Desperately need help

My moms computer suddenly shut down and when we tried rebooting it we are getting NTLDR missing please press alt ctrl and del. I tried booting from a Win XP but in vain (I am not very technical). The hard drive is make a clicking noise and can't be read on other computers . I am assuming it's a hard drive failure but I need to desperately recover her info. She has family photos on it . We live in Egypt while her family is back in the states and you can see how important those photos are to her. Is there any chance that it is not a drive failure evne though we tried in other PCs. If it is a hard drive failure is there a chance that the data on it can be retrevied. Please help me.

 

Hi and welcome to Majorgeeks

I usually boot from the Windows CD to the Recovery Console and run fixboot and fixmbr.

Read though these 2 pages and try to follow it, it'll give you some background details and should allow you to fix the PC.


EDIT: Ooops, I just read a little further - clicking noises and can't be read on other machines = dying or dead drive. Stop trying to use it, you'll just make it worse.

There maybe ways of recovering the data but it'll almost certainly cost big money

 

Welcome to Major Geeks.
Tried booting in another computer? Doubt if that would work because of different hardware configurations.
Try installing as a slave in another machine.Might be able to access that way.
Then there is the old freezer trick.
Does sound like time for a replacement,though.

 

If you are getting the message NTDLR is missing the HD is not completely dead because it is being read enough to know that XP is installed on it. So there is a chance the pictures are still there and accessible. I would stop trying to boot from it.

As hrlow2 said, you should be trying to add it to a different PC as a slave drive not the boot drive. Is this what you have tried? Is it an older IDE (wide data cable) type drive? If so you would have to change the jumpers on the back from Master to Slave according to the markings on the back of the drive or the label.

Another choice would be to download a live linux CD that would boot to a desktop environment and let you copy the files to a USB flash drive.

I'm sure someone can offer additional help with either option.

 

Thanks for your responses. The hard is IDE . I removed the drive completely. I got an old drive that works and tried install the os on it so that computer will be functional nut got the same error NTLDR is missing press alt ctrl and del. what could this mean and could this mean thard with my moms pic is still working despite the clicking noise ?

 

On the old HD (the one without the pictures) when you tried to install the OS did you have the PC set to boot from CD first before trying to boot from HD?

I'm assuming the old HD (again the one without the pictures) that you want to install the OS on already has XP on it which was installed on a different system in the past. You need to boot from the installation CD delete the old OS partition, create a new partition and format it and then continue with the install.

 

Yes, I set new HD to boot from CD so that I install OS on it but go same error message NTLdr is missing. I think it's not reading the CDROm . I don't think the motherboard is ruint since I tried a 3rd drive from another computer that has OS alrady installed and it worked. I am totally clueless :confused . Is there hope for HD drive with clicking noise to extract the data ?

 

Try starting the computer with no HD connected (or at least unplugged) and the CD in the CDROM drive. What happens.

 

I tried starting the computer with no HD connected and the CD in the CDROM drive as you told me and read the drive and was about to install Wind XP . so what does this mean:confused

 

Ok, I just reread this thread.

Let's put aside reinstalling the OS for a minute. You said you had a third HD that worked OK in the PC? Did you get a regular Windows desktop?

 

The moment I had the cd-rom and it worked I had no HD connected but when I connected the a working harddrive it wouldn't see the CD-rom again.

 

You need to set the hard drive to Master and CD to Slave if you only have 1 cable. Look on the top of the hard drive for a diagram, markings should be on the rear left for the CD - there will be a small jumper to use to make the correct connection.

 

Let's do a little primer on HD jumpers.

You probably have two IDE data cables one for HD and one for CDROM. The primary/master drive goes on the end of the cable. CDROM cables usually only have two connectors--one goes to the motherboard and one goes to the CDROM device. HD IDE cables usually have 3 connectors. The furthest one goes to the motherboard, of the two closest together, the end one goes to the primary/master and the middle one goes to the secondary/slave.

Every IDE device has jumpers that set it to master or to slave. Usually there are markings above the jumpers to tell you how to set them. On HD there is usually also a diagram on the label to tell you how to set them because some HD need two jumpers attached.

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Our immediate goal is to take a PC that has Windows working and then add the picture HD to it as a secondary/slave drive. We can then try to do some diagnostics on the HD to determine if we can find the pictures.
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So right now do you have a PC that has Windows running that has a free connector in the middle on the HD IDE cable?