tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-81943727316880577902024-03-05T04:32:31.622-08:00Ntldr is missing - Q and Amhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12341227878069246280noreply@blogger.comBlogger37125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8194372731688057790.post-16021175559071358062016-09-01T22:28:00.000-07:002016-09-01T22:28:30.380-07:00How did I get into "tech"?I came across an unsent draft, from December 22nd 2013, and decided instead of discarding it, I would go ahead and post it to my blog so it could come up in a search result sometime later.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: small;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">My younger brother Max and I were having a conversation about how we grew up on a farm, and how he "always knew" that he wanted to work outside, and how I "always knew" that I wanted to work inside; both from our experiences of working on the farm.</span><br style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: small;" /><br style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: small;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Since we didn't really grow up "with computers", Max asked me "How did I get into computers"? And I believe this is what happened.</span><br style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: small;" /><br style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: small;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">So in this town of 800 people in the Texas panhandle, even with access to a car; it was put into my mind that because of the costs of gas, but more importantly, the time it would take to travel; you did not just leave and go somewhere else. If you wanted to visit someone, you could if they were in town; if they weren't, you would have to wait until the weekend, or if they lived really far away, once a year like to see relatives for Thanksgiving or Christmas.</span><br style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: small;" /><br style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: small;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">So when I'm about 14 or so, one of my really good friends moves away; probably less than a 2 hour drive away, and I told him "Well it was good knowing you". I had no allusions to the fact that we would never talk to each other again. And I knew that because I knew I was terrible at writing letters to other friends that had moved away.</span><br style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: small;" /><br style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: small;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">And this was also back when long distance phone calls weren't free, so at 14 how do you justify spending $5 on a conversation with another 14 year old? It would have been impossible. Let's say I spent my entire allowance on that, it would have meant very few calls to very few people, and then nothing to spend on anything else.</span><br style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: small;" /><br style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: small;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Why did letter writing fail for me? I think because it took so long and took so much effort to get those few paragraphs of information to that other person, and took so long to get a reply, as to forget what questions you even asked in the first place.</span><br style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: small;" /><br style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: small;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">It seemed so wasteful. And I've always hated waste</span><br style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: small;" /><br style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: small;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">So when I first heard of email, it became a passion of mine to contact people that weren't local to me anymore, I was so attracted to the efficiency of it.</span><br style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: small;" /><br style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: small;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">So attracted to those few paragraphs.</span><br style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: small;" /><br style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: small;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">So now that I'm even more of a "techie" or "interested in technology", I feel like I should be finding "those few paragraphs" and finding ways for technology to get them to each other; without having to go through so much waste, so much trouble.</span><br style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: small;" /><br style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: small;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Waste: Shipping, travel</span><br style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: small;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Those few paragraph examples: Text, Pictures, Video, Music, Conversations</span>mhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12341227878069246280noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8194372731688057790.post-41120613627378028962016-01-24T08:44:00.002-08:002016-01-30T09:17:32.070-08:00The sale of ntldrismissing.com - it's over?A brief recap of events for <a href="http://ntldrismissing.com/">ntldrismissing.com</a> :<br />
<br />
<br />
<ol>
<li>My brother needed help and I couldn't email him</li>
<li>I create the page on TinyEmpire in 2002</li>
<li>People start emailing me asking for more details</li>
<li>I change the website for a broad audience instead of just for my brother, put up a donate button and google ads.</li>
<li>Donations and advertising flow in, also a lot of phone calls asking for more help, every time I get a call I change the page to be more explicit in how to make the solution. Develop CD fix, at some point develop a USB fix but that might have come later, it's hard to say.</li>
<li>Four years later, I notice the traffic (and money) suddenly stops</li>
<li>I google "ntldr is missing" and find out I've gone from page 1 to page 11</li>
<li>I try to find out why, and find others with similar stories, google has changed some algorithms</li>
<li>I register ntldrismissing.com for 10 years, to expire in 2018, and go to the pages that are now on page 1 of google and mention my site and point them to my tinyempire page.</li>
<li>It helps, people also comment on "this Windows error has it's own domain".</li>
<li>In 2007, maybe, I had my best year, earning $800. I remember we had already filed our taxes so I had to file an amended return.</li>
<li>I turn down the google ads, figuring if I keep it under $500 I won't need to worry about the paperwork of taxes.</li>
<li>At some point, the webpage editor I use to update the site (cPanel), I discover is stripping out the code that makes the google ads work, so it's possible I ran the site for years with no ads, I just assumed it was because I turned down the ads, or more adblockers, or less WindowsXP installs.</li>
<li>I sell advertising on the site monthly, and some advertisers who like the high page rank buy ads, at first it was more money than Google Ads, then it goes to half of what it was, then it goes to half of that, then the advertisers interested in page rank don't want it at all.</li>
