Hey all,

I've had a problem with my computer for the past year or so, and after extensive attempts to fix it as it was, the whole thing basically crashed and couldn't get back up. Using my father, who is the resident computer guru, we decided the best thing to do was reformat the hard drive and start from scratch. We had some problems at first, as it was discovered that the problem was about 6 or 7 corrupted files (possibly from a power outage a while ago) and they absolutely refused to leave that hard drive. He hooked it up to his computer and finally managed to format it and wipe it clean. I took it back to my computer, hooked it up, and we went to work...

When we went to reinstall Windows XP, we did as follows:

1. Insert the Windows XP disk.
2. Booted up computer and received error saying "NTLDR is missing. Press ctrl+alt+del to restart." Okay... Well, understandable. There's no CD drive driver on the hard drive now, so that might be the issue.
3. Restarted a couple times but error still occurs. We decided to insert the 1st of the 6 Windows boot disks and attempt to use those.
4. Insert boot disk #1 and start computer. Computer chugs along until it hits the error message "file \biosinfo.inf could not be loaded.
   The error code is 4096. Setup cannot continue. Press any key to exit."
5. Frustrated. Took frustration out on PB&J sammich.

I've browsed google and one answer I've found is that the hard drive is essentially busted and I'll need a new one. I'm heading out later today and figure I can get one, but I'd rather see if I can use my old one still first. Any ideas?

2. Booted up computer and received error saying "NTLDR is missing. Press ctrl+alt+del to restart." Okay... Well, understandable. There's no CD drive driver on the hard drive now, so that might be the issue.

That to me sounds like the hard drive was either A not properly formatted or B a bad hard drive that couldn't be formatted anyhow.
You shouldn't be getting the NTLDR missing message on a clean hard drive. It is a message you normally get when a critical file is missing from Windows itself.


3. Restarted a couple times but error still occurs. We decided to insert the 1st of the 6 Windows boot disks and attempt to use those.
4. Insert boot disk #1 and start computer. Computer chugs along until it hits the error message "file \biosinfo.inf could not be loaded.
The error code is 4096. Setup cannot continue. Press any key to exit."

Sounds like your computer was not seeing the diskettes as window xp boot diskettes, it sounds like it was attempting to check the disks for possible "Bios" updates for the computer which some computers automatically do.

5. Frustrated. Took frustration out on PB&J sammich.

Sounds good.


Personally I think the hard drive is shot. Most hard drives have a lifespan of 4-8 years. The only thing I can recommend trying to confirm the drive is shot, is to use a third party software to format the drive (do not use the windows xp cd to format it).

One I like is "Super Fdisk Bootable CD"
http://www.ptdd.com/manual2.htm

It is short, simple, sweet, and does the job. I downloaded it back when it was free (this one appears to be free also but may be a demo of some sort, I am unsure).

You should use magic iso or an iso burning software to burn the file to cd/dvd. Then boot to it on your pc, and attempt to whipe your drive (as well as scan for errors if you like but that takes a long time).

Note: If your computer has a dvd drive then burn a dvd with the iso, if not then burn a cd.



After you have confirmed that you'll know what to do. If you do buy a new drive I recommend getting "Seagate" which is one of the #1 drives in quality. They also feature a 5 year warranty on most of their drives while others usually only have a 2-3 year.

Good luck.

Assuming your pc matches these specs
http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/syst...ecs.htm#1102515

Here's a good deal on an 80GB hard drive around $37 shipped.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16822148236