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I hav a problem with my HD's.
Computer is a 3.2ghz Ram 1.50gb
HD's 200gb..1tb.. 160gb..80gb
My setup is was (BTW I speak mac
so bare with me) 200gb startup drive
system and programmes only "C"drive
windose XP Pro SP2. 1TB HD intenal
as backup drive only no system.
200gb was playing up so it had to get
formatted, no problem there. Took out
the 1tb and put in a 160 with system
only on it. unplegged the 200gb and
booted from the 160gb,
reconnected and remounted the 200gb,
ok so far. Formatted the 200, right
click the mouse and go to format,
do low level not quick format.
All drives are sata.
Reboot from the 160 with the 200 connected, and I get a message saying that the machine cannot boot because NTLDR is missing. What's that?
So try with 160 and 1tb same message
Try with 80 and 200 same, 80 and 1tb same no boot.
Now I have to boot with boot drive connected and any other internal dissconnected, then reconnect and mount after boot.
Help please.
You could try this . It sounds like a possible boot/Bios issue.
Can I ask a few silly questions. If your 200G drive was C and it has the OS and you formatted it, did you re-install windows on that drive?
If not then your PC is just telling you that there is no operating system.
Or check boot order, is it trying to boot from CD drive without a windows disk in it?
If both your drives have the OS then this could be a source of the problem too as it may be having problems resolving which one to use.
Quote:
Or check boot order, is it trying to boot from CD drive without a windows disk in it?
Surely, if there is no disk in the CD Drive it should then default to C drive. It does on my computers, I usually have it set as CD first, HD second.
Hi John
The 200 does not have an os on it.
Neither did the 1tb and that booted fine when the 200 was the boot hd. the 1tb does not boot when either the 160 or 80gb are boot drives.
The bios does not give me any options for selecting a boot drive,
eg 160 and 200 or 160 1tb. However I have selected the hd for boot not cd.
Sorry Alan, the list of options on the site I linked to may help, I guess I would just work through the list. Checking for a MDR corruption may be hard. That the BIOS does not offer a boot option is surprising. Is the Bios up to date?
Ellis very often if you have any CD in a drive some machines try to boot from it, so unless it is a system type disk you can get problems on some machines. Normally it just wastes time and recovers.
To my knowledge it is best practice to not have the CD drive as the first boot, as a minimum it speeds up the boot, and it is a handy (if easy to beat) security item to stop you inadvertently loading any malware that may be on the CD.
A possible solution, remove the SATA cable from the non-OS disk. Let it boot, by the sounds of it it is OK that way. Then connect the new disk once windows has powered up etc. Then use windows explorer one it has finished to check the new disk is OK and there are no drive letter problems.
If the second drive is empty. let windows do a full format of it. Then let windows power down normally and re-start, is it now happy.
It occurs to me that the BIOS may not be detecting the drives correctly at boot so windows is having to resolve the issues. If windows has detected the drives then it may have its configuration correct for the next power cycle, so it may be that the problem only occurs on the first power cycle.
That you have used a number of different drives may have confused some of the setup files. Also check your copy of Boot.ini looks to the correct place for the OS. For example if at some point you had drive C and D fitted, and D was the OS once, it could be starting in C then jumping to D for the OS. The fact that D no longer has the OS could be the issue, but if there is no drive D then it may well be just sticking to C as a fall back. So one disk OK, two disks trouble.
Or that could be rubbish, good luck.
Quote: NTLDR is missing. What's that
It's the Windows directory..... If your looking for a Windose directory, Chances are you will not find it spelt like that...! ! !
If the machine cant find the NTLDR....It needs to be re-formatted.
I'd start from scratch, By zero writing the drive intended as " C " drive, Then fit all the drives, Then run the Windows XP instal disc, Using the Format utility that is provided in the Install sequence to format the drive.
Be carefull to correctly identfy the drive that is to be " C " drive.
You may need to set your " BIOS " to Boot from CD Rom as the first boot device, Make the second one a HDD.......!
During the install procedure, The machine will be re-started at least twice, During the first Re-Start you can enter your BIOS and re-set the Boot device options to HDD as the first device....! ! ! OR each time the boot sequence happens, It will go to the CD Rom drive.
MMMmmm Getting an plumber to service your car, Never pays.....
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