*I got the email from someone whose computer could not burn the CD on their computer, but the floppy and usb solution wouldn't work for them, so my solution was to just find someone else's computer.
*I want to draw attention to this since this come up in technical support circles sometimes. If a certain "thing" works on someone else's computer, but not your computer, there are 3 basic possiblities:
1. Your software configuration is different: Backup, format, reinstall -or- backup, format, install like they have.
2. Your hardware configuration -or- hardware failure: Replace the hardware.
3. A special mix of how your hardware differs from their hardware, extending from network cards to where your computer is in relation to interference, to where you live in the country, to certain hardware not supporting certain specifications.
*The answer to #3? Voodoo. Or at least that's what it will seem like the first 100 things you try randomly that seem to have no effect, and then 101 magically fixes everything. If you run into this situation, your best bet is to try a 3rd party, see if it works for them, then try and eliminate as many variables as possible.
*Anyway, I'm digressing, I got this email on February 20th:
PLEASE help me…I’ve tried the downloads, I’ve looked inside to make sure everything is connected, I don’t have a disc to boot up with and I am utterly desperate…. I just need to get this thing up long enough to back up some files.
Basically – I think I was able burn the ISO image on to a disk but I’m not sure….are there any other options besides that image? I’m working from my work laptop and so therefore cannot download the ISO recorder. But everytime I load the cd into my laptop and look at the properties of the file it does list it as an MS ISO Image.
My computer is ancient so I think that it doesn’t recognize the USB when I put it in or I can’t figure out what the name of it is to change the booting up sequence.
Finally – If I have the Windows XP CD – its none of the ones I put into the CD-ROM because that did not have any effect.
Please…..I’m desperate….do you have any solutions that aren’t going to cost me $300????
*I responded with this later that day:
You best and cheapest bet is to find a computer that can burn the ISO
image onto the disc uncompressed. (IE: find a computer that you can
install iso recorder to). Its possible you can ask your company IT to
do it for you in exchange for a soda (at least that's what I do).
After burning the ISO image onto a cd, it should actually display as
several files, and the properties should not say ISO.
I sympathise with this being difficult, unfortunately it must be an
ISO so that it can make the CD bootable.
You don't have to respond: but what lead up to this?
*I got this reply later that day:
Thank you sooo much for getting back to me. I actually thought of seeing if the IT folks will help.
I didn't really do anything new. The last real update was when I had it updated to Windows XP but that was over 4 months ago so I don't know.
Thanks again....I'll let you know if it gets fixed.
Saturday, March 8, 2008
Sunday, February 24, 2008
Using USB device but still getting NTLDR is missing
*I've decided from now on that I'm going to have the emails I get be in "Emphasis" or "Italics" and my responses will be normal.
*I got this email 9 hours ago from a person that the USB boot device wasn't working for them:
Hi Miles,
I recently got directed to your site from LockerGnomes site in relation to NTLDR is Missing error that I get on boot up of my Acer Aspire laptop(thhis is due to me being an idiot and installing a registry cleaner and using it, altough I haven't deleted the files entirely, they are still in the recycle bin!)
I have tried using your advice to creat a copy from the link onto a usb disc(AS MY CD DRIVE IS NOT WORKING!), however I don't get to see a Windows 98 logo as suggested and it still reverts to the NTLDR is Missing message.
Do you have any other advice for me, it seems that my LAN connection is active when I plug it into my main computers wireless-g broadband router, if this may offer an option??
Many thanks
*I just sent this response:
Tell the gnome I said hi.
First check the section about "what if i don't see this screen": http://tinyempire.com/notes/ntldrismissing.htm#What_if_I_don't_see_this_screen?
While you are in the BIOS boot order menu, look for anything like "removable device" or "usb floppy" and put that before the hard drive in the boot order. If you don't see any reference to usb, it's possible your BIOS may not support usb booting. If we can't boot off usb, we'll either have to repair the cd-rom drive, or pull the hard drive out of the computer, and copy the files it needs to it, and put it back into the computer. (while it's out, do a backup).
It's also possible the USB boot device isn't working propertly. Try booting a different computer (for sake of simplicity, try to find a Windows XP computer with a single hard drive).