<li>I sell advertising for a "pay" version of my same fix (that also does more stuff), to me this is fine, if you read my instructions and you could not find out how to make the drive (to be fair, it should be a lot simpler, but I've never been able to figure out how to make it like the pay guys do), so an ad for <a href="http://www.lazesoft.com/lazesoft-recovery-suite-professional.html">Lazesoft Recovery Suite Professional</a> shows up after the instructions.</li>
<li>A few months later, I ask if they would like to renew their advertising, and they tell me they aren't interested since it didn't drive enough traffic, but would I be interested in selling the domain?</li>
<li>So I make an offer for tinyempire.com and ntldrismissing.com and they make a counter offer of $500 for ntldrismissing.com, and I accept.</li>
<li>After the first $250 goes through, I ask my wife what to do with the money, and we are going to buy a vacuum cleaner.</li>
</ol>
<br />
<br />
So thank you internet for buying me a vacuum cleaner.<br />
<br />
Does this mean it's all over? Maybe. If I google ntldr is missing right now, the third return is pointing at ntldrismissing.com and not to tinyempire.com, so it's possible these pages will just disappear far down the rabbit hole of google search results (have you ever gone past page 3 of google search results?). I was already earning less than $100 a year in advertising over the last two years, so it's possible I won't even reach the next $100 dollars to get paid out, what with adblockers being so much more active now.<br />
<br />
I see no reason to take down my fix at <a href="http://milescomer.com/tinyempire.com/notes/ntldrismissing.htm">http://milescomer.com/tinyempire.com/notes/ntldrismissing.htm</a> and until someone offers me $5000 for TinyEmpire, it's going to stay there. And even then I'll probably move it over to MilesComer.com instead of just deleting it. Internet storage is cheap, and my hosting is paid up for the next 2 years.mhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12341227878069246280noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8194372731688057790.post-84710016117258868172016-01-17T21:49:00.001-08:002016-01-17T21:49:19.420-08:00USB drive - standard sector sizeI've been spending some time trying to find why "NTLDR is missing" sometimes happens on Windows Vista/7/8/10, and I was reading <a href="http://windowsitpro.com/systems-management/fix-unbootable-systems-bootsect">an article about unbootable Windows 7 systems</a>, and it mentioned that the BIOS loads the MBR into RAM, then executes the MBR code, the MBR code then loads the first sector of the active partition (called the WBR) into RAM, then executes the WBR code. This code is NTLDR for NT/2000/XP and bootmgr for Vista/7/8/10.<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
So I figured I would make a <a href="http://tinyempire.com/notes/generic_windows_pe_disc_for_vista-7-8.html">Windows PE disc</a> and play around inside my Windows 10 laptop, and while trying to use a 2 gig flash drive with <a href="https://rufus.akeo.ie/">Rufus</a>, I got this error:</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Nonstandard sector size detected</div>
<div>
/!\ IMPORTANT: THIS DRIVE USES A NONSTANDARD SECTOR SIZE!</div>
<div>
Conventional drives use a 512-byte sector size but this drive uses a 2048-byte one. In many cases, this means you will NOT be able to boot from this drive.</div>
<div>
Rufus can try to create a bootable drive, but there is NO WARRANTY that it will work.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
This might be especially important to me, because I always wondered why some USB drives would work for my NTLDR boot disk, and why some wouldn't. Perhaps this sector size issue is related.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
I'll try to test more, and perhaps if Rufus is a better way to make the USB stick, use it instead.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Until then, if you have been having a problem with making the bootable drive, and you are using a 2gig or smaller USB, try larger than 2gigs, or the opposite; if larger wasn't working, try smaller.</div>
mhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12341227878069246280noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8194372731688057790.post-58880829279194812502016-01-05T20:44:00.001-08:002016-01-05T20:44:37.182-08:00Preaching to the choir - online backup and offsite backupI was "vanity searching" for ntldr to see how I was doing in the rankings, and came across a post about the bad software that will encrypt all of your data until you pay them in BitCoin or MoneyPack.<br />
<br />
I hope that you, dear reader, have already signed up for an online backup service like DropBox or SpiderOak or OneDrive or GoogleDrive or iCloud or something, so that even if the house burns down, the data on your PC isn't lost forever.<br />
<br />
However I'm writing to encourage you to go one step further. Purchase an external hard drive, or even an external flash drive; every couple of years, and backup your data onto it, and preferably, leave it with a friend or relative. Bonus points if you create encrypted volumes.<br />
<br />
I understand that this system isn't perfect, but it's close, and it's cheap, and I hope if you just got done reviving your PC, you'll at least try it.<br />
<br />
Also for 2016, new website design. Yay colors!mhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12341227878069246280noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8194372731688057790.post-76044812419740106432015-10-25T15:34:00.003-07:002015-10-25T15:34:30.514-07:00How not to ask for helpI'll get the occasional email asking for help, sometimes asking to call, I've probably done it a dozen times, and once even paid international long distance rates to help out a stranger, for free.<br />
<br />
This email exchange happened the other day, and in case you weren't sure, this isn't how to ask for help, I've hidden the persons name and phone number, because I'm sure they were having a bad day, and we all need more forgiveness.<br />
<br />
I also had to censure some of the email since I don't want this blog to be considered "explicit".<br />
<br />
To: mc (that's me)<br />
From: (withheld, let's call them "<i>jb</i>")<br />
Subject: Ntldr missing....PLEASE help sir<br />
Tue, Oct 6, 2015 at 10:28 PM<br />
<i>jb: I'm just a step away from getting thin right</i><br />
<br />
10:38 PM mc: ? Where are you in the process? Have you already made the boot disk downloaded from ntldrismissing.com ? Try the YouTube videos on the page to see if they help.<br />
<br />
<i>10:54 PM jb: I'm stuck..... And I am utterly lost.... (505) 306#### J## B#########. Need help lol</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>10:54 PM jb: I have indeed made the boot disc but getting problems</i><br />
<br />
10:55 PM mc: Don't see the list of 10 options?<br />
<br />
<i>10:56 PM jb: No sir</i><br />
<br />
10:56 PM mc: USB?<br />
<br />
<i>10:57 PM jb: Yes....complete mayhem</i><br />
<br />
10:58 PM mc: My recommendation on USB is try a different USB stick, not sure why but even I have not gotten it to work on some models, but then works fine on others<br />
<br />
10:59 PM mc: And if you have watched YouTube video , do; I think it describes it better than the screenshots<br />
<br />
10:59 PM mc: I meant to say "haven't"<br />
<br />
<i>10:59 PM jb: If we could talk I could explain</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>10:59 PM jb: I don't have another USB stick</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>11:00 PM jb: (505)306####</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>11:01 PM jb: XP Dell Dimension A02BIOS</i><br />
