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NTLDR missing, press CTRL+ALT+DEL to restart computer

Started by keener , Apr 23 2008 09:33 PM

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#1
keener
Posted 23 April 2008 - 09:33 PM

keener

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I am probably not a techie like most people here. I gave my laptop in for “diagnosing” at my local geek squad and was very disappointed. They couldn’t fix my Toshiba Tecra S1. The geek told me I needed a new hardrive but im wondering if the guy knew what he was doing in the first place so im hoping someone can help me.

Problem: computer says the following: NTLDR is missing press CTRL+ALT+DEL to restart.

Potential solution found in a Toshiba help forum:
http://forums.comput...?threadID=24292

The hard drive was "Locked" so even though I reformatted there remained data on there protected, and so the computer went though its boot sequence, and stopped at the hard drive, hence the NTLDR message. There was data still on there looking for Windows XP.

SO in order to do a fresh install, in my case install windows 98 and then upgrade to XP, I had to put the hard drive in another computer that had a floppy drive, boot from Windows 98 boot disk, when I got to a DOS prompt, change to C: , then type in LOCK /? , this unlocked the drive.

Then I used a little utility called WIPEOUT to clear the drive, then I typed REFORMAT C: , then started to install Win98, but stopped right after the install program copied files to the drive. Then I removed the hard drive and put it back in the Satellite (I would not have to have done it this way if the A-15 had a floppy!) and install continued, and all is fine.

In summary:
• On a second PC-system with FDD:
1. Create an win98 Bootdisk, download Wipeout and copy the unziped wipeout.exe on the bootdisk
2. Install the Toshi HDD as C:/
3. Boot up with a win98 Bootdisk
4. Unlock the HDD with LOCK C:
5. Run WIPEOUT C:
6. Restart and boot with win98 CD
7. Run the Setup till all files are copied and shut down the PC. It should be at the first Setup-Restart-Message.
8. Reinstall the HDD at the Toshi and continue the Installation.

My problem with this solution:

1) My Toshiba Tecra S1 has no floppy drive…can I use a USB stick?
2) I have a win98 recovery floppy BUT I don’t know if it has the “Wipeout program” and if it doesn’t I don’t know where I can download one
3) what’s HDD and FDD and where can I find a win98 CD?
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#2
pip22
Posted 24 April 2008 - 12:11 AM

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Welcome to Geeks2Go and congratulations on solving your own problem!

1. You can certainly use a USB stick for transferring files to/from your laptop, but you'll not be able to boot from it (like a floppy)
unless the laptop's BIOS (Basic Input/Output System) supports it. There'll be a 'USB' option in the "Boot Sequence" section of the BIOS.
If there isn't then it won't boot from USB.

2. A Win98 'emergency startup disk' (if that's what you mean) does not contain the Wipeout program and the only reference I can find is the Wipeout computer game, so it may probably be a toshiba utility. However, there are other free utilities which do the same thing, such as 'Eraser' which contains a shortcut (when installed) to create a "Boot & Nuke" floppy. But you have to boot up from that floppy, which your laptop can't do.

To get round the "no floppy drive" situation you can instead boot from a CD which contains the utilities you need (again, the BIOS must support booting from "CD-ROM" in the boot-sequence options. One such CD is here: http://www.eddiemain....com/about.html
and another here: http://www.hiren.info/pages/bootcd

3. HDD = Hard Disk Drive, FDD = Floppy Disk Drive. To acquire a Win98CD you will have to scour your local PC mags or papers for second-user ones. There is no other (legal) way to obtain one. Try online companies also. Some of them might have a few old stock of genuine ones with licence and serial number.

Edited by pip22, 24 April 2008 - 12:13 AM.