*I got this email 9 hours ago from a person that the USB boot device wasn't working for them:
Hi Miles,
I recently got directed to your site from LockerGnomes site in relation to NTLDR is Missing error that I get on boot up of my Acer Aspire laptop(thhis is due to me being an idiot and installing a registry cleaner and using it, altough I haven't deleted the files entirely, they are still in the recycle bin!)
I have tried using your advice to creat a copy from the link onto a usb disc(AS MY CD DRIVE IS NOT WORKING!), however I don't get to see a Windows 98 logo as suggested and it still reverts to the NTLDR is Missing message.
Do you have any other advice for me, it seems that my LAN connection is active when I plug it into my main computers wireless-g broadband router, if this may offer an option??
Many thanks
*I just sent this response:
Tell the gnome I said hi.
First check the section about "what if i don't see this screen": http://tinyempire.com/notes/ntldrismissing.htm#What_if_I_don't_see_this_screen?
While you are in the BIOS boot order menu, look for anything like "removable device" or "usb floppy" and put that before the hard drive in the boot order. If you don't see any reference to usb, it's possible your BIOS may not support usb booting. If we can't boot off usb, we'll either have to repair the cd-rom drive, or pull the hard drive out of the computer, and copy the files it needs to it, and put it back into the computer. (while it's out, do a backup).
It's also possible the USB boot device isn't working propertly. Try booting a different computer (for sake of simplicity, try to find a Windows XP computer with a single hard drive).
Saturday, February 23, 2008
No OS and getting error
*From a jaxtr text message:
hey yo, i just fiinshed trying your ntldr missing solutions, no luck. but the thing is that i dont have any os installed what im trying to do is install an os on my HD(2partisions)
*I responded 13 hours ago with:
Yeah I get people saying that occasionally. I almost think it's a
hardware failure of like the hard drive.
I'd suggest backing up the data, and using Windows XP's setup to
delete all the partitions and then recreate them from there.
*And then again just now with:
That or a misconfiguration in your BIOS. I wonder if you couldn't try
and double check the settings for what is boot priority and which hard
drives it's set to boot from.
hey yo, i just fiinshed trying your ntldr missing solutions, no luck. but the thing is that i dont have any os installed what im trying to do is install an os on my HD(2partisions)
*I responded 13 hours ago with:
Yeah I get people saying that occasionally. I almost think it's a
hardware failure of like the hard drive.
I'd suggest backing up the data, and using Windows XP's setup to
delete all the partitions and then recreate them from there.
*And then again just now with:
That or a misconfiguration in your BIOS. I wonder if you couldn't try
and double check the settings for what is boot priority and which hard
drives it's set to boot from.
Cannot get cd-rom/usb to boot, what next?
*Got an email 2 days ago, went back and forth with the person, but never able to get it booting, so I eventually had to recommend "major surgery", removing the drive to backup the data since we couldn't get into the computer, even with other boot discs:
Hello Miles,
I have found your information very useful if I can only get to that stage.
I'm hoping your expertise can help me if you would be so kind.
This is the senerio:
error message, "NTLDR is missing"
press Ctrl+Alt+Del to restart
go to set up utiliy, boot utility then:
(pick one)
hard drive
removable devices - this is the one I want!
cd-rom drive
realtek boot agent
I pick removable devices, cd-rom drive or realtek boot agent and the machine DEFAULTS to the hard drive each and everytime no matter what I do!
Note: yes I went to set-up scrolled down to removable devices, cd-rom drive, realtek boot agent then F10 to save and it defaults back to hard drive - it is NOT reading for the above locations
Now I have my sons laptop so I took his recovery disk and tried it again (I know it will not work as a recovery source) just to see if the recovery disk I have on order will work.....well guess what...it DEFAULTS back to hard drive - again, each and everytime no matter what I do.
How can this be overcome?
Thanks Miles,
*I then responded:
In your BIOS, I think you will want to have that "removable devices" appear above the hard disk. This is not always obvious how to do so you'll have to check around the screen that surrounds the hard drive/removable device/cd-rom.
Look for "Press U/D to move up/down" or "Press +/- to change the order" or something similar.
*They wrote back:
Hey Miles,
Thanks a million for getting back to me!
I did what you instructed and placed removable devices on TOP.
However, it make no difference in the boot.
Still boots hard drive but removable devices are highlighted.
What the heck could it be?
Thanks again,
*I responded:
I'd say try moving the cd-rom to top, and making that and booting.
http://ntldrismissing.com
*He responded:
Even with CD-ROM on top still booting from the hard drive.