<br />
11:01 PM mc: It's 11 o'clock at night here, the rest of the house is asleep. The good news is your data is likely still there, you can get to it by using a live Linux CD or attaching the hard drive to another computer. I will probably still be up for awhile but otherwise this is going to be a tomorrow thing<br />
<br />
<i>11:10 PM jb: Ok. Thank you. Just not sure what to do... this is my daughter's computer and she's in the fifth grade and for whatever reason this machine got screwed with and her homework assignment is locked inside the machine a friend of mine sent me a link to make the memory stick boot and it didn't work I got stuck so I thought I'd email you because your information was in there not trying to keep you awake I'm here in New Mexico an hour ahead of you so it's 12:09 a.m. right here but if you feel like getting hold of me tomorrow I would really greatly appreciate it</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>11:11 PM jb: Is there a sea lion to Mandeville make this work right now possibly</i><br />
<br />
11:12 PM mc: What was that last part?<br />
<br />
<i>11:12 PM jb: C: line command</i><br />
<br />
11:13 PM mc: Oh lol What is it doing right now if you boot up without the USB? Ntldr is missing ?<br />
<br />
11:14 PM mc: And I assume you have access to another PC to make changes to the USB?<br />
<br />
<i>11:14 PM jb: Yes</i><br />
<br />
11:15 PM mc: Oh hey, Hirens boot CD includes my ntldr fix, and they might have an easier way to make it than I do<br />
<br />
11:15 PM mc: I'm going to Google Hirens right quick (although I'm always a little hesitant of download sites)<br />
<br />
<i>11:16 PM jb: Yes</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>11:17 PM jb: I am poor and only have this machine.....geez man</i><br />
<br />
11:19 PM mc: Oh... Wait let me back up a second. Do you only have one machine at the place, and it's broken?<br />
<br />
11:23 PM mc: If you get to the point of using Hirens, this looks like a legit download: http://www.hirensbootcd.org/download/ And I believe this is the info on putting that ISO onto a USB: http://www.hiren.info/pages/bootcdonusbdisk Why use Hirens? If following my instructions can't get the USB to get you to the 10 choices<br />
<br />
<i>11:23 PM jb: Yes. Xp on a Dell Dimension 3000....only computer in the house besides a droid</i><br />
<br />
11:25 PM mc: Okay, I had started with the assumption that you had already tried to make the bootdisk but were having trouble. If you can't make the boot disk, the troubleshooting steps you could do otherwise is unplug everything USB and try booting PC<br />
<br />
<i>11:25 PM jb: You s##k</i><br />
<br />
11:25 PM mc: Even try unplugging the USB keyboard<br />
<br />
<i>11:26 PM jb: No help at ALL</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>11:27 PM jb: All you have to f****** do is call me. And you'll understand what I'm going through Jesus Christ man</i><br />
<br />
11:27 PM mc: It's possible this error can come up if a USB drive is plugged into the PC that isn't set to boot, and the PC is rebooted; that's why I'm telling you to unplug everything USB and try rebooting<br />
<br />
<i>11:29 PM jb: Already f****** did that did and its not working if you were to call me it would take like two minutes to figure it out cuz I could explain it to you why would you even put your name and email address out there if you don't really want to help it is beyond me dude this could be taken care of like 20 minutes ago</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>11:30 PM jb: It's not like I would call you again once the problem is fixed is this machine is never hooked up to the internet or anything this thing would go for another 40 f****** years without a problem</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>11:31 PM jb: I've unplugged everything dude seriously</i><br />
<br />
11:32 PM mc: There's nothing else you can do tonight then. Not without another computer<br />
<br />
11:33 PM mc: You can probably search Craigslist for a local person who fixes PC's for cheap, or if you can go to another place and make the USB stick there and bring it back<br />
<br />
<i>11:34 PM jb: I have a laptop</i><br />
<br />
11:34 PM mc: I would recommend stopping right now, getting some sleep, and take the machine somewhere in the morning where you can get help for it.<br />
<br />
11:39 PM mc: If you have access to another machine and want to keep working on this, try the Hirens links I sent you earlier. But I recommend you stop, and look at it tomorrow. Good luck! No need to contact me further, you have the information and someone who can see the machine would be a better option for fixing it than me.<br />
<br />
<i>11:41 PM jb: How about you go F##K yourself</i><br />
<br />
I was never sure if he did or didn't have access to a second PC.mhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12341227878069246280noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8194372731688057790.post-89853092576853277732015-04-19T22:04:00.002-07:002015-04-19T22:04:26.975-07:00Tire Pressure Sensor Fault - If it goes away - electronic interference<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
Tire Pressure Senor Fault</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTQXm2CgqxHhV8yia_4Ycoq4PwxybcEhyD5jYgCxMi2BRlaCIbKkORZjF2XgEHGMnMBqgXKMmNDVlJDbD3JBCPFGWevNPtMFt9GLj2ETIwGeTxxFscd4HVs31oAqp4I7melcoes_LnZIOe/s1600/tire-pressure-sensor-fault.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTQXm2CgqxHhV8yia_4Ycoq4PwxybcEhyD5jYgCxMi2BRlaCIbKkORZjF2XgEHGMnMBqgXKMmNDVlJDbD3JBCPFGWevNPtMFt9GLj2ETIwGeTxxFscd4HVs31oAqp4I7melcoes_LnZIOe/s1600/tire-pressure-sensor-fault.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
I got this error on my vehicle, and then it went away. I took it into the dealership and they tell me all tire pressure sensor's "trained" correctly and nothing was wrong.<br />
<br />
Why did I get the error? The dealership tells me that the pressure sensor inside the tire uses wireless communication to let the car know about the tire pressure, and if something happens to block or interfere with the signal, this is the error message the car will give you.<br />
<br />
At the time, I was streaming music from SomaFM on my iPhone via Bluetooth to the Ford Sync speakers, using my passengers iPhone to do Google Maps turn by turn direction, while at the same time my passenger was using an iPad to do research on the next location on the internet.<br />
<br />
So if it happens and goes away, ignore it.mhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12341227878069246280noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8194372731688057790.post-33410478570509803132015-03-28T13:56:00.003-07:002015-03-28T13:56:29.118-07:00Winbook backupI should flesh this out more later, but for now:<br />
<br />
http://www.mctsol.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=55&t=1058&p=3645#p3645mhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12341227878069246280noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8194372731688057790.post-41031810281052553622015-03-23T23:32:00.000-07:002015-03-23T23:32:16.643-07:00Winbook - Tiny and funI got that Winbook TW700 as mentioned in the previous blog post; I also asked the "pay per post" service how they wanted me to post so that I would get paid, and never heard back from them.<br />
<br />
