Missing NTLDR

[lostboy]

hi all I recently brought a sony vailo laptop. I use this for braodband as well as my home pc but on my laptop whenever I connect using the USB boandband adaptor the laptop will not shut down. so I have to turn it of my using the power button on the laptop. The first 10 or so times was fine by turning it of this way. But now I get this message when I boot my laptop up

Missing NTLDR
Press Ctrl-Alt-Dlt to restart

Now I cant get past this, its like a loop I restart and it comes up again. Now i diddnt make a back up dvd, and the laptop diddnt come with a back-up cd, and my brother has my original windows xp cd. is there anyway I can restore windows with out lossing all my files?? I also feel really really silly for not making a back up.
HELP ME!!!!! please, Oh almost forgot im running windows xp home

thanks

steve

[liljim]

[lostboy]

[icecube]

Just to add a tad to Liljim's post

IF you are prompted to overwrite the file type y and enter

copy d:\i386\ntldr c:\
Note the space between copy and d: and also between ntldr and c:\ in the first line

copy d:\i386\ntdetect.com c:\
same with the second line copy and d: and also between com and c:\

DOS is like witchcraft if you don't see the spaces

You might also want to install recovery Consol to your computer so you don't need to chase down the cd all of the time.

here is a cut and paste from Microsoft

To install the Recovery Console, follow these steps:

1. Insert the Windows XP CD into the CD-ROM drive.
2. Click Start, and then click Run.
3. In the Open box, type d:\i386\winnt32.exe /cmdcons where d is the drive letter for the CD-ROM drive.
4. A Windows Setup Dialog Box appears. The Windows Setup Dialog Box describes the Recovery Console option. To confirm the installation, click Yes.
5. Restart the computer. The next time that you start your computer, "Microsoft Windows Recovery Console" appears on the startup menu.

[lostboy]

thanks alot guys that worked perfectly.

steve

[liljim]

Glad we could help





Thanks for the backup icecube

[Thorza]

G'day ppls

wondering if you can provide me some satisfying things to try like lostboy!!!

i too get this error with windows XP for which i had upgraded from 2k a while ago.

several problems:
1. it won't accept any of my passwords as the admin password (believe me tried everything) for the recovery console - so this isn't an option

2. if booting off a floopy i can get the a: command prompt. unfortunately if i try to copy ntldr.etc from the A: to c: it give some "invalid" message and says 'abort, retry, cancel'.
i cannot access my c: (goes to c:\ prompt but if typing 'dir' it says the invalid message). it doesn't recognise my other partitions e:\ f:\ drives.

3. i got a program "readntfs" which allows me to browse my hdd partitionsand i can't find ntldr on any of the partitions i setup nor does the program show any traces if it being deleted.

i'm stuck! i don't have access to another computer to transfer files off the hdd through windows either.

note i don't get a message saying 'master hdd fail' so i assume it is still working, but just not working!?!?

Cheers in advance appreciate any help