NTLDR MISSING All my attempts have failed. *HELP*

Ok, the back story.

My girl friend was running an old HP with Windows XP Media Center 2005 Editiion when she started getting the blue screen of death(?) She was getting a blue screen error saying that there had to be a "Physical Memory Dump" and she could not leave the screen. The only solution was to restart. I had her update her video driver and everything seemed fine. A couple of weeks later she got another error... this time whenever Windows tried to boot it took her to a black screen with choices such as "Use last known good configuration." "Reboot in Safe Mode," "Start windows normally".

From there, none of the options worked. Windows would start to boot (I.E. The little green loading bar would appear), a blue screen would flash, then it would crash again.

The Problem:

I went to her house to try to fix the problem. She had misplaced her OEM CD of Windows XP Media Center so I thought I would try to fix it another way. I thought it would be a problem with the boot sequence so I did a "FIXBOOT" command. It said that the boot sequence was redone or something like that.

The next time I tried to start her HDD I got the "NTLDR File is missing, press any key to restart".

I have browsed other posts on this topic and none have resolved my issue.

So far I have tried:

Burning an ISO of the "NTLDR File, NTLDRDETECT File, and the Boot.ini file" from a similarly configured HP and tried to boot from that then switch to the HD. It didn't work.

I downloaded an Iso from an HP Representative that had 10 options on it. None of them solved the NTLDR is Missing error. I also tried them in Safe Mode. (If you need clarification on what the exact ISO was I'll redirect you to the website).

Since my girl friend did no posses a copy of Windows XP Media Center we tried using a copy of Windows XP Home Edition to use for the recovery console. When we entered the console it did not list a Hard Drive to select to repair. It simply went straight to a command line with "C:/" selected.

Since then I have torrented an ISO of Windows Media Center 2005 just to use it for the recovery console. It also does not list the a Hard Drive to repair... it goes straight to a command line. This time I tried to copy the NTLDR files from the copy of windows directly to the HDD. It said both files (i386\NTLDR and \i386\ntdetect.com [as seen here http://www.computerhope.com/issues/ch000465.htm ]) were copied.

That did not resolve the issue.

I'm doing all of this from memory so if you need clarification I can try.

Formatting IS NOT an option. My girl friend "needs" files off of the HDD.

I would like to know if anyone can tell me how to fix the NTLDR error, or at least a way to boot windows, if only just to back the files up real quick. That includes finding a solution for the original problem as well.

If that is not possible, is there any way possibly add the Hard Drive as a slave to another PC ans just click and drag images from it? Forgot to mention: I have since removed the HDD from it's original mother board and placed it in one at my home where I can work on it. I tried simply plugging it in to my mother board... it does read it, but I can only access the unpartitioned portion (10mb's of the entire) HDD.

I think that about covers it... Any help is appreciated.

Thank you.

Can you clarify this?

"Unpartitioned"? Do you mean "Unallocated"?

What is the rest of the drive listed as?

Are you viewing this with Disk Management?

Who is the manufacturer of the hard drive?

As you are at this point let's try to get access to it or test if it is still functional.

I believe it's a Samsung...

What I mean is that I plugged the SATA cable from the Hard Drive in to the second SATA port on my mother board.

That way I could use it as simply a slave drive... I was hoping I could at least Explore the drive and look for files on it but, as you said, it only lets me explore the unallocated space... which is the standard 10MB Windows XP leaves when you partition a full HDD.

I honestly don't care to see if it's still functional enough to salvage... just as long as I can remove some of the files and images on it first.

If it's easier to fix then show me how and I'll fix it then remove the files... If there is some way I have yet to hear of to just pull the files off of the HDD without ever actually booting the OS on it than that would be much simpler for me.

Also, as a side note, the PC I would be plugging the HDD in to is running Windows XP Professional.

I also have a my laptop which is running Vista, but I would need to buy an external case for the HDD which sort of defeats the "fix it yourself and save money" bit.

I hope that answerers your questions... if not, I'll try to clarify a little more.

Thanks

First off SATA channels are only single.

The Master/slave distinction for IDE channels is moot with SATA.

That being said you should be able to access any SATA drive from your Operating System drive provided the SATA drive is functional.

If it is not mechanically functional there is no way of salvaging data short of a professional lab where you are talking about thousands of dollars for the process.

First off run the Samsung diagnostic:

http://www.samsung.com/global/busine...ort_HUTIL.html

Hopefully you have a floppy drive and a floppy disk.

I have had this error many times.At the c:\ prompt with your XP Disk in the CDRom Drive type:

c:\copy d:\i386\\ntldr c:\
c:\copy d:\i386\ntdetect.com c:\

nb. the d:\ above is the CDRom drive letter, yours may be different, also note the space in each case before the final c:\

This may or may not help?

regards

grimerz

The HDD works and I already tried copying the files directly off the OS CD.

Still, nothing.

This is really pissing me off, I really need to fix this.

Are there any other options?

If not, where can I get this fixed professionally?

Thanks

Edit:

I called around, it would cost a lot more then I can afford to fix. At least $500... Up to $1700.

I figured out that when I tried to copy the NTLDR files from the CD to the HDD it's going on the wrong partition.

Here's 2 screen shots of the what the HDD reads when I plud it in and try to explore it on my own PC.





As you can see, it only reads 10MB and the files I copied are present on that small part of the HDD.

Damn it, what is wrong?

How does it read in Disk Management?

As 10MB

No other details? In general the drive would indicate "unallocated space" where Windows cannot detect a (File System) format.

Are you seeing this: if so send back your screenshot:




Did you run Seatools? This is the only way to know that the hard drive is mechanically functional.


If none of the above help then you need software or hardware outside of Windows.

Most software recovery products allow a free scan but cost for retrieval of data. Usually @$100 or so.

Most hardware recovery goes into @$1,000 plus.

Here is a Google for the softer side:

http://www.google.com/search?sourcei...+data+recovery


Also in the future remember to backup any important data to more than one hard drive.