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NTLDR is missing


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#1
Miss_Guided

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Good morning... well, sort of. LOL

Just wondering if anyone can help me out.
I have a Tecra S3 Model PTS30C-MT201E that I was given to me by my boss to back up files from.
When I tried to boot it, it gave me the "PXE-E61: Media Test Failure, check cable" message.

So I figured I would check to make sure everything was still intact physically. Upon opening the
door to the hard drive compartment, I discovered that the hard drive wasn't even attached. It's
as though someone had taken it out and put it back it, but clearly didn't put it in properly. The
drive was crammed into the compartment and the pins were not attached. I'm almost certain that the
person who had this laptop messed with it before giving it back. There's no way the hard drive
could have unattached on it's own the way it was crammed in there.

After reattaching the hard drive, I got:

NTLDR is missing
Press Ctrl+Alt_Del to restart


Does anyone have any idea how I can fix this and what might've happened to it?
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#2
rshaffer61

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If you have Windows CD...

1. Insert your Windows XP CD into your CD and assure that your CD-ROM drive is capable of booting the CD.
2. Once you have booted from CD, do NOT select the option that states: Press F2 to initiate the Automated System Recovery (ASR) tool.
You’re going to proceed until you see the following screen, at which point you will press the “R” key to enter the recovery console:

Posted Image

3. After you have selected the appropriate option from step two, you will be prompted to select a valid Windows installation (typically number “1").
Select the installation number, and hit Enter.
If there is an administrator password for the administrator account, enter it and hit Enter (if asked for the password, and you don't know it, you're out of luck).
You will be greeted with this screen, which indicates a recovery console at the ready:

Posted Image

4. There are eight commands you must enter in sequence to repair any of the issues I noted in the opening of this guide.
I will introduce them here, and then show the results graphically in the next six steps.
NOTE. Make sure, you press Enter after each command. Make sure, all commands are exact, including "spaces".
These commands are as follows:

CD..
ATTRIB -H C:\boot.ini
ATTRIB -S C:\boot.ini
ATTRIB -R C:\boot.ini
del boot.ini
BOOTCFG /Rebuild


Note about the above command.
BOOTCFG /REBUILD command which searches for pre-existing installations of Windows XP and rebuilds sundry essential components of the Windows operating system, recompiles the BOOT.INI file and corrects a litany of common Windows errors.
It is very important that you do one or both of the following two things:
A.) Every Windows XP owner must use /FASTDETECT as OS Load Option when the rebuild process is finalizing.
B.) If you are the owner of a CPU featuring Intel’s XD or AMD’s NX buffer overflow protection, you must also use /NOEXECUTE=OPTIN as an OS Load Option.
For the Enter Load Identifier portion of this command, you should enter the name of the operating system you have installed.
If, for example, you are using Windows XP Home, you could type Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition for the identifier (it's not crucial, however what the name is, as long, as it's meaningful).
Here is your computer screen:

Posted Image

5. Following command verifies the integrity of the hard drive containing the Windows XP installation. While this step is not an essential function in our process, it’s still good to be sure that the drive is physically capable of running windows, in that it contains no bad sectors or other corruptions that might be the culprit:

CHKDSK /R

6. This last command writes a new boot sector to the hard drive and cleans up all the loose ends we created by rebuilding the BOOT.INI file and the system files. When the Windows Recovery Console asks you if you are Sure you want to write a new bootsector to the partition C: ? just hit “Y”, then Enter to confirm your decision:

FIXBOOT

7. It’s time to reboot your PC by typing
EXIT
and pressing Enter.

With any luck, your PC will boot successfully into Windows XP as if your various DLL, Hive, EXE and NTLDR errors never existed.



2. If you don't have Windows CD...
Download Windows Recovery Console: http://www.thecomput...om/files/rc.iso
Download, and install free Imgburn: http://www.imgburn.c...hp?act=download
Using Imgburn, burn rc.iso to a CD.
Boot to the CD...let it finish loading.
When the "Welcome to Setup" screen appears, press R to start the Recovery Console.
Then, follow instructions from Step #3 above.

Thanks To Broni For The Instructions
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#3
Miss_Guided

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Thanks a bunch. I will try this.
You wouldn't by any chance know what could've happened to it, do you?
Probably several possible for that, huh?
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#4
rshaffer61

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Most likely the boot.ini file was changed to point to a non existent windows installation which when looked at there would be no clear path for the system to boot to.
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#5
Miss_Guided

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2. If you don't have Windows CD...
Download Windows Recovery Console: http://www.thecomput...om/files/rc.iso
Download, and install free Imgburn: http://www.imgburn.c...hp?act=download
Using Imgburn, burn rc.iso to a CD.
Boot to the CD...let it finish loading.
When the "Welcome to Setup" screen appears, press R to start the Recovery Console.
Then, follow instructions from Step #3 above.



