NTLDR not found

  • Thread starter Thread starter Mike
  • Start date Start date
M

Mike

I need some input here. I'm not sure if this software is
actually the cause of my problem; I may have some sort of
boot level virus, but since installing this Beta software
is one of the things I did before everything crashed, I
thought I'd suggest the possibility.

I am currently running Windows XP professional. I
installed this beta anti-spyware software for the first
time about three weeks ago. At the time I had no XP
service packs installed. It installed fine, and everything
worked, through several cold boots and restarts, until
about 4 days later. I turned my computer on, and received
an error "Cannot find NTLDR, please press ctrl-alt-del to
restart your system." I started a recovery console and
confirmed that the NTLDR was present, and then I replaced
it and the other key boot files (NTDETECT.COM, boot.ini)
to no avail. Eventually, I was forced to reinstall XP.
Everything was running with no problems for another week
or so. This time I installed Service Pack 2, and ran with
that for another few days. I decided to try running the
Anti-spyware program again. Like the first time, after
about 3 or 4 days, I went to turn the computer on, and
received the same error. This time, along with the other
things I had tried before, I also made a boot disk with
the boot files on it. This causes the computer to pass the
NTLDR error, but it still will not load the OS. It gives
me an error, saying the HAL.DLL in %system root%\system32
is corrupt. Of course, I tried replacing this file, but it
does not fix the problem.

I am aware of the possibility of my having some boot level
virus that was saved into my backup, and was reinstalled
when I restored before, but I find the fact that I had
used this beta software both times a bit suspicious. I was
just wondering if anyone else has had a similar problem,
and if so, if there is any way to correct it without doing
a full reinstallation of XP again. Thank you.
 
Sounds like your hard drive is knackered or you have, as
you say, a corrupt boot sector. Try perfoming a deep scan
of your hard drive using its manufacturers hard drive
testing utility. eg Maxtor, Western Dig etc etc.

I would say you will not have lost anything if you
understand partition recovery software.
 
Mike, I have exaclty the same problem as you described.
It's using a Maxtor drive. Before it crashed, the disk kept
spinning. I even hooked it up as a slave on another
computer to try and recover the data. BIOS recognizes the
drive and assigns a drive letter, but explorer comes up empty.
 
No, the information is fine. I can put the disk into
another computer, assign a drive letter, and all the
information is intact. I've tried replacing the key OS
files manually, like I said, and it didn't help. I tried
downloading patrition recovery software. This was kind of
interesting, because it didn't detect any active OR lost
partitions on the disk. It thought all of the space was
unallocated. However, as soon as I put in the XP disk and
booted into a recovery console, I found that all the
information was still there.

I'm willing to format the disk again and reinstall XP,
but I'd really like to isolate the problem first, so I
can be sure that it isn't going to happen again.
 
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