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General discussion

clean installation if you have a NTLDR is missing message

Dec 10, 2004 4:51AM PST

I have used a software(ez-tec sanitizer) to erase my hard drive in order to do a clean installation. Unfortunately, I received a message that says: NTLDR is missing. I tried everything to bypass this message a have a clean installation but my efforts are still vain. Can you please help me with this.

Discussion is locked

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What OS?
Dec 10, 2004 5:11AM PST

Windows NT (all versions), Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows 2003 all may give such an error message if someone does an "odd thing".

Your story doesn't have the OS or enough detail for me to hazard a guess. Except one. The MBR is not being rewritten proper. I usually just boot a WINDOWS 98 diskette, type FDISK /MBR to fix that, but before you say that's not how, there is a Microsoft KB article about this so go look it up.

Best of luck,

Bob

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Re: What OS?
Dec 10, 2004 5:20AM PST

Thanks Bob,

I was using Windows XP Pro. I also tried tried to boot up with Windows 98 CD but nothing happened. I even copied from a different machine that runs Win XP Pro also the boot.ini, NTdetect.com and the NTLDR file to a floppy in order to fix it as described in many reviews posted on the tech sites. I really don't mind losing information stored in the drive. I just need to get it up running again.

Thanks,

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Now it looks damaged.
Dec 10, 2004 5:22AM PST
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Re: Now it looks damaged.
Dec 10, 2004 6:12AM PST

I have used a MS-DOS bootable disk to start up the machine but it seems that it does not recognize the C drive when I tried the following command: a:\>copy NTLDR c:\NTLDR

Is there any chance at all for me to fix this hard disk?
Thanks,

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Do tell where I wrote to do that?
Dec 10, 2004 6:32AM PST

I don't see that in my instructions.

Did I write that?

Bob

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Re: Do tell where I wrote to do that?
Dec 10, 2004 6:50AM PST

Hi Bob,

I am new with this stuff and I thank you for holding my hands.I am not sure if I got this right, should it be a bootable disk with the boot.ini, ntdetect.com and ntldr file or just a MS-Dos start up disk. Just in case, can you provide me the commands for a bootable disk.

Thanks,

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I was noting to rewrite the MBR.
Dec 10, 2004 8:04AM PST

If you have the DOS boot disk, then type...
FDISK /MBR

The link supplied shows an in-place install that should recover most systems, but not all.

At no time did I note drive C:\

Bob

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good advice
Feb 5, 2005 7:58AM PST

yes FDISK /MBR is the one to try...after this do a reinstall.

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missing NTLDR
Dec 28, 2004 12:14AM PST

Is this when you try installing XP? i think this is a very common problem, going by Google search results for the same problem. I have had this happen twice.
I think the best thing in your case since you have an empty drive that you want to install to is to redo the partition on the drive with FDISK and then start over.
This could be done by using a Windows 98 or ME floppy start disk.

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Try this
Feb 9, 2005 11:23PM PST

Can't believe this worked but it did. I had the same problem, did a googlesearch and it said when the installation asks "press any key to boot from CD" you must press a key and it worked flawlessly