PCTech Forums

hi...i hope you guys could help me......ok, i have a compaq 1700 notebook ....i have win xp pro on it, anyway i was trying to make it dual boot win xp pro and win 98 se....i had the drive partitioned in to two and the d: has win xp pro on it.......now i formatted the c: and reset the system and was going to install 98 on the c:....problem now is that...since i've reformatted c:.....when i turn on the comp....it just shows me...

NTDLR missing CTRL-ALT-DEL to restart......

the installation disk for 98, win2kpro, winxp pro won't run....it goes straight to that error screen....

i've tried running DOS 6 just to find the d:windows folder but i can't seem to find that either.....the only drive that dos could see is a:.......now
my question is how could i install a new operating system on the c: when it doesn't go to reading the cd...but instead just show me NTDLR is MISSING?

The reason you cannot see your partitions from dos is because they are NTFS, not fat 32.
In order to see your partitions you will need the windows XP boot disks, you can get them from
To have your Windows XP CD start from boot you will have to change your BIOS boot sequence to boot from your CD Rom first.
When your system is just starting to boot up hit the Delete key to get to the BIOS, once in your BIOS look for “Boot Sequence” set it to boot from your CD Rom first and change nothing else Once you can boot from your Windows Xp CD you can select repair by typing “R” this will repair you Windows Xp installation and the missing NTDLR.

If you really want to dual boot Windows XP and Windows 98 you will have to f-disk both of your partitions to fat 32. Then boot off your Windows 98 CD and install Windows 98 first. After Win98 is installed then you can install Windows Xp to the other partition and it should all work just fine. Then when start your system you will be asked what Operating System you want to start.

thanks....i'll try the bootdisk and i'll tell you what happens...coz i already have my bios set up to boot from cd first...but for some unknown reason it bypasses it....