"NTLDR is Missing"

[Lunatyck]

Hey guys,

Im having some trouble re-installing my girlfriends OS. She hasa dell and it was running real slow so i offered to format the disk and re-install windows for her. So i popped in her boot disk, deleted the partition and created a new one, but when it comes to the windows install screen (to press r to repair, enter, etc) it tells me hard disk is not installed. So, when i went to boot device menu and ran hard drive diagnostics, it comes up and says - pass. I found this very odd. So then i changed the boot order from cd rom to disk, and i get the message, "NTLDR is missing". I googled how to fix this problem in a few ways but the problem is basically all of them consist of entering windows repair, but i cant get there because it tells me it cannot find a hard drive. This is my first SATA hard drive that im dealing with and honestly my first time ever having trouble re-installing an OS / formatting a disk. Now i feel bad because I cant fix her computer and i know her mom is going to be mad about it lol. can someone pleaseeeeeee help me outtt

thanks,
Konrad

[Lunatyck]

Oh, anotehr odd thing i might add is that if i have both the master and slave cd roms enabled, the computer wont boot from disk and automatically tell me NTLDR is missing. But if i disable the master drive, it boots just fine from the slave. I tried switching them around but thats the only way that it seems to work.

[Logla]

I assume your trying to re-install XP?
during the boot process of the XP install disk, you will need to load up the driver for the SATA controller of the motherboard.

When you first insert and boot the machine off the OS CD, you will get that familiar blue install screen which at some point will ask you to press F6 to install drivers. You will need the SATA driver on a floppy disk for this. I can't remember exactly what the exact method is as its been about 2 years since I've done an XP install but the process is fairly well explained on screen.

This problem is due to the XP CD not having the driver as the driver would have been written long after XP was.

If you google "installing sata driver during xp install" you will find a host of results that will explain it a little better than I can here.

[Alex]

This is caused by:

1. Computer is booting from a non-bootable source.
2. Computer hard disk drive is not properly setup in BIOS.
3. Corrupt NTLDR and/or NTDETECT.COM file.
4. Misconfiguration with the boot.ini file.
5. Attempting to upgrade from a Windows 95, 98, or ME computer that is using FAT32.
6. New hard disk drive being added.
7. Corrupt boot sector / master boot record.
8. Seriously corrupted version of Windows 2000 or Windows XP.
9. Loose or Faulty IDE/EIDE hard disk drive cable.

Is there anyway you can get a proper XP or vista CD/DVD and try booting from it? some of those boot cds, especially the ones you get with Dell are rubbish. I know if you get into the XP or Vista OS bootup disc you can delete, format and check out partitions correctly.

If you are missing a sata driver you will probably find it is on a vista DVD as that driver database has been vastly improved over XP's.

[Lunatyck]

thanks for the all the help guys, i finally figured it out !! WOOT! i googled dimension 8400 sata driver and i found an easy installer from dell that set up a diskette for me!

once again, much appreciated for the quick response.

[Logla]

No problemo!