It continues to default to hard drive no matter what I do.
Any other suggestions?
Thanks,
*I then had him chase down this rabbit hole of "was the disc made correctly" since that so often is the problem:
Well the next thing to look at usually is to make sure that the boot
"disk" is created successfully.
With the CD in the drive of a working computer, when you open it under
"My Computer" do you see files like 'ntldr', 'boot.ini',
'ntdetect.com'?
If you just see the one file named "fixntldr.iso" then we need to have
the CD remade.
The easiest way to remake that CD is to download the "ISO recorder"
program I mention. Once done you can just right click the ISO file
and choose an option like "Write contents to CD".
ISO Recorder:
http://isorecorder.alexfeinman.com/isorecorder.htm
My ntldr website:
http://tinyempire.com/notes/ntldrismissing.htm
*He responded:
Sorry to keep bothering you but both my (your diskette and CD-ROM) are correct.
Both are working but NOT booting. Neither is the Toshiba Recovery/Driver CD which should.
Not sure what the problem is.
*So I had to now recommend major surgery:
Is it possible to just "turn off" booting from the hard drive? And
thus "force" it to boot from the cd-rom/removalbe drive?
If you have a CD that's a "known good" bootable CD, and it's not booting either.
And if the BIOS is correctly set to boot from the CD first.
There must be something wrong with the CD-Rom drive. It's possible
it's just failed and not reading the CD's anymore.
Of course I guess we'd have to then say the same thing about the
removable drive. But it's not nearly as bulletproof as the floppy and
cd-rom are.
If we can't use something from outside the computer to boot it, and it
won't boot by itself, the next step will likely be to remove the hard
drive, and backup the data. You could then either just get a
replacement drive and keep the old one for backup/storage, or backup
the data, then reformat /reinstall.
Hello Miles,
I have found your information very useful if I can only get to that stage.
I'm hoping your expertise can help me if you would be so kind.
This is the senerio:
error message, "NTLDR is missing"
press Ctrl+Alt+Del to restart
go to set up utiliy, boot utility then:
(pick one)
hard drive
removable devices - this is the one I want!
cd-rom drive
realtek boot agent
I pick removable devices, cd-rom drive or realtek boot agent and the machine DEFAULTS to the hard drive each and everytime no matter what I do!
Note: yes I went to set-up scrolled down to removable devices, cd-rom drive, realtek boot agent then F10 to save and it defaults back to hard drive - it is NOT reading for the above locations
Now I have my sons laptop so I took his recovery disk and tried it again (I know it will not work as a recovery source) just to see if the recovery disk I have on order will work.....well guess what...it DEFAULTS back to hard drive - again, each and everytime no matter what I do.
How can this be overcome?
Thanks Miles,
*I then responded:
In your BIOS, I think you will want to have that "removable devices" appear above the hard disk. This is not always obvious how to do so you'll have to check around the screen that surrounds the hard drive/removable device/cd-rom.
Look for "Press U/D to move up/down" or "Press +/- to change the order" or something similar.
*They wrote back:
Hey Miles,
Thanks a million for getting back to me!
I did what you instructed and placed removable devices on TOP.
However, it make no difference in the boot.
Still boots hard drive but removable devices are highlighted.
What the heck could it be?
Thanks again,
*I responded:
I'd say try moving the cd-rom to top, and making that and booting.
http://ntldrismissing.com
*He responded:
Even with CD-ROM on top still booting from the hard drive.
It continues to default to hard drive no matter what I do.
Any other suggestions?
Thanks,
*I then had him chase down this rabbit hole of "was the disc made correctly" since that so often is the problem:
Well the next thing to look at usually is to make sure that the boot
"disk" is created successfully.
With the CD in the drive of a working computer, when you open it under
"My Computer" do you see files like 'ntldr', 'boot.ini',
'ntdetect.com'?
If you just see the one file named "fixntldr.iso" then we need to have
the CD remade.
The easiest way to remake that CD is to download the "ISO recorder"
program I mention. Once done you can just right click the ISO file
and choose an option like "Write contents to CD".
ISO Recorder:
http://isorecorder.alexfeinman.com/isorecorder.htm
My ntldr website:
http://tinyempire.com/notes/ntldrismissing.htm
*He responded:
Sorry to keep bothering you but both my (your diskette and CD-ROM) are correct.