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#3
keener
Posted 24 April 2008 - 08:16 AM

keener

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I checked my BIOS options for booting and theses are the options from the BIOS setup:

1) HDD>FDD>CD>LAN (default)
2) FDD>HDD>CD>LAN
3) HDD>CD>LAN>FDD
4) FDD>CD>LAN>HDD
5) CD>LAN>HDD>FDD
6) CD>LAN>FDD>HDD
7) LAN>HDD>FDD>CD

As I said before I don't have a floppy drive so I don't know what the FDD would be..possible the USB drive?

then I checked my boot device selection options and they're as follows:

1) CD/DVD (seems to be the selected one)
2) PXE?RPL LAN
3) USB floppy drive
Primary Hard Drive (Built -in) 1
4) Secondary Hard Drive (Select Bay) 2
5) Default System Setup drive

should I try the starting from th USB drive? I have a USB stick and I found another website that suggested that I download some programs :

"Make a NTLDR boot disk to get back into Windows.

The quick test to make sure your OS installation is still good is to create an MBR and NTLDR on a floppy disk and check if you can just boot back up into your system, this disk will check many of the partitions for a working windows installation. Here are the instructions to do this:

1. Get a blank floppy/cd-r/usb (whatever is on it will be erased), and put it into a working computer.

2. If you have a working Windows machine download my fix: Floppy fixntldr.exe | CD-R fixntldriso.zip | USB ntldrusb.zip onto a working computer
(What if I don't want to download a file from a website I don't trust?). (Experimental 64 bit WinXP Floppy 64ntflop.exe | CD-R 64ntiso.zip)
Do you remember if the broken computers had the Windows installation in "Windows"? If you can't remember just keep going (What if it was not named Windows but WINNT like in NT4 or 2000?) .
(If your backup system is NT4 or Windows 2000: What if my backup system is Mac / Linux or another alt OS?).





http://tinyempire.co...drismissing.htm

if all this doesn't work, will getting a new harddrive solve the problem? I don't need the information that was lost that badly and I don't mind starting over. Im gussing I would need the windows XP startup CD though right?

Thanks VERRRRYYYYYYY much for taking the time to answer my question btw pip :)
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#4
aikeru
Posted 24 April 2008 - 08:33 AM

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FDD does refer to "Floppy Disk Drive" whether you have one or not your BIOS would support a floppy module.

I don't know what options your laptop has on booting, but I've seen where some allow you to press a key (IE: escape) and select a device to boot from and USB only appears when a bootable USB device is plugged in.
If you BIOS says nothing at all about USB, this is probably not possible as was previously said, but you can make one bootable and try it and it shouldn't hurt anything.
This site http://www.weethet.n...romusbstick.php looks like if you scroll to "Step 1" it should have info to get you started.

If you had a Windows PE disc (Windows bootable from CD-ROM, like a Linux "live" disc) you should be able to access USB and the files on the laptop. Alternatively, you could use a Linux live distro and it should also support USB devices (ie: Ubuntu) if you just want to get files off of the laptop but naturally you can't run DOS or Windows utilities without some amount of trouble.

Not sure if this answered your question but I hope it helps. :)
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#5
keener
Posted 24 April 2008 - 08:55 AM

keener

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Thanks aikeru!

unfortunately I don't understand half of what you said :S...i am giving up on this laptop. I don't think I can manage to fix this on my own and I don't want to have to pay a huge amount of money.

I wanted to know if I can still get the computer to work if i get a new hardrive and restart the OS fresh. I understand I would loose all my files but I didn't have anything of importance in it. would that be possible? Can I still get a working laptop this way?
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#6
The Skeptic
Posted 24 April 2008 - 09:37 AM

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Unless the technician that worked on your computer ran a complete test on your hard drive there is no way telling that the hard drive is finished or that there is any hardware problem at all.

To me it looks somewhat out of proportion to discard a laptop just because there is no floppy to run win 98. If you still want to give the computer a chance then we can run few tests. However, my opinion is that you would be better off investing some money in a new operating system (xp) and not try to use the hybrid system that you try to install. Your cheapest option is to buy an OEM version. Your best option (in my opinion) is to buy a retail version. If you wish to learn about the differences between XP versions and to compare prices, have a look at this link.
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