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Thread ID: 41757 2004-01-21 08:05:00 NTLDR is missing Mike (15) Press F1
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209006 2004-01-25 01:12:00 I would go for the boot.ini file. This file tells windows where to load the system files from. If it doesn't point to the right partition it won't find files such as NTLDR. Like tech_master says, if you copy files from a similar system (op sys and partition structure) it will often work. Alternatively, the boot.ini file can be edited if you find out what is supposed to go there.

I spose a good tip would be for us all to take a backup of the boot.ini file.

Good luck. 		linw (53)
209007 2004-01-25 05:21:00 > the system boot goes something like this........
>
> 1. power on
> 2. motherboard POST test
> 3. RAM count / check
> 4. Drive check
> 5. end of post testing
> 6. load MBR (master boot record) of boot drive.
> 7. run code found in MBR
>
>
> the MBR on the hard drive of the system you have is
> from an NT system of some sort (NT4 or 2k or XP)
>
> The MBR has about 512 bytes of code that tell the
> system to load the OS by getting the NTLDR file and
> running it.......
>
> on a dos or win9X system the MBR will tell the system
> to load "msdos"

But if I have a boot floppy, or even a non-boot floppy in the floppy drive, then steps 6 and 7 shouldn't run from the hard disk.

Mike. 		Mike (15)
209008 2004-01-25 05:22:00 > Please try the following fix
> Find another pc with XP Home or XP Pro
> Copy the system files from the root of C:\
> NTLDR
> NTDETECT.COM
> IO.SYS
> BOOT.INI
> and maybe MSDOS.SYS
> onto a floppy, then boot with xp cd and go into
> recovery consol
> copy the files from the floppy to the root of c:\
> reboot and it should boot up fine.

Have done so, several times, using the files from the XP install CD, my XP CD, and the files off my computer. Have tried just copying them over, and have also tried including running "fixboot" as suggested on another forum that someone here gave a link to. So far nothing has worked :)

Cheers,
Mike. 		Mike (15)
209009 2004-01-25 08:07:00 >How does the computer know what OS your computer uses BEFORE it has accessed the >boot drive? The way I understand it (prepares for egg on face) is that if I have a floppy in >the drive and said floppy drive is set to boot before the hard drive, then the hard drive boot >sector shouldn't have been accessed yet, so how would the computer know that I have an >NT based system rather than a typical DOS based one? And what if I dual boot anyway, >then which system (NT or DOS based) would the computer decide to use when reporting >while trying to boot from a non-bootable floppy disk?

I agree this sounds locical but at work we had Win2k (last year, XP this year) and every time a floppy is left in the drive this is the message we had???? 		JohnD (509)
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