My brother's computer can't boot up to the desktop

[Sgt_Strider]

So xtrememac, the EULA screen is suppose to pop up before it ask you whether to repair windows or new installation of windows, right?

[jrzycrim]

Reinstall Windows XP by starting your computer from the Windows XP CD

To reinstall Windows XP by starting your computer from the Windows XP CD, follow these steps:

1. Insert the Windows XP CD into your computer's CD-ROM or DVD-ROM drive, and then restart your computer.

2. When the "Press any key to boot from CD" message appears on the screen, press a key to start your computer from the Windows XP CD.

Note Your computer must be configured to start from the CD-ROM or DVD-ROM drive. For more information about how to configure your computer to start from the CD-ROM or DVD-ROM drive, see your computer's documentation or contact your computer manufacturer.

3. You receive the following message on the Welcome to Setup screen that appears:

This portion of the Setup program prepares Microsoft Windows XP to run on your computer:

      To setup Windows XP now, press ENTER.

      To repair a Windows XP installation using Recovery Console, press R.

      To quit Setup without installing Windows XP, press F3.

 

Press ENTER to set up Windows XP.

4. On the Windows XP Licensing Agreement screen, press F8 to agree to the license agreement.

5. Make sure that your current installation of Windows XP is selected in the box, and then press R to repair Windows XP.

6. Follow the instructions that appear on the screen to reinstall Windows XP. After you repair Windows XP, you may have to reactivate your copy of Windows XP.

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?...kb;EN-US;315341

[Sgt_Strider]

Reinstall Windows XP by starting your computer from the Windows XP CD

To reinstall Windows XP by starting your computer from the Windows XP CD, follow these steps:

1. Insert the Windows XP CD into your computer's CD-ROM or DVD-ROM drive, and then restart your computer.

  

2. When the "Press any key to boot from CD" message appears on the screen, press a key to start your computer from the Windows XP CD.

Note Your computer must be configured to start from the CD-ROM or DVD-ROM drive. For more information about how to configure your computer to start from the CD-ROM or DVD-ROM drive, see your computer's documentation or contact your computer manufacturer.

3. You receive the following message on the Welcome to Setup screen that appears:

This portion of the Setup program prepares Microsoft Windows XP to run on your computer:

      To setup Windows XP now, press ENTER.

      To repair a Windows XP installation using Recovery Console, press R.

      To quit Setup without installing Windows XP, press F3.

    

Press ENTER to set up Windows XP.

4. On the Windows XP Licensing Agreement screen, press F8 to agree to the license agreement.

5. Make sure that your current installation of Windows XP is selected in the box, and then press R to repair Windows XP.

6. Follow the instructions that appear on the screen to reinstall Windows XP. After you repair Windows XP, you may have to reactivate your copy of Windows XP.

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?...kb;EN-US;315341

Thx for the information jrzycrim. However, it still doesn't work. After the upgrade completed, I still get the ntldr file is missing error. I don't understand what is going on. This is driving me crazy.

[neosapience]

I had a computer in our shop with this problem about a year ago. If I remember correctly, it turned out to be a bad hard drive.

Try to find a way to check the drive for errors. You may want to check your hardware connections and BIOS.

[XtremeMaC]

that's what i suggested 1st too...

anyways my hdd was giving me other errors soon it turned out that I was using 40pin cable instead of 80, I don't think that answers your question but u might wanna try?

also maybe u've a virus that keeps deleting ntldr?

copy the ntldr manually

how to do in my opinion

if your hdd is ntfs win98 and winme startup disk will fail so

make a winpe and manually copy the boot files,

if u want backup your stuff and reinstall xp from scratch....

[Sgt_Strider]

I have a anti-virus in the computer and it's using the latest definitions up to that date. Yes the hard drive is formatted with the ntfs filesystem and how do I make a winpe?

[jrzycrim]

Well let's see.

1) You tried using the recovery console to fix the mbr and you also manually copied the ntldr from your XP CD. That didn't work.

2) You tried a repair install. That didn't work.

