP for a cd, but I've never tried that before. Just thinking aloud, so to speak....

I love that movie!!!! :D
 
The only computer I've owned before this one was a 4.5 yr old Dell, that came with a "Dell Windows XP Home Re-Installation CD", which is essentially a XP Home CD which puts the Dell name everywhere on your installation.

There are two problems with me using that cd now: 1) I dont have windows xp home on the machine (as you know) and it simply fails to boot from disc (gives missing file error) 2) dell re-installation cds only work on dell computers (as tested by lending it to a non-dell buddy)

And to address your other suggestions, I'm the only one I know of (yeah, a lot of ppl) with media center. A good friend of mine has the same computer as mine but hasent modded anything since he bought it (I'm starting to think that was a good move :mad: )

Oh well, there goes 900$ + 1000$ down the drain if I just decide to toss and rebuild
 
oneil said:
Oh well, there goes 900$ + 1000$ down the drain if I just decide to toss and rebuild
Click to expand...
Don't be hasty. Maybe there's a member who lives in your town (where ever that may be) who could loan you their Media Center CD for a day and get an ISO of the cd so you'd have it in the future. I'd still give HP a rash of shit and try to get a non recovery cd from them...

Sorry about your trouble. I've been there buddy.
 
Sir_Loin said:
Don't be hasty. Maybe there's a member who lives in your town (where ever that may be) who could loan you their Media Center CD for a day. I'd still give HP a rash of shit and try to get a non recovery cd from them...

Sorry about your trouble. I've been there buddy.
Click to expand...

Just to throw it out there, this isint the only computer problem I had today:

On our way to the lan, I had to drive home and drop my car off. I had left my rig with a buddy of mine who was waiting on someone else. Long story short my case ended up falling out of the back of his van and landed on one of the back corners - which is now bent to shit and stops my window/panel from going on properly now. Great. At least my external radiator didnt get damaged, but that case was 110$ :mad:

So I'm looking at having to replace the case now as well... See where I'm comming from in terms of despair? :p

How does one go about finding members from the same geographical area? (I'm in Ottawa, Canada if anyone stumbles upon this thread)

I will advise tommorow, thanks!
 
I failed to ask this earlier, but did you try reseating your old vid card? I may have shifted with all the moving.

oneil said:
How does one go about finding members from the same geographical area? (I'm in Ottawa, Canada if anyone stumbles upon this thread)
Click to expand...

Just bump this thread, or post a new one stating your situation and what you need.

I'd buy you a beer, but I'd probably drink them all before I even got out of Texas :D

I do see the despair. Days like this just suck and blow simultaneously :p Get some rest.
 
Ok, time for a thursday afternoon update:

I went to Future Shop today and got to exchange my BFG 6600GTOC for a BFG 7600GTOC, so I'm quite happy about that :D

The system boots off the new card, no worries. One down, one to go: I still get the NTLDR is missing error. Great, my hdd is corrupt.

So hard drive in hand, I drive over to my buddy's place. We formatted the D: (HP Recovery Console) partition and install XP Home on it. It must've replaced the boot files because it now boots no problem into Home on his rig. Perfect!

I get home, pop the hdd back into the system and try booting it again. The error is still there.

So now I have 2 ideas:

1) For some reason it's still booting off the XP Media Center that's on the other partition on the disk. If I could force it to boot into Home it should work?

2) The actual BIOS/Motherboard is the issue. How does one go about resetting a BIOS/CMOS?

:mad:
 
I'm surprised I didnt think of this earlier.. In order to scratch out the hard drive as a possible source for this error, I couldve just unplugged it and seen if it still does the error. Which it does.

I've been looking aroung a little and there is a strong possibility I'll be buying an Asus A8N-E tommorow morning and just swapping out the current, [apparently] messed up one.

Are there any dangers with swapping mobos on an existing OS? I figure if I can get into Windows I can backup my files and format anyhow.
 
Sir_Loin said:
Have you tried holding down F8 and booting in safe mode? If not, try and repost results ;) I wouldn't start pulling my machine apart just yet.
Click to expand...
and you do realize NTLDR is necessary to boot into safe mode, correct? This is a core system file much like the old msdos.sys from the MS-DOS era..... I believe it sort of kicks off the boot-up process...
 
Acquire a XP media center CD.... boot off of said CD.... let it do it's thing, and once you get to a list of choices, select R to boot a recovery console. A DOS-like screen will come up, and a countdown will begin waiting for you to select a non-standard US keyboard.... just wait a few seconds.... I can't remember, it might ask you to press <ENTER> at this point, or it might not..... it will then say something like:

Which Windows Install would you like to log on to?

1. C:\WINDOWS

select 1 and a command prompt will come up.... type the following:

fixboot <ENTER> - confirm Y that you want to do this
fixmbr <ENTER> - same as above
exit <ENTER> - with any luck, the PC will reboot..... and go to Windows

Hope this helps.
 
coolie_d said:
and you do realize NTLDR is necessary to boot into safe mode, correct? This is a core system file much like the old msdos.sys from the MS-DOS era..... I believe it sort of kicks off the boot-up process...
Click to expand...

Uh, yes. It's needed to boot, period. Oneil didn't have the knowlegde to even try that at the beginning, so I asked him to try it to rule out some possibilities...Nuff said.

You only try "fixmbr" after what I had suggested. You really don't want to mess with the master boot record unless it's absolutely necessary.

Way to come in at the end of things....praise "coolie d" for saving us!

Like I said before, Oneil....try booting into recovery off of any XP cd (non recovery that is) and enter the command I previously posted........then post results only if you follow those directions.......and if you just pull your data and start fresh, then put and end to this BS please.


Oneil, whatever parts you want to be rid of, just ship them to me. PM for address..............
 
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