My favorite thing about this tiny tablet, is it fits in my back pocket. I carried around an iPad for a few days to test it, and it was always a problem of where I was going to set it down when I needed to do something with my hands.<br />
<br />
My biggest complaint, is the size of the hard drive. The specs list it as a 16 gig drive, and I figured that would work just fine; but once you login to the Windows 8.1 stock install, you see a drive of 8.77 gigs, with something like 3 gigs free. The "Recovery Partition" is 5.57 gigs of the drive.<br />
<br />
Now there is a micro SD card slot, and the Quick Start guide says the biggest card it can read is 64 gigs, so I got a "fast" (as opposed to "cheap") 64 gig micro SD, and the first thing I did was try and put the "Users" folder onto the it. (The micro SD card is called the "D" drive). I then ran into a problem with the "Windows Store" app not opening, as well as some of the other "tiles" programs. I eventually find out that the micro SD card is on a format called exFAT, which doesn't like some file that shows up in the Users profile that relates to the new kinds of Windows apps. <a href="http://www.mctsol.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=1225&p=3531#p3531">I wrote out on their forums the problem</a>, I don't expect them to come up with an answer, but I expect to find a way to "mklink /d" some of the bigger directories so my data files don't fill up this tiny hard drive.<br />
<br />
I did have a success story that I also shared on their forums. You can install programs into C, then do the "mklink /d c:\name d:\name" and program still work. <a href="http://www.mctsol.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=1236">So far I've done this with Hearthstone, Chrome, Teamviewer, and Microsoft Office</a>.<br />
<br />
Another thing that's tiny are the system menu's and icons that look oversized on a PC, are tiny on the Winbook; I've had more than a few problems with clicking the right thing. So far I think I have this licked by putting "Magnifier" on the Start Menu, and using it if I am having problems with hitting the right option with my fat fingers; and also by using "Teamviewer" to remote into the tablet, then use a keyboard/mouse to get done all the configuring.<br />
<br />
So the tablet was $80 on Amazon, got the 64gig card for $30, then I'm using this great tablet stand, then a USB hub that has a keyboard/mouse/external hard drive plugged into it when I want to use those directly (like if I want to fiddle with the BIOS), and use my regular PC to remote into it if I want to do some file cut/paste mklink /d work since that's fairly time consuming to do via the on-screen keyboard.<br />
<br />
Okay, now what do I use this tablet for?mhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12341227878069246280noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8194372731688057790.post-25191493540401616392015-03-12T17:20:00.002-07:002015-03-12T17:20:47.545-07:00I'll be right backWhen people suddenly get the "NTLDR is missing" error on their computer it's not on a system they bought yesterday, it's a system they've owned for years and they don't want to be buying a new system, they need something from that old system, usually locked away in a program, or it's the program itself.<br />
<br />
I'm going to try and spend some time either coming up with a "convert your old system into a virtual machine" or "copy your old system onto a new hard drive", I've seen these tablets made by a company called "Winbook" running Windows 7 selling for less than $100, with hardware comparable to older systems. I'm thinking this could make for a fun project, and a reason to post here more often. Also, I was contacted about having some "Sponsored Posts", and I figure that I had better post something else here or it'll all be sponsored posts. See also "<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Native_advertising">Native Advertising</a>"<br />
<br />
The title of the post is a reference to the line from the movie "Scream" where one of the characters says "Don't ever say 'I'll be right back', that's the kiss of death in a horror film"; I recall hearing John C. Dvorak mention on a show that if you ever see a blog that's been abandoned, the last blog post will always be "I've been neglecting this blog, but I'm going to post a lot more"; which reminds me of every diary or journal I've ever tried to keep.mhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12341227878069246280noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8194372731688057790.post-79792425950313045622014-01-15T08:07:00.001-08:002014-01-15T08:07:14.536-08:00Recent spike in web traffic at start of 2014I've gotten more web traffic the last few weeks than I'm used to seeing. Was
there a recent software patch or something that's causing issues? Please email me (or comment below) and let me know so I can better tailor the page to this
new info: milescomer@gmail.commhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12341227878069246280noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8194372731688057790.post-68140218561048400492013-05-16T23:01:00.003-07:002013-05-17T23:17:54.832-07:00Cloned Hard Drive AHCI booting with cd - awesome accidental fix<br />
<div style="font-family: arial; font-size: small;">
Vinny Eggers emailed to let me know of an unexpected fix.<br />
<br />
He had cloned a hard drive, and when he went to use it in another computer, all he got was a blinking cursor.<br />
<br />
Both computers had their hard drive type set to "IDE" but were modern computers that also offered "AHCI". Just to try something different to see if he could get it working, Vinny switched the new computer to AHCI and got the BSOD 0x07B screen you would expect to see for a "Windows installed as IDE, and now BIOS attempting to boot as AHCI".<br />
<br />
However, this let him know that the hard drive was working, and had a Windows installation going because after the BSOD it would reboot and get to the "Boot in Safe Mode?" prompt.<br />
<br />
So Vinny goes back into the BIOS, sets the data type back to IDE, and uses the ntldr is missing bootable cd as the boot device, which bypassed whatever was going on that was just causing the flashing cursor. So Windows loads just fine.<br />
<br />
Now the fix, which worked here; was to go ahead and load the AHCI drivers into the Windows installation, then set the data type to AHCI, and it booted and worked just fine on it's own. AHCI is supported by Windows XP from Service Pack 2 forward, so you'll need that to if you don't already have it.<br />
<br />
I'll include some of his email so you can get how he got the AHCI drivers into Windows.<br />
<br />
"""<br />
<br />
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">
- Boot the PC with the NTLDRfix CD</div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">
- When in Windows, remove the CD and download the appropriate AHCI driver for your machine (manufacturers usually list it as a pre-install SATA driver, or AHCI F6 driver)</div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">
- Go into the Device Manager and look for IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers</div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">
- Expand the list and right-click on the storage controller (commonly ICH9 etc) and click update driver</div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">
- Choose the option at the bottom of the list and click next, keep doing this until you're met with a list of drivers</div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">