The next thing I would try is reformatting and re-installing. Before you do that, making a WinPE CD in order to back-up your files is a good idea. There is a forum here dedicated to WinPE. If you are unable to get WinPE, BartPE is a good alternative. WinPE/BartPE will let you boot your system from a CD. It gives you a 'Windows' Like interface for preparing a system for OS installation or troubleshooting an existing installation. You can also check your hard drive for errors. If doing a clean install of XP doesn't solve the issue, then I think checking for hardware problems is the next step.

For additional information see http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?kbid=320397

A google search for "ntldr is missing" may turn up other things you can try.

Other than that, I don't know what else to suggest.

[Sgt_Strider]

that's what i suggested 1st too...

anyways my hdd was giving me other errors soon it turned out that I was using 40pin cable instead of 80, I don't think that answers your question but u might wanna try?

also maybe u've a virus that keeps deleting ntldr?

copy the ntldr manually

how to do in my opinion

if your hdd is ntfs win98 and winme startup disk will fail so

make a winpe and manually copy the boot files,

if u want backup your stuff and reinstall xp from scratch....

Hi xtrememac, I just used bartpe and managed to boot up the cd and view the content of the hard drive. All the files are still there and I did a scandisk and it was a successful one with no errors. How do I manually copy the ntldr file to the windows xp installation? Any idea guys?

[Sgt_Strider]

Well let's see.

1) You tried using the recovery console to fix the mbr and you also manually copied the ntldr from your XP CD. That didn't work.

2) You tried a repair install. That didn't work.

The next thing I would try is reformatting and re-installing. Before you do that, making a WinPE CD in order to back-up your files is a good idea. There is a forum here dedicated to WinPE. If you are unable to get WinPE, BartPE is a good alternative. WinPE/BartPE will let you boot your system from a CD. It gives you a 'Windows' Like interface for preparing a system for OS installation or troubleshooting an existing installation. You can also check your hard drive for errors. If doing a clean install of XP doesn't solve the issue, then I think checking for hardware problems is the next step.

For additional information see http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?kbid=320397

A google search for "ntldr is missing" may turn up other things you can try.

Other than that, I don't know what else to suggest.

Hi jrzmycrim, is there anything that I can do with BartPE that will allow me to send the files across the network? Also, maybe I can manually replace the ntldr file there and hope that it'll work? What can I do with bartPE that will allow me to fix windows? Thx

[jrzycrim]

Great! I love Bartpe. It's a great tool.

I've never used BartPE for network tasks so I'm not sure about that.

As you have already tried replacing the ntldr with the recovery console, I'm not sure that would accomplish anything. You can always try it again, however.

On which drive does your broken installation reside? Is it C:\ ?

In the root directory of the Installation you are trying to recover, see if the files ntldr, ntdetect.com, and boot.ini are present. They are hidden files so you might need to enable show hidden files. Also, open the boot.ini file if it's there and post the contents here. If the boot.ini file is missing, you can recreate it. It's just a text file.

[Sgt_Strider]

Hi jrzycrim, I'm not sure what you mean by the drive with the broken installation, but C: is the drive that windows is installed on. I see ntldr, ntdetect.com and boot.ini files in the C:\ directory.

Boot.ini

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[boot loader]

timeout=1

default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS

[operating systems]

multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /fastdetect

[jrzycrim]

That's what I meant. The drive in which windows is installed.

I just don't know what to suggest now. Those files are present. Your boot.ini is as it should be.

I suppose if the ntldr is corrupt and it didn't get copied over correctly when you used the recovery console, then maybe that could be the problem. Or else the hard drive is faulty. I can't really say.

Try copying ntldr and ntdetect.com from your XP CD to a floppy. Boot up with bartpe and then copy the files from the floppy to c:\. I don't have very much hope that will work but you never know...

[jrzycrim]

If that doesn't work, copy your boot.ini to that same floppy disk which has ntldr and ntdetect.com. Try booting your computer with the floppy. I'm curious to see if you will be able to get into Windows that way.

When you boot with that floppy, ntldr will load from the floppy and then the rest of the boot process should continue from your hard drive. If it works, that means something is amiss with your hard drive. Most likely the problem describe here: http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?...kb;en-us;320397

[Sgt_Strider]

Hey jrzycrim, my brother's computer doesn't have a floppy drive installed so I'm not sure how to test your theory out.

Anyone out there that is able to help, plz help!