massive pc favour needed

[hairnet]

Pc was fine yesterday switched off normally last night

 

Came to it this afternoon and nowt its on xp

 

Starts up with ntldr not present please press ctrl alt del to restart

 

Looking online apparently its common thing bit to fix it needs two files burned onto a disc and left in pc while its turned on

 

I have files that i need for woork but. Im going holand tomorrow and wont be back till tues

 

Anyone got experience of this and fixing it i dont have access to another pc to burn the files and library say they dont allow downloads (wtf)

 

Anyone help for shitefest beers please??

 

Ta

[Pillock]

You've not left a CD or USB stick in it by accident have you? I've not got any XP machines I'm afraid

[gary_davidson]

You've not left a CD or USB stick in it by accident have you? I've not got any XP machines I'm afraid

yep, start with the simple things first. unplug anything that it could be trying to boot from - CDs, USB stick, external hard drives  mobile phones, mp3 players or anything like that and try switching it on again

[dollywobbler]

I got that message after leaving my backup caddy plugged in by mistake. A friend got it after updating something on XP. XP goes out of support this year. Suspicious? Moi?

[hairnet]

tried the unplug very thing and checked loose stuff

 

only thing ever plugged is phone

 

they said about cd but its empty

[phil_lihp]

OK, this is quite a generic message, first thing as others have suggested is to check for CDs and floppies in drives, flash drives etc plugged into the PC.  Assuming there isn't anything, this link might help you:

 

http://pcsupport.about.com/od/findbyerrormessage/a/ntldrmissingxp.htm

 

It's a hard one to talk someone through as there's a number of potential causes - when Windows starts, it looks for a couple of very important but very small files to tell it everything it needs to know to get the rest of the system loaded (NTLDR, NTdetect.com and boot.ini and it's telling you it can't find them.  Usually this is because it's looking on the wrong disk (e.g. flash drive/CD) but it can mean that the files are there but corrupted, or missing entirely, possibly a botched Windows update, virus infection or even a misguided attempt by an antivirus package to remove an infection.

 

You'll need a Windows XP CD - if you can't find the one for your PC, see if you can borrow one, it'll be fine for the purposes of repairing your PC.  Good luck!

[Hertz]

Reckon its the Master Boot Record (MBR). You need an XP install cd (have a good look around with your instructions etc you got with the pc) and run the repair then.

[phil_lihp]

MBR is one step before this - it's read the MBR and is looking for a Windows installation but can't then locate the files it needs to get Windows up and running.  

[TimothyClaypole]

Let me know what version it is and I'll see if I have a disc in my folder of stuff?

[beko1987]

In car terms your dizzy has shat itself hence why she won't fire...

[hairnet]

Tim i think its at least sp2

 

Beak its water in the coilpack

[TimothyClaypole]

I've a spare XP with Service Pack 2 disc, it's a distribution with a new pc one but there's no manufacturer gubbins on it so I think they only started that locked to Acer/HP etc later?

[phil_lihp]

Even if it is it won't matter, as long as it's a Windows XP cd and not a manufacturer's own recovery utility the branding doesn't affect it, just means it's preloaded with specific drivers and a volume licence key.

[saucedoctor]

Download Hiren's Boot CD ISO using another computer, burn the disc and boot the dead PC from the disc.

 

FIX NTLDR is one of the tools in the root menu of the CD, it comes up straight away. I've done this loads of times, most recently last Monday, and it works.

 

Hiren Linkazoid:

 

http://www.hirensbootcd.org/download/

 

http://www.hirensbootcd.org/files/Hirens.BootCD.15.2.zip - link to D/L

 

Down near the bottom of the page, there's a link to Hirens.BootCD.15.2.zip

. It'll fit on a CD R.

[Pillock]

Yeah, this. Shit how did I forgot about Hirens? Used to be the staple of my toolbox.

[saucedoctor]

Hiren is FTMFW. Used it a couple of times to fix servers that had shat themselves. FalconFour is another good one:

 

http://falconfour.wordpress.com/2013/03/31/falconfours-ultimate-boot-cd-usb-v4-6-f4ubcd/

[Station]

NTLDR is one of the base things for booting PCs. I once deleted boot.ini and it took me DAYS to fix it as I had no internet or another computer.

[hairnet]

gonna try and sort this in the library

 

wish me luck as they updated all their pcs

 

if theyre 7 or 8 ive no chance itll go to a shop

[hairnet]

in here now

 

do i have to unzip the stuff thats going onthe cd or just wang in to the dead pc

 

ta

[hairnet]

phail

 

shop time