(select the manufacturer and model of your hardware device.....)</div>
<div class="gmail_extra" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">
- Click Have Disk and proceed to install the driver from the location you downloaded/extracted the driver to</div>
<div class="gmail_extra" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">
- Acknowledge any warnings and restart the machine once you're done (you may have more than one SATA controller to update)</div>
<div class="gmail_extra" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">
- Go back into the BIOS before the computer boots and switch to AHCI</div>
<div class="gmail_extra" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">
<br /></div>
<div class="gmail_extra" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">
All going well, your PC should be booting all by itself and with native disk drivers!</div>
<div class="gmail_extra" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">
"""</div>
<div class="gmail_extra" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">
<br /></div>
<div class="gmail_extra" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">
Thanks Vinny!</div>
<br />
</div>
mhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12341227878069246280noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8194372731688057790.post-65146965570869587602013-05-08T08:39:00.000-07:002013-05-16T22:59:58.500-07:00Selling TinyEmpire.com - info on making boot disk will still exist<br />
I got an email thanking me for the help and saying they were sad to see I'm selling TinyEmpire.com; but I reassured them that while tinyempire.com may go away, the information about making the boot disk to work around the problem will not, it will likely just be located on another website. A few years back I purchased ntldrismissing.com and requested people link to that instead of tinyempire, and right now I'm pointing it to the specific tinyempire page, but I can point it to whatever other site, probably milescomer.com slash missing.htm if I had to guess.<br />
<br />
Whoever runs that ComputerHope website that has the top ranking on google for "ntldr is missing"; I should really reach out and ask them to either link to my new site: ntldrismissing.com , or have them copy the boot disk info in it's entirety, and have them upload the files needed to make it as well. It's not like I own any of the files anyhow, they are all Microsoft system files.<br />
<br />
While I'm at it, I'll answer the question "why don't you sue other people who take the files, put it into a boot disk, and sell it"; because they aren't my files. ntldr, ntdetect.com, and a very basic boot.ini is in your Windows XP install right now; if you delete it, you can get copies from the Microsoft installation disk. All I'm doing is making it super easy, giving directions, providing answers if questioned, and adding a bunch of extra choices to the boot.ini file.<br />
<br />
And I have to give it away for free; if nothing else because of all the free help I've gotten from all the other webpages out there that give away answers for free :-)mhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12341227878069246280noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8194372731688057790.post-10378486786856989282013-05-08T08:15:00.000-07:002013-05-08T08:15:48.572-07:00Just xyz before you make the boot diskI get this email from time to time, someone makes the boot disk and they get back into Windows, they do some digging and find out what the problem was, then fix it; and then email me to let me know how simple of a fix their problem was; and maybe I should just edit my page to list that fix at the top, so other people with a similar problem don't have to go through all the steps of making the boot disk.
However, everyones "xyz" is different, if 99% of the time the problem was a loose IDE cable, that's the only thing I'd ever mention, but it's more likely that's the error .1% of the time.
When I next sit down to revamp the site, I do want to put in a "I'm reading this from my cell phone and I can't get to another computer to make a boot disk, what are all the things I can try until then" section.mhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12341227878069246280noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8194372731688057790.post-17603290124490218482012-06-24T13:15:00.000-07:002012-06-24T13:15:20.559-07:00Diskpart in Windows XP does not show usb driveIn "diskpart" on Windows XP, when you do a "list disk" command it won't show your USB drives.
However: It will in Windows Vista or Windows 7.
Fun fact: I tried copying diskpart.exe from a Windows7 installation into a Windows XP installation and running it, and got the error message that the file wasn't a valid Win32 application. So don't bother trying that :-)mhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12341227878069246280noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8194372731688057790.post-31903692319251988152012-06-17T22:50:00.004-07:002012-06-17T22:50:56.162-07:00Fixing a virtual machine with ntldr is missing error messageContributed by Nicholas J. Fiorello Jr.
1. Created a snapshot. Might seem kind of silly to snapshot a broken VM, but it prevents anything from making it worse.
2. Configured VM to boot from CD (fixntldr.iso)
3. Booted CD. First choice worked.
4. Discovered that NTLDR, BOOT.INI, and NTDETECT were all missing
5. Changed Administrator Password
6. Shutdown
7. Configured VM to boot from CD (XP iso with SP3)
8. Booted into recovery console.
9. Ran FIXMBR.
10. Ran CHKDSK.
11. Copied NTLDR and NTDETECT from CD
12. Rebooted
13. Created new BOOT.INI
14. Rebooted
15. Removed snapshotmhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12341227878069246280noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8194372731688057790.post-90385017960774544412012-06-17T22:49:00.002-07:002012-06-17T22:49:10.267-07:00Finding the files on the CD and different startup optionsMy son called me with the news that the computer would do nothing but display an "NTLDR is missing" message. I tried to give him instructions over the phone, like Robert Stack in "Airplane." Got home, realized the problem is serious. Luckily, I found your site on my Blackberry, followed the instructions and...civilization has returned! Thanks you so much. Couple of suggestions: for Dummies (like yours truly) you could explain how to find the appropriate files for copying from the cd drive to the c drive (I just used the search function, but I was thrown at first when I didn't see the files on the menu). Also, the last instruction, the final instruction, the driving of the golden spike instruction, was different on my machine. I had to go system-advanced-start up and recovery. Just a different set of menus, but again, I was worried that I'd get oh-so-close to the goal and fall short. Anyway, the story ends happily thanks to you, and I'm very grateful!mhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12341227878069246280noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8194372731688057790.post-62966211833261394842012-06-17T20:33:00.000-07:002012-06-17T20:33:22.081-07:00Fix for Cloning a Win2K partition to a hard drive with a different geometry and getting ntldr is missingContributed by Rob Garrett (Rob would like you to consider it speculation until it's had a chance to be test by someone else, and I (Miles) would like you to attempt to backup your data before trying anything if it's super important)
Hello Miles!
I solved my "NTLDR is missing" problem, and my Windows boots now!