Both are working but NOT booting. Neither is the Toshiba Recovery/Driver CD which should.
Not sure what the problem is.
*So I had to now recommend major surgery:
Is it possible to just "turn off" booting from the hard drive? And
thus "force" it to boot from the cd-rom/removalbe drive?
If you have a CD that's a "known good" bootable CD, and it's not booting either.
And if the BIOS is correctly set to boot from the CD first.
There must be something wrong with the CD-Rom drive. It's possible
it's just failed and not reading the CD's anymore.
Of course I guess we'd have to then say the same thing about the
removable drive. But it's not nearly as bulletproof as the floppy and
cd-rom are.
If we can't use something from outside the computer to boot it, and it
won't boot by itself, the next step will likely be to remove the hard
drive, and backup the data. You could then either just get a
replacement drive and keep the old one for backup/storage, or backup
the data, then reformat /reinstall.
Installing Windows and partition no longer marked as active
*Got an email from a guy who donated 2 days ago:
Thanks, man. You saved me a ton of f###ing around with Windows... Good,
direct solution to the problem, among all the other stuff I was doing to
get around this.
Seems like it worked in conjunction with other stuff I was trying
(Partition magic, etc etc)
*I replied with:
Thanks for the donation :)
Feel free to fill me in on the details of what else you were doing.
*They wrote back:
I believe now that the "active partition" flag wasn't getting set on my
partition - even though the tools seemed to insist it was.
I used Partition Magic to toggle it between partitions a couple of
times, and that seemed to get it working. I would never have thought of
it without your tool proving that the XP partition itself was fine,
though. What a relief, I really detest installing Windows.
Thanks, man. You saved me a ton of f###ing around with Windows... Good,
direct solution to the problem, among all the other stuff I was doing to
get around this.
Seems like it worked in conjunction with other stuff I was trying
(Partition magic, etc etc)
*I replied with:
Thanks for the donation :)
Feel free to fill me in on the details of what else you were doing.
*They wrote back:
I believe now that the "active partition" flag wasn't getting set on my
partition - even though the tools seemed to insist it was.
I used Partition Magic to toggle it between partitions a couple of
times, and that seemed to get it working. I would never have thought of
it without your tool proving that the XP partition itself was fine,
though. What a relief, I really detest installing Windows.
Problems burning the CD
*I sympathize with how hard this is to make the boot devices. I wish I knew of an easier way as well :( Unfortunately the way PC's are made, only certain things can make Windows XP bootable. That's why I give you an .exe file to make the floppy, and then point you to the ISO recorder to make the CD-ROM http://isorecorder.alexfeinman.com/isorecorder.htm and that the USB device forces you to boot to DOS, press a button, and then reboot the machine again.
*If any of you do know of an easier solution I'm all ears. But until then...
*I got this email as a form message sent from my website 4 days ago:
PLEASE HELP!!!!
My family computer runs on Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005, and I am getting a message reading "NTLDR is missing Press Ctrl+Alt+Delete to restart" when I try to boot my computer,
now my personal computer runs on windows vista I tryed basically all your burning methods and they did no work with the cd,
my dads computer runs the same operating system Windows XP Media Center edtition 2005, is there a possible way I could copy the files (if possible what files) from his computer onto a disc and then put it in my computer and be sure it works,
please help me!! My family is in debt and we can't afford the Warranty for Compaq to get 14 days for 50 dollars!!!
*I responded today with this:
The program ISO recorder should just allow you to just right click the iso file to burn it to a disc:
http://isorecorder.alexfeinman.com/isorecorder.htm
Specifically if you are using Windows Vista, you want to use this version:
http://isorecorder.alexfeinman.com/Vista.htm
And probably the 32 bit version.
What you are asking about copying the files from the other Windows XP Media PC are correct, and that's exactly what I've done with the cd-rom solution I have on my website.
You could try having someone else on someone elses computer burn the cd for you, or maybe make the floppy.
Once you get into the 10 choices, run through those, and as long as nothing else is wrong with your computer, you should be able to boot back up.
*If any of you do know of an easier solution I'm all ears. But until then...
*I got this email as a form message sent from my website 4 days ago:
PLEASE HELP!!!!
