Wierd boot up issue

Hi guys,

I have a strange problem that is eating me up (that's being nice to say the least). P.C. worked fine last night but on booting up today I get an "NTLDR is missing" boot error. (XP pro, sp2, Asus P4P800 SE). The P.C. has been running fine for months. I rebooted and hit delete to enter the bios and the main HD (Western Digital WD2500KS-00mjbo) is not even listed in the boot order! I rebooted again and hit F8 as it booted and it was was listed in the boot devices and when selected it boots fine. I ran a search on this site and google and couldn't find a similar problem. I then downloaded a NTLDR repair program from here but for some reason my floppy drive will not recognize a floppy to install this repair file to. Is there any way to fix this?

Thanks

 

Update: I didn't mention the HDD is a SATA drive that worked fine for months. Also, when I boot to the XP cd it does not show a repair option, it just goes into set-up. Is there a way to manually run a repair from the disc and would this even help?

Thanks

 

First NTldr is not compromised if you can get the pc to boot from the boot options(f8) screen and therfore doesn't need fixing.
Run check disk on the hard drive and the system file checker.
OEM copies of XP usually don't have the repair console but you can still install it from full copy to the hard drive.
Look in the bios and note all the settings to do with SATA, in case you have to change anything. Also check that the cables have not come loose.
Finally copy the file boot.ini as boot.txt and post it here. It should be on the root of your C drive.

Studio T

 

The reason that WinXP goes straight to setup when trying to get to the recovery console in install is because you what's called an 'F6 RAID Driver'. When you boot to the XP CD, the very first blue screen that comes up will say 'press F6 to install 3rd party SCSI or RAID ....' You need the drivers on a floppy (it HAS to be a floppy, CD won't work) so Windows will 'see' the SATA hard drive. I did some research and it looks like the motherboard has an Intel chipset, so you need Intel's RAID drivers. You can download them from Intel:
http://downloadfinder.intel.com/scr...XP+Home+Edition&lang=eng&strOSs=45&submit=Go!
Or from Asus: http://support.asus.com/download/download.aspx?SLanguage=en-us
The Asus RAID driver has a file called MakeDisk. Run it to create your F6 floppy.
You may want to visit Western Digital and download and run the drive diagnostic tool to test your drive.

hopperdave2000

 

Hey, thanks guy. I did check the cables and those were fine. I'll try the other things you suggested when I get home though. And Dave, I still have the floppy from when I originally installed it so I'll also trying re-installing that. Do you think the driver could have gotten corrupt? It's strange that it boots and runs fine when I hit F8 but the drive is otherwise invisible.

Thanks again for the ideas.

 

I ran a check disc and everything is still the same. I then went to this link http://downloadfinder.intel.com/scri...5&submit=Go! to get the raid driver (I don't have the floppy I originally used) and after using the chipset identifier there it failed to tell me which chipset so I have no way to make a floppy. Any other ideas?

Here is the boot.ini

[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /noexecute=optin /fastdetect

 

I ended up making the floppy but for some reason it doesn't work. When I hit F6 it asks if I want to run automated recovery something-or-other which I tried but it was a deadend. I guess I'll live with hitting F8 and selecting the drive from the list as it's easier then doing a full re-install of windows. I just don't understand how the drive is recognized after hitting F8 but not with a normal boot, I made no system changes at all recently.

 

Thanks for the post.

The automated recovery is a useful facility in XP Pro, but you have to have set it up beforehand.
I think you must have made the wrong floppy somehow, Dave???

Your boot.ini is correct I will think about the booting problem and post again, meanwhile at leas tyou can access your pc.


Studio T

 

Use the Asus link above. You'll have to enter a product (motherboard), a series for the product (socket 478) and the model number(p4p800-se). That will redirect to the drivers. Download and unzip the RAID driver. In the resulting folder you'll see a file called MakeDisk. Run it with a blank floppy in the drive.....

hopperdave2000

When you mention F8, do mean the motherboard F8 boot device menu, or the Windows Safe Mode/Boot Options menu? If it's the motherboard menu, there may be a BIOS issue, or drive controller issue.

 

Thanks Dave, that's exactly what I tried last night. I'll try it again after work though.