Also I solved this problem using a method not explicitly mentioned on your pages:
http://tinyempire.com/notes/ntldrismissing.htm
http://www.tinyempire.com/shortnotes/files/ntldr_missing.htm
Stop me if you've heard this one.
My particular "NTLDR is missing" message was being produced by a Win2k partition that had been cloned from a partition on a hard drive with different physical geometry (heads, sectors, etc) .
The way I fixed it was by using a hex editor to change a single byte in the boot sector of the cloned partition. That fixed it, and the cloned partition boots now.
I was just so damn proud of myself that I thought it'd be fun to tell someone about it, and I thought the owner of the "ntldrismissing.com" domain might be a good choice.
So if you are wondering "Who the heck" I am, and if maybe you are wondering if I have written to you before asking you for help fixing my hard drive, or paid you any money, the answer is: "No, I haven't". We have not met before.
First let me say thank you for bravely registering the domain "ntldrismissing.com", and also for writing a comprehensive page covering nearly all possible variants of the "NTLDR is missing" problem, plus tools like boot disk and CD images. BTW your boot-CD did allow me to boot into my cloned Win2k partition. However, from there I was unable to figure out how to get my cloned partition to boot on its own. Tried lots of stuff. This is listed below in the section titled: A bunch of stuff I tried that didn't work.
Only one thing I tried worked, specifically the editing-the-boot-sector trick, and that's what this story is all about.
Anyway, I will naively assume you want to hear this story, and proceed to the gory, gritty details of how I fixed that boot sector, including: which byte got changed, to what value, etc.
But first a little background on the cloning operation.
I am attempting to copy a Win2k installation from an old laptop hard drive to a new laptop hard drive. The way I image the partition(s) on the laptop hard drive is by booting the laptop with a Linux LiveCD (specifically Feather-Linux, but Knoppix would probably work too), then mounting a Samba share on a remote computer, then using "partimage" on the laptop to do the actual cloning work of reading the hard drive and copying data to an image file on the remote computer.
E.g. to mount a Samba share named "bedrock" located on a computer at private network address 192.168.0.5
mkdir /mnt/remote
mount -t smbfs -o username=fred,password=ybdbdo! //192.168.0.5/bedrock /mnt/remote
Well I say "remote", but the other computer is actually in the same room. In this case "remote" is a figure of speech meaning connected by a network. Did I mention this laptop has a network card, and the LiveCD successfully detects and configures it via DHCP? That part, the getting the network up and running part, is very important! It is necessary for the next step: moving multi-Gb sized image files back and forth. This is done using a utility named "partimage", which is included on the Feather-Linux CD.
Note: "partimage" program has a companion server-program named "partimaged", where the "d" is for daemon. It is intended to run on a Linux machine, where the images are stored, and listen for connections from the "partimage" client. Unfortunately, I couldn't figure out to get that stupid thing to work. However I did figure out how to get the Samba daemon running, and the mounting a remote Samba share works just as well. Theoretically that Samba share could be a shared folder on a Windows machine. Although in my case it was running on a Linux machine. I'm kinda running out of space on my Windows desktop PC. Anyway, the setup for "partimage" looks sort of like so:
Partition to save/restore
/dev/hda1
Image file to create/use
/mnt/remote/batman-hda1
And I also click the box that says "Save partition into a new image file".
The reverse process of writing a image to a hard drive partition is similar, except I check the box that says "Restore partition from an image file".
After restoring the image "batman-hda1" from hda1 from the old laptop hard drive into a new first partition hda1on a new laptop hard drive, this cloned hard drive gave me the infamous "NTLDR is missing" error message.
A bunch of stuff I tried that didn't work:
Copying new copies of boot.ini, ntldr, ntdetect.com, from a Win2k install CD or from other sources - didn't work.
Running fixmbr and fixboot via recovery console via win2k install CD - didn't work.
Running a "check" with "fix all errors" on this partition, after booting into it using Miles Comer's "fixntldr4w2k" boot CD - didn't work.
Using sysprep.exe - the Microsoft system preparation utility on the drive to be cloned, before cloning it - didn't work.
Something that sort of worked:
Miles Comer's "fixntldr4w2k" boot CD, made it possible to boot into this Win2k installation. However from there I couldn't figure out how to make the hard drive boot on its own, without relying on the CD. Also note: it had to be the CD. I did not get a chance to try the floppy, as this laptop does not have a floppy drive.
I was thinking about giving up, and reinstalling Win2k from scratch, plus all the apps I had on that partition.
In fact I even got started on a new Win2k install on this drive. The new first partition was named "silversurfer". Well, I'm not sure if that was actually its name, written on it, when viewed from inside Windows, but for the purposes of the discussion that follows I will call it that. This partition, "silversurfer", the first partition of the new hard drive, had no problems booting Win2k It gave me no "NTLDR is missing" error. In fact this was true even after imaging "silversurfer",and cloning it back. It still booted just fine. But if I cloned "batman" to the same place, it wouldn't boot...except by way of your boot CD.
Boot sector editing
I really wasn't looking forward to this, but it turned out to be easier than I thought it would be.
To make a copy of just the boot sector from a partition, doing this trick under Linux, in my case the Feather-Linux LiveCD, type:
dd count=1 if=/dev/hda1 of=/mnt/remote/batman-bs
Note for "dd", by default the blocksize is 512 bytes, same as specifying: bs=512. The total number of bytes that gets dumped is count*bs = 1*512 = 512 bytes.
I also made a copy of silversurfer's boot sector, and named it "silversurfer-bs".
Note my bs suffix stands for "boot sector", not "blocksize", or whatever else bs might stand for.
;-)
Number of heads (sides) ?
Now somewhere in all the surfing I had been doing, trying to solve this problem I came across that phrase "number of heads (sides)". Also the word "geometry" would come up sometimes too. I think it might have been this article:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;314057
This article suggested using a program named "sys.exe" from a Win98 startup disk to rewrite the boot partition, using:
sys c:
The thing I didn't try:
I did not get around to trying this. It would have required me acquiring a cd version of a Win98 startup floppy, which probably isn't that hard, but I did not try this. So I don't know if that would have worked or not.