My family computer runs on Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005, and I am getting a message reading "NTLDR is missing Press Ctrl+Alt+Delete to restart" when I try to boot my computer,
now my personal computer runs on windows vista I tryed basically all your burning methods and they did no work with the cd,
my dads computer runs the same operating system Windows XP Media Center edtition 2005, is there a possible way I could copy the files (if possible what files) from his computer onto a disc and then put it in my computer and be sure it works,
please help me!! My family is in debt and we can't afford the Warranty for Compaq to get 14 days for 50 dollars!!!
*I responded today with this:
The program ISO recorder should just allow you to just right click the iso file to burn it to a disc:
http://isorecorder.alexfeinman.com/isorecorder.htm
Specifically if you are using Windows Vista, you want to use this version:
http://isorecorder.alexfeinman.com/Vista.htm
And probably the 32 bit version.
What you are asking about copying the files from the other Windows XP Media PC are correct, and that's exactly what I've done with the cd-rom solution I have on my website.
You could try having someone else on someone elses computer burn the cd for you, or maybe make the floppy.
Once you get into the 10 choices, run through those, and as long as nothing else is wrong with your computer, you should be able to boot back up.
Got back in, ran bat file, but now in reboot cycle
*Sometimes I wonder if someone else has a ntldr is missing webpage out there and they have a different set of instructions but my email address.
*I got this email 6 days ago:
Hi Miles,
I did the floppy fixntldr you presented and it worked great! I had the NTLDR MISSING message.
However, when I went to double click on the fix item (#1 did it for me) the entire disk loaded into the start up sequence without offering a yes or no option. Now it is there as a permanent installation of the entire menu. This is fine except than now there is another startup problem due to a supposid "improper shutdown" Now, when the fix step is initiated it asks if I want to startup notmally, etc.
No matter which selection I make, the pcreboots and cycles back to the beginning - just a complete, unending cycle.
How can I remove the menu from the hard drive without booting? I tried a xp repair by booting with the xp installation cd but it still won't get past the cycle.
Any suggestions? If you can help I will certainly donate to the cause.
Thanks in advance,
*I apparently missed this one and didn't respond until today:
My apologies for such a delayed response. I'm a little uncertain if we are on the "same page". Did you follow the directions off http://ntldrismissing.com/ that forwards to http://tinyempire.com/notes/ntldrismissing.htm
? I'm asking because I'm not sure of the context of "double click on the first item the entire disk loaded into the start up sequence without offering a yes or no option".
At any rate. If your computer is stuck in a reboot loop. Try pressing F8 as it is starting up, going into safe mode, and see if there's anything you can do there.
IE: Kill startup programs; uninstall new hardware drivers, set video settings to the lowest level, backup your data (most important), run chkdsk, etc.
If this doesn't get you back in, try options 2, 3, etc.
If you still can't get back into Windows, remove the drive, put it into an external storage enclosure, backup the data, reformat and reinstall.
*I got this email 6 days ago:
Hi Miles,
I did the floppy fixntldr you presented and it worked great! I had the NTLDR MISSING message.
However, when I went to double click on the fix item (#1 did it for me) the entire disk loaded into the start up sequence without offering a yes or no option. Now it is there as a permanent installation of the entire menu. This is fine except than now there is another startup problem due to a supposid "improper shutdown" Now, when the fix step is initiated it asks if I want to startup notmally, etc.
No matter which selection I make, the pcreboots and cycles back to the beginning - just a complete, unending cycle.
How can I remove the menu from the hard drive without booting? I tried a xp repair by booting with the xp installation cd but it still won't get past the cycle.
Any suggestions? If you can help I will certainly donate to the cause.
Thanks in advance,
*I apparently missed this one and didn't respond until today:
My apologies for such a delayed response. I'm a little uncertain if we are on the "same page". Did you follow the directions off http://ntldrismissing.com/ that forwards to http://tinyempire.com/notes/ntldrismissing.htm
? I'm asking because I'm not sure of the context of "double click on the first item the entire disk loaded into the start up sequence without offering a yes or no option".
At any rate. If your computer is stuck in a reboot loop. Try pressing F8 as it is starting up, going into safe mode, and see if there's anything you can do there.
IE: Kill startup programs; uninstall new hardware drivers, set video settings to the lowest level, backup your data (most important), run chkdsk, etc.
If this doesn't get you back in, try options 2, 3, etc.
If you still can't get back into Windows, remove the drive, put it into an external storage enclosure, backup the data, reformat and reinstall.
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