Computer help forum: NTLDR IS MISSING PRESS CTRL+ALT+DEL TO RESTART

Thanks for the reply, I dont have a xp disk this is an HP xp home edition OEM
I found the jumper caps and did the switach for around 5 seconds then put it back to original position. It did nothing, maybe i did not leave it out long enough. The reason I know is i checked the bios which must be done in order to reset the time and date etc.

Anyway I copied the NTLDR, NEDETECT, from this pc onto a floppy and it almost worked, I got a different screen after it sounded like it was going to boot into windows. The Screen said Boot.ini not configured correctly (or something to that effect)

So do you think I could copy the boot.ini from this pc onto a floppy along with the other two and it would then boot the pc.
These two pc's are both xp home editions oem from HP

What do you think? Thanks

ok, I copied the boot.ini off this pc and added it the bad pc, but now it is stating that the Hal.dll file is corrupted and I should replace it. How do I do that? Thanks

One of 2 hard drive crashed. I bought a new one-installed windows XP home from original OEM CD. But it gave me the option to install it in G: and not C: How could it be? I asked myself. Is it possible the store placed the jumpers of the 2 hard drives wrongly?

Had no time to check so I installed Windows on G: No problems overall except that it would not boot without Windows OS CD iun it. Used PC and windows on G for a few months.

Finally reinstalled windows but this time C: was available--Oh Goody.

After original installation process on reboot I am shown a choice to choose from 2 identical Windows XP Home. OH OH! Choose the first. Windows appears not to have been installed properly. Tried to format drive with other Windows os (now on D) but couldn't. Reboot on safe mode. Delete files on D:. reboot. 2 window XP choices still available. format D: drive via windows install CD.

Reinstall windows one more time. This time all is OK.

Go online. attain and install (one at a time each with a reboot) VGA drivers, sound card drivers, and usb and internet drivers.

all ok. go to motherboard website and updtate bios. Site says after update it will reboot. but it doesn't reboot. I do so manually. go back online and try again. same thing but this time on reboot I go to BIOS set up and see that in fact the new bios was installed. continue then with booting in. all seems ok.

Do some windows properties settings such as screen resolution etc. all is ok. reboot. all is ok. Install Sygate personal firewall. am asked to reboot. I do so.

on rebbot I get the "NTLDR is missing press ctrl alt del"

what happened? Now what? Is the problem, because the 2 hard drives were set wrongly and now confusing things due to all the stuff done on it?

or

is it becuase I had 2 equal OS's on it and deleted them?

Or is it the BIOS updtae thing that caused the problem? Who knows but now I am stuck with not being able to boot in.

It would seem as if sygate may be the problem--but I think it's a coincidence--i believe the problem stems from something done/mentioned before it. Had sygate not been installed, it would have happened just the same.
Also, I spent hours searching this problem and reading about it--nowhere, from microsoft.co to sites like this one, was sygate ever mentioned

Now why didn't I think of that? Isn't interesting how many brilliant ideas are that simple, logical even, and yet, they don't come to mind.
The question now is, considering I can't get into windows How do I know which actual physical hard drive contains my C: drive Ah! wait, I can use my Ubuntu Live CD. But then again, since I know very little of Lunix. I'm not sure where to go from here.. Or is there a way of me finding out differently?

thanks for your help

M

Hi and thanks again

Trying to make sure which part is the "end" of the cable.Would I be correct in assuming that the beginning of it is what is connected to the motherboard, therefore the end is what is the last connector to the HDD.

thanks again