problem with hard drive

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G

Guest

I have a western digital hard drive, it was working fine but I tried to
format it with wrong cd (media experience 3.1) and now it wont load the OS,
it gives me the following error: NTLDR is missing, that after I formatted and
created the partition for the OS with the WD cd, any suggestions? Thanks
 
NTLDR stands for NT Loader - if you really formatted the drive there would
be nothing on it to load so you must have really screwed things up.

Go to the WD web site, www.wd.com and download their various programs for
setting up and/or diagnosing problems on their hard drives.

Also, if you have a floppy drive and access to a boot floppy with Windows
98SE or ME you could boot from the floppy and then try to run FDISK and then
format the drive. www.bootdisk.com will have these files/programs
 
Jerry said:
NTLDR stands for NT Loader - if you really formatted the drive there would
be nothing on it to load so you must have really screwed things up.

Go to the WD web site, www.wd.com and download their various programs for
setting up and/or diagnosing problems on their hard drives.

Also, if you have a floppy drive and access to a boot floppy with Windows
98SE or ME you could boot from the floppy and then try to run FDISK and
then format the drive. www.bootdisk.com will have these files/programs
Click to expand...


eny:
Is there any reason why you can't simply start over and undertake a fresh
install of the XP OS with your XP installation CD? Forget about creating a
partition with your WD CD. Forget about formatting the HDD with any other
media other than the XP installation CD.

Use your XP installation CD to delete whatever partition(s) are currently on
the HDD and go through a normal install process with that XP installation
CD, creating one or more partitions as you please and formatting the same as
you go through the install process. I'm sure you understand that any & all
data on your WD HDD will be gone when you do this, however, I'm assuming
this will not be a problem for you. If it *is* a problem because you need
this or that data currently on the drive, then we'll have to try something
else.
Anna
 
Jerry said:
NTLDR stands for NT Loader - if you really formatted the drive there would
be nothing on it to load so you must have really screwed things up.

Go to the WD web site, www.wd.com and download their various programs for
setting up and/or diagnosing problems on their hard drives.

Also, if you have a floppy drive and access to a boot floppy with Windows
98SE or ME you could boot from the floppy and then try to run FDISK and then
format the drive. www.bootdisk.com will have these files/programs



Jerry: You are so right, I know I really screwed this one bad, I have formatted many hard drives and this is the first one "different", I think you read my mind, prior to reading your advise I formatted the hd with the floppy and right now I am installing win98SE, from here I should be able to upgrade to wnxp, right? I still don't understand why after I formatted the hd with the floppy it won't read winxp cd! Thanks a lot.
Click to expand...
 
Anna said:
eny:
Is there any reason why you can't simply start over and undertake a fresh
install of the XP OS with your XP installation CD? Forget about creating a
partition with your WD CD. Forget about formatting the HDD with any other
media other than the XP installation CD.

Use your XP installation CD to delete whatever partition(s) are currently on
the HDD and go through a normal install process with that XP installation
CD, creating one or more partitions as you please and formatting the same as
you go through the install process. I'm sure you understand that any & all
data on your WD HDD will be gone when you do this, however, I'm assuming
this will not be a problem for you. If it *is* a problem because you need
this or that data currently on the drive, then we'll have to try something
else.
Anna

Anna: I tried your suggestions before posting but it wouldn't read the XP OS at all, it kept giving me the NTLDR error, what you suggested I have done many times and always worked, not this time. Thank you, I am doing it the old way, with the floppy and win98 se.
Click to expand...
 
eny:
There is no way that I'm aware of that you could possibly get a "NTLDR
error" message that you refer to when you boot to the XP installation CD. It
would seem the reason you *are* getting that message is that you are *not*
booting directly to the XP installation CD, but rather to your dysfunctional
HDD. Make absolutely certain that your boot priority settings in your
motherboard's BIOS correctly indicates that the CD-ROM is *first* in order
of boot priority - before the HDD. Then try it again.
Anna
 
Eny... once you get back on track, you really should plan to make an
Emergency Boot Floppy using the same version of Windows XP you have
installed..

Just format a 1.44 floppy disk using Windows XP Pro or Home Edition. Next
you can expand copies of your NTLDR, and NTdetect.com from \i386 folder on
Install CD - or you can find and copy them off your harddrive onto the
floppy disk along with the Boot.ini. file.

Mark it as an Emergency Boot Disk - then try it to make good and sure that
it will work. :)

Recently, I had a dreaded "Disk Error: Press ctrl-alt-del to reboot system."
message. I was all WT#&#^ until I remembered I had a EBF disk I'd made a
couple of years ago. After finding it - I plugged the disk into my A
drive - and I was able to get back into my drive to see what was going on.
If anything - you should be able to back up your important stuff - before
attempting repairs to the drive.
 
C J. said:
Eny... once you get back on track, you really should plan to make an
Emergency Boot Floppy using the same version of Windows XP you have
installed..

Just format a 1.44 floppy disk using Windows XP Pro or Home Edition. Next
you can expand copies of your NTLDR, and NTdetect.com from \i386 folder on
Install CD - or you can find and copy them off your harddrive onto the
floppy disk along with the Boot.ini. file.

Mark it as an Emergency Boot Disk - then try it to make good and sure that
it will work. :)

Recently, I had a dreaded "Disk Error: Press ctrl-alt-del to reboot system."
message. I was all WT#&^ until I remembered I had a EBF disk I'd made a
couple of years ago. After finding it - I plugged the disk into my A
drive - and I was able to get back into my drive to see what was going on.
If anything - you should be able to back up your important stuff - before
attempting repairs to the drive.


C.J. Excellent sugestion, I will make a emergency boot floppy; last nite I was able to format the hard drive and reinstall winxp, at least with this particular computer I have an internal floppy drive so that made it easier. Thanks again to everybody that help me thru this. eny
Click to expand...
 
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