I made it as far as hitting "R" for Recovery.

After hitting "R", this is what the screen said:
Windows XP Home Edition Setup
Setup did not find any hard disk drives installed in your computer.

Make sure any hard disk drives are powered on and properly connected
to your computer, and that any disk-related hardware configuration is
correct. This may involve running a manufacturer-supplied diagnostic
or setup program.

Setup cannot continue. To quit, Setup, press F3.

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#6
rshaffer61

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Hmmm that is a different issue now.
Can you enter bios and see if the hard drive is identified?
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#7
Miss_Guided

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Under page two of the bios, this is what I have:
CONFIGURATION:
Device Config. = Setup by OS

I/O PORTS:
Serial = COM1(3F8H/IRQ4)
Parallel = Not Used

DRIVES I/O:
Built-in HDD = Serial ATA Port0
Select Bay = Primary IDE(1F0H/IRQ14)

PCI BUS:
PCI BUS = IRQ10, IRQ11

PERIPHERAL:
Internal Pointing Devuce = Enabled
Ext Keyboard "Fn" = Disabled
Parallel Port Mode = ECP

LEGACY EMULATION:
USB KB/Mouse Legacy Emulation = Enabled
USB-FDD Legacy Emulation = Enabled
USB Memory BIOS Support Type = HDD

PCI LAN:
Built-in LAN = Enabled
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#8
rshaffer61

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OK but it is not identifying the drive specifically but only the port in IDE and SATA. The drive should be identified as manufacturer like western digital, seagate, hitachi and so forth.
Let try this a different way.
Run hard drive diagnostics: http://www.tacktech....ay.cfm?ttid=287
Make sure, you select tool, which is appropriate for the brand of your hard drive.
Depending on the program, it'll create bootable floppy, or bootable CD.
If downloaded file is of .iso type, use ImgBurn: http://www.imgburn.com/ to burn .iso file to a CD (select "Write image file to disc" option), and make the CD bootable.

NOTE. If your hard drive is made by Toshiba, try the Hitachi DFT CD Image version of the software

Thanks to Broni for the instructions
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#9
Miss_Guided

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That's all I have on the second page of the Bios. I typed it as I saw it.
The first page of the bios doesn't have anything relavent to this, so I didn't
bother telling you what it says.

The hard drive is Hitachi Travelstar. The link you provided me with, I followed.
Under Hitachi, it says Travelstar 8E, Travelstar 10E, or Travelstar C4K are not
supported. Does this include my drive if my drive only says Travelstar? Sorry
if this is a stupid question.

Edited by Miss_Guided, 27 September 2011 - 08:28 AM.

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#10
rshaffer61

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Get the SeaTools DOS cd ISO version. Then follow the steps to make the bootable cdrom and run the diagnostics from there.
Seagate SeaTools will test almost all hard drives now.
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#11
Miss_Guided

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Omgosh, okay I missed a page in the bios. Does this help any?

Page 3
.-----------RAID ARRAY------
| Current State
| Built-in HDD = 1RAID-0
| Second HDD = No Drive
| Create State
| Built-in HDD = 1RAID-0
| Second HDD = No Drive
|
|
.___________________________


Level Status Capacity
LD0 1RAID-0 OPTIMAL 79GB

Drive Assign Status Size Model Rev
Built-in LD0-0 ONLINE 80GB HTS541080G9SA00 MB40C60R
Second NODRIVE





Sorry about missing that.

Edited by Miss_Guided, 28 September 2011 - 10:33 AM.

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#12
rshaffer61

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OK now that identified the drive as Hitachi but I'm a little confused why it is setup as a Raid drive when there appears to be no other drive in the system to utilize raid setup? :)
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#13
Miss_Guided

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Well if you're confused, then I can't help you... LOL Coz you're the expert. I know nothing.
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#14
rshaffer61

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I'm actually wondering if that is the issue. If you can get into the bios where it shows the SATA controllers try to highlight it and change it to IDE or even just straight SATA and the OS may boot then.
You could even try setting the bios back to defaults which would reset the controller that way.
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#15
Miss_Guided

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Resetting to default only changed this:

I/O PORTS:
Parallel = LPT1 (378H/IRQ7/CH3)

before it said

I/O PORTS:
Parallel = Not Used

Now I don't feel like such an idiot, because page 3 is gone again...
So I must've not missed it the first time, but rather it somehow appeared after rebooting?

I tried rebooting it after resetting to default values. Still tells me NTLDR is missing.
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