The thing that did work :
Here are some snapshots of the first 32 bytes of those boot sectors:
silversurfer-bs
Offset 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 A B C D E F
00000000 EB 58 90 4D 53 44 4F 53 35 2E 30 00 02 08 20 00 ëXMSDOS5.0... .
00000010 02 00 00 00 00 F8 00 00 3F 00 80 00 3F 00 00 00 .....ø..?.€.?...
batman-bs
Offset 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 A B C D E F
00000000 EB 58 90 4D 53 57 49 4E 34 2E 31 00 02 08 20 00 ëXMSWIN4.1... .
00000010 02 00 00 00 00 F8 00 00 3F 00 FF 00 3F 00 00 00 .....ø..?.ÿ.?...
The bytes I am interested in are at offset 18h through 1Bh. According to _Table 32.10 BPB Fields for FAT32 Volumes_ of the _Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional Resource Kit_, here:
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/Windows2000Pro/reskit/part7/proch32.mspx
those are the bytes that have something to do with "geometry".
The two bytes at 18h and 19h are a word that contains the "sectors per track" geometry value for disks that use INT 13h.
The two bytes at 1Ah and 1Bh are a word that contains the "number of heads" geometry value value for disks that use INT 13h.
These statements are paraphrased from the Microsoft reference mentioned above, which for some reason used "count of heads" instead of "number of heads". Must be the same thing. Also I'm not sure if the hard drives physically have the number of heads or sides indicated. FFh=255d. 80h=128d
What I do know is that this hard drive will boot when it has the "silversurfer" image, but not when it has the "batman" image. So maybe I should try to make the "batman" boot sector look more like the "silversurfer" boot sector, with respect to these geometry parameter thingies? That's a guess.
To do this I only need to change one byte. Specifically at offset 1A, I change the FFh to 80h. Now those geometry parameters (offset 18h through 1Bh) look identical to those of the silversurfer boot sector. Then I save this file as "batman2-bs"
First 32 bytes of new boot sector:
batman2-bs
Offset 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 A B C D E F
00000000 EB 58 90 4D 53 57 49 4E 34 2E 31 00 02 08 20 00 ëXMSWIN4.1... .
00000010 02 00 00 00 00 F8 00 00 3F 00 80 00 3F 00 00 00 .....ø..?.€.?...
Then I use "dd" to write the new boot sector back to the first hard drive partition.
dd count=1 if=/mnt/remote/batman2-bs of=/dev/hda1
Then poweroff. Take out the Linux LiveCD. Power up the laptop, and this time my cloned "batman" Win2k partition boots up just fine.
I suspect this hard drives Master Boot Record (MBR) is still the one that got put there when I installed "silversurfer" from scratch, and it still points to the first partition (hda1) or maybe the partition that's marked "active", or something like that.
Also I should mention: copying the entire "silversurfer" boot sector onto the cloned "batman" partition - doesn't work. That probably belongs in that list of things I mentioned before...
Anyway, that is my story of how I fixed my particular "NTLDR is missing" message, produced by a Win2k partition that had been cloned from a partition on a hard drive with different physical geometry (heads, sectors, etc) .
Telling this story to someone was just as much fun as I thought it would be.mhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12341227878069246280noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8194372731688057790.post-44383514288224686622011-02-13T08:41:00.001-08:002011-02-13T08:44:30.354-08:00You fixed my computer -- almostI read this letter this morning:<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">Hi, Miles:<br /><br />I used your method for the "NTLDR is missing" problem. It worked great. But to boot up normally now I always need to have the USB key and select the second option -- every time. That's not really fixing the problem, is it?</span><br /><br />First of all, thanks for the feedback, I always enjoy getting to hear that another person was helped, and that the USB key thing works (since I get so many emails and calls when people can't get it to work).<br /><br />Secondly, feel free to thank me, or donate: <a href="http://milescomer.com">http://milescomer.com</a>mhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12341227878069246280noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8194372731688057790.post-26332741360680610852010-12-28T13:40:00.000-08:002010-12-28T13:46:31.943-08:00Jumpers set incorrectlyA Portuguese reader contributed this:<br /><br />Acho q resolvi o problema do ntldr, experimenta por o hdd como master e o dvd em slave (tinha ao contrário) depois o winxp instalou normalmente..<br /><br />Which http://translate.google.com/ said means:<br /><br />Guess I solved the problem of ntldr, try a hdd as master and slave on dvd (it had the opposite) after winxp installed normally .. <br /><br />I'm glad he got it working. If you are building a computer and are using "Parallel" hard drives, you will need to read up on how to properly set your "jumpers".<br /><br />These links should help you get started:<br />http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallel_ATA<br />http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jumper_(computing)<br /><br />http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=building+your+first+computermhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12341227878069246280noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8194372731688057790.post-79154473113294877152010-10-31T22:26:00.000-07:002010-10-31T22:31:39.578-07:00I want help - But I cannot email youIf you can't email me and need an answer that you can't find in this blog. Please leave a comment to this post.mhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12341227878069246280noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8194372731688057790.post-50691414835435920072008-03-08T09:04:00.000-08:002008-03-08T09:20:32.676-08:00Create the bootable CD on someone elses computer*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.<br />*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:<br />1. Your software configuration is different: Backup, format, reinstall -or- backup, format, install like they have.<br />2. Your hardware configuration -or- hardware failure: Replace the hardware.<br />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.<br />*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.<br />*Anyway, I'm digressing, I got this email on February 20th:<br /><em>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. <br /> <br />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.<br /> <br />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.<br /> <br />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.<br /> <br />Please…..I’m desperate….do you have any solutions that aren’t going to cost me $300????</em><br /><br />*I responded with this later that day:<br />You best and cheapest bet is to find a computer that can burn the ISO<br />image onto the disc uncompressed. (IE: find a computer that you can<br />install iso recorder to). Its possible you can ask your company IT to<br />do it for you in exchange for a soda (at least that's what I do).<br /><br />After burning the ISO image onto a cd, it should actually display as<br />several files, and the properties should not say ISO.<br /><br />I sympathise with this being difficult, unfortunately it must be an<br />ISO so that it can make the CD bootable.