Last Ditch Effort: NTDLR IS CORRUPT

[bgriff1]

I got the blue screen, then every time I booted i got the message "NTDLR is corrupt. System cannot boot."
Reformat discs wouldn't work, partition magic wouldn't recognize the hard drive. I also tried booting with DSL (Damn Small Linux) to no avail.
I bought a new hard drive, and the same error message shows up every time i boot, black screen then "NTDLR is corrupt".
I have a HP laptop, AMD Turion 64 processor, 2 Gigs of DDR2, and now a broken 120 gig HD and a supposedly working 60 gig.
Anyone have advice as to something I might try to fix this? Otherwise, is there any good way to go about trying to sell off the parts?

[0iD]

You may need to repair the boot sector using the install disk.

[moose82]

Sounds like you did what I did when I ran DSL from a USB key on my PC. I stupidly mounted the Harddrive in DSL without a Linux partition on it so it started writing to the windows partition...

Very stupid I know but I learnt my lesson when I got your same message and could get no further!

What you need is a bootable Win XP Pro Disc.

You need to run the recovery console which is started from the disc. This should drop you out to a DOS prompt. The command you are looking for is "fixmbr" type that in without quotes and hit enter in that

It will flash a warning that it might damage your boot sector. (it can't get much more broken that it already is)

After this I rebooted the machine and no error! Result!

You might also try "fixboot"

Let me know if that doesn't fix it as I have a few other tricks up my sleeve that also might fix the problem...

[NightshadowUK]

Full repair reinstall of XP.

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/u...ps/doug92.mspx

A bit extreme but it'll work for sure and you won't lose any of your stuff.

[Steve B]

i had the NTLDR problem, and nothing would get rid of it. Eventually used Nightshadows method, which worked for me

[tigerboyce]

same as above had to do a re-install

[Hopper.]

Ive seen this loads at work - might just be something funny with our builds of machine but its normally a dozey user leaving some sort of removal media in the machine then tring to boot it (usb drive / floppy disk)

[bgriff1]

Sounds like you did what I did when I ran DSL from a USB key on my PC. I stupidly mounted the Harddrive in DSL without a Linux partition on it so it started writing to the windows partition...

Very stupid I know but I learnt my lesson when I got your same message and could get no further!

What you need is a bootable Win XP Pro Disc.

You need to run the recovery console which is started from the disc. This should drop you out to a DOS prompt. The command you are looking for is "fixmbr" type that in without quotes and hit enter in that

It will flash a warning that it might damage your boot sector. (it can't get much more broken that it already is)

After this I rebooted the machine and no error! Result!

You might also try "fixboot"

Let me know if that doesn't fix it as I have a few other tricks up my sleeve that also might fix the problem...

I have a Win XP Home edition upgrade disc, and it started to boot, but when it was loading all the drivers and things to set up windows, it would finish, restart the computer and begin loading them all over again. Should I bother trying to get ahold of a Win XP Pro disc?

[moose82]

Someone correct me if I'm wrong but I don't think you can start recovery console from an upgrade disc.

I think you'll need either a Full Home or Pro disc to use my solution.

[bgriff1]

Ok, I've decided that the NTLDR isn't the main problem here, I think I have a hardware problem. I hooked the laptop HD up to a PC with an adapter and formatted it using Partition Manager. Partition manager i believe uses some sort of linux, which it must start up to run the utilities; after formatting the hard drive, i put it back in my laptop and tried to run Partition Manager. It showed the first opening screen but as soon as it tried to boot with linux the machine crashes and leaves me with a blank, black screen. The reason i was getting the original NTLDR message was because the installation discs would only install part of the OS, leaving the NTDLR corrupted. There must be something besides the software or the hard drive causing this...

Thanks everyone for your help, sorry about this confusion. I'm pretty boggled...

[Gerschwin]

I have a hard disk that (I think) is on the way out - when the case is upright it will give NTLDR missing errors or freeze but when laid on it's side it loads and runs fine! Bloody bizarre but seems to be an issue with the drive as I've ruled out other possible components!!