I need help ... this time for a friend

mclean22 · Dec 11, 2006

A friend of mine was tryin to clean up some space on his hard drive and may have erased something very important. When he starts up his computer ... the os won't even load ... it goes to a black screen and says that ntldr is missing ... press control alt and delete to restart and then under that is a blinkin cursor... can anyone tell me what he may have erased and how to move on from this screen... I've had him try to go to config thru F8 to no avail and using delete... but we can't reach the config panel to reset it to the last known good config... can someone help me? He does not have the windows xp disc or the boot disc either ... is there anything we can do to help without havin to restore the OS?

TimW · Dec 11, 2006

Repairing Windows XP in Eight Commands
http://www.short-media.com/review.php?r=313

Wordy xp repair install:
http://www.informationweek.com/windows/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=189400897

DavidGP · Dec 12, 2006

Aimsgun@u said:

ach sod the consequences cmos jumper move on other pin for a sec put back in original position run recovery cd sorted ! save u days of readin crap but do not do unless your a qualified tech because the pc needs to switched on risk of shock
Click to expand...

Kinda guess you didnt read the original post fully..... that is not an option as they do not have the original XP cd or a Restore CD, CMOS clear, yes maybe to fix the HD not correctly ID'd in the BIOS, but that wont fix a missing ntldr ( corrupt boot sector, major XP corruption, loose IDE cable .

What if they dont have a BIOS jumper pin?

pc needs to switched on risk of shock
Click to expand...

Not the wisest suggestion if they are a novice, to enter the inside of the case and prod your fingers into a live electrical device.

Safer way and one which covers all motherboards and the modern ones which dont necassarily have a BIOS reset jumper, is to turn off the PC and pop out carefully the BIOS battery for 10mins, pop the battery back and boot up, enter BIOS and double check that the Hard Drive is recognised.

@mclean22... double check NO, media disks/floppys are in any drive, this includes flash media cards as that can also cause this error.

Sadly you will most likely need an XP cd to recover from this as you may have to repair NTLDR and possibly the boot.ini file.

if you can get a CD then some info and steps to try if TimWs dont work above... just follow the steps for XP users
http://www.computerhope.com/issues/ch000465.htm

Major Attitude · Dec 12, 2006

Aimsgun@u said:

oh btw i've sucessfully done this twice on my own pc since warranty run out i was not paying attention to what i was deleting fatal mistake always think twice or ask now
Click to expand...

Aim, please stop responding to threads. Your ramblings are difficult to understand, typically short and not relevant. Final warning.

Dan Penny · Dec 12, 2006

Thank you Major.........

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I need help ... this time for a friend

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