<br /><br />You don't have to respond: but what lead up to this?<br /><br />*I got this reply later that day:<br /><em>Thank you sooo much for getting back to me. I actually thought of seeing if the IT folks will help.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />Thanks again....I'll let you know if it gets fixed.</em>mhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12341227878069246280noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8194372731688057790.post-31845071151754116262008-02-24T09:31:00.000-08:002008-02-24T09:34:21.159-08:00Using 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.<br />*I got this email 9 hours ago from a person that the USB boot device wasn't working for them:<br /><em>Hi Miles,<br /><br />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!)<br />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.<br />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??<br /><br />Many thanks</em><br /><br />*I just sent this response:<br />Tell the gnome I said hi.<br /><br />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?<br /><br />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).<br /><br />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).mhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12341227878069246280noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8194372731688057790.post-89350714628399611092008-02-23T22:17:00.000-08:002008-02-23T22:19:44.570-08:00No OS and getting error*From a jaxtr text message:<br />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) <br /><br />*I responded 13 hours ago with:<br /><em>Yeah I get people saying that occasionally. I almost think it's a<br />hardware failure of like the hard drive.<br /><br />I'd suggest backing up the data, and using Windows XP's setup to<br />delete all the partitions and then recreate them from there.</em><br /><br />*And then again just now with:<br /><em>That or a misconfiguration in your BIOS. I wonder if you couldn't try<br />and double check the settings for what is boot priority and which hard<br />drives it's set to boot from.</em>mhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12341227878069246280noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8194372731688057790.post-65009492335989298502008-02-23T22:06:00.000-08:002008-02-23T22:16:33.212-08:00Cannot 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:<br /><br />Hello Miles,<br /> <br />I have found your information very useful if I can only get to that stage.<br />I'm hoping your expertise can help me if you would be so kind.<br /> <br />This is the senerio:<br /> <br />error message, "NTLDR is missing"<br />press Ctrl+Alt+Del to restart<br /><br />go to set up utiliy, boot utility then:<br /><br />(pick one)<br /><br />hard drive<br />removable devices - this is the one I want!<br />cd-rom drive<br />realtek boot agent<br /><br />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!<br /><br />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<br /><br />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.<br /> <br />How can this be overcome?<br /> <br />Thanks Miles,<br /><br />*I then responded:<br /><em>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.<br /><br />Look for "Press U/D to move up/down" or "Press +/- to change the order" or something similar.</em><br /><br />*They wrote back:<br />Hey Miles,<br /> <br />Thanks a million for getting back to me!<br />I did what you instructed and placed removable devices on TOP.<br />However, it make no difference in the boot.<br />Still boots hard drive but removable devices are highlighted.<br />What the heck could it be?<br /> <br />Thanks again,<br /><br />*I responded:<br /><em>I'd say try moving the cd-rom to top, and making that and booting.<br />http://ntldrismissing.com</em><br /><br />*He responded:<br />Even with CD-ROM on top still booting from the hard drive.<br />It continues to default to hard drive no matter what I do.<br />Any other suggestions?<br /> <br />Thanks,<br /><br />*I then had him chase down this rabbit hole of "was the disc made correctly" since that so often is the problem:<br /><em>Well the next thing to look at usually is to make sure that the boot<br />"disk" is created successfully.<br /><br />With the CD in the drive of a working computer, when you open it under<br />"My Computer" do you see files like 'ntldr', 'boot.ini',<br />'ntdetect.com'?<br /><br />If you just see the one file named "fixntldr.iso" then we need to have<br />the CD remade.<br /><br />The easiest way to remake that CD is to download the "ISO recorder"<br />program I mention. Once done you can just right click the ISO file<br />and choose an option like "Write contents to CD".<br /><br />ISO Recorder:<br />http://isorecorder.alexfeinman.com/isorecorder.htm<br /><br />My ntldr website:<br />http://tinyempire.com/notes/ntldrismissing.htm</em><br /><br />*He responded:<br /><br />Sorry to keep bothering you but both my (your diskette and CD-ROM) are correct.<br />Both are working but NOT booting. Neither is the Toshiba Recovery/Driver CD which should.<br />Not sure what the problem is.<br /><br />*So I had to now recommend major surgery:<br /><em>Is it possible to just "turn off" booting from the hard drive? And<br />thus "force" it to boot from the cd-rom/removalbe drive?<br /><br />If you have a CD that's a "known good" bootable CD, and it's not booting either.<br />And if the BIOS is correctly set to boot from the CD first.<br />There must be something wrong with the CD-Rom drive. It's possible<br />it's just failed and not reading the CD's anymore.<br /><br />Of course I guess we'd have to then say the same thing about the<br />removable drive. But it's not nearly as bulletproof as the floppy and<br />cd-rom are.<br /><br />If we can't use something from outside the computer to boot it, and it<br />won't boot by itself, the next step will likely be to remove the hard<br />drive, and backup the data. You could then either just get a<br />replacement drive and keep the old one for backup/storage, or backup<br />the data, then reformat /reinstall.</em>mhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12341227878069246280noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8194372731688057790.post-67343986490527710742008-02-23T21:55:00.000-08:002008-02-23T21:57:57.646-08:00Installing Windows and partition no longer marked as active*Got an email from a guy who donated 2 days ago:<br />Thanks, man. You saved me a ton of f###ing around with Windows... Good,<br />direct solution to the problem, among all the other stuff I was doing to<br />get around this.<br /><br />Seems like it worked in conjunction with other stuff I was trying<br />(Partition magic, etc etc)<br /><br />*I replied with:<br />Thanks for the donation :)<br />Feel free to fill me in on the details of what else you were doing.<br /><br />*They wrote back:<br />I believe now that the "active partition" flag wasn't getting set on my<br />partition - even though the tools seemed to insist it was.<br /><br />I used Partition Magic to toggle it between partitions a couple of<br />times, and that seemed to get it working. I would never have thought of<br />it without your tool proving that the XP partition itself was fine,<br />though. What a relief, I really detest installing Windows.mhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12341227878069246280noreply@blogger.com0