"NTLDR is missing" ?

I have had some computer issues that I believe are Malware related and that forum helped me for a while and then suggested I post over here.
This morning, when I turned on the computer I got an error message that says NTLDR is missing. Press Crtl alt del to restart. When I do, it just goes back to that message.

Thank you, in advance, for any help you can provide on this matter. The computer was functioning, albeit very slowly, prior to this morning. Other issues included a boot up period that takes around 20-30 minutes, very slow operation, "program not responding" error messages. I had McAfee (paid) and it was erased and then I had to try to reinstall but it would not work. I can not update AdAware or AVG for some reason and can not reinstall Adobe (pdf).

Anyway, thank you for your help.

 

NTLDR is one of 3 crucial files need by Windows to start up normally; the other two are NTDETECT.COM and BOOT.INI. Unfortunately, the error you're getting is usually not the easiest fix. If you're lucky, you can use NTLDR from a healthy PC running the same version of Windows that you have. Copy it to a floppy or CD or whatever, and put it back in the root directory (normally C: ). But it is seldom that easy. Here's some links that should help:
http://www.short-media.com/articles/repair_windows_xp
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/555304/en-us
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/320397/en-us
http://www.tinyempire.com/notes/ntldrismissing.htm
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/318728 (mainly for Win2000 but most of the info applies to WinXP also)

Good luck!
:major
[dlb]

 

Thank you for the prompt reply.

I utilized the first method you sent as it seemed more reliable than the others (don't know why). Anyway, I had the restore disk and was able to change the bios/boot-up thing (f2) to read it and got to the restore console.

As I followed the instructions, I got the the part where he wants you to "bootcfg /rebuild" After is scanned all disks, it said error: failed to successfully scan disks for windows installation. this error maybe caused by a corrupt file system, which would prevent bootcfg from successfully scanning. use chkdsk to detect any disk errors.

So I did "chkdsk" and then "chkdsk /p" which was checking the volume (whatever that means) and reported that the volume appears to contain one or more unrecoverable problems.

This appears to be preventing me from proceeding. Any suggestions as to what that may mean?

Thanks for your help.

 

Try using chkdsk /r instead of chkdsk /p. The /r will repair any errors found if possible. If you still get the message 'the volume appears to contain one or more unrecoverable problems' then you have some problems. Either the hard drive is failing, or you have some seriously corrupted sectors/clusters, or Windows is really messed up (which is usually a result of the hard drive problems). Go to your hard drive maker's web site, download their diagnostic tool and run it. Be sure to get the bootable version and run the extended tests. Many of these diagnostic tools also have built-in options to repair any corrupt sectors, but any data on these sectors will be lost. Since you may have more unrecoverable errors, there's a good chance that alot of your data is lost anyway, so hopefully you have some back ups already made. If not, you still have some options: remove the drive and slave it to another PC (or put it in a USB external enclosure) and recover the data that way; boot to a live CD like Knoppix or the UBCD4Win and copy the data to an external drive or thumb drive or burn it to CD/DVD (you'll need 2 optical drive to do that however). If there's nothing of importance on the PC, or you already have it all backed up, then just boot to your XP disc, do a full slow format, and reload Windows after running the diagnostic; you want to be sure that the drive is healthy enough to continue using it in your PC.

 

i'd follow what dlb said. however, there are also some threads on this forum.

http://forums.majorgeeks.com/showthread.php?t=154148&highlight=ntldr

although it won't fix your sluggishness, but should get you booted up. - sos

 

I ran the chkdsk /r and it still shows the "unrecoverable problems" message.
It is a Dell computer and I'm not sure what type of hard drive it has in it. I can't see how I can access the internet on that computer anyway. I am posting from my laptop. Of course, I don't want to lose any non-backed up data, but I am willing to try the diagnostic repair files you mentioned but I'm not sure how to do it as you described. The computer has a cd, dvd, and 3.5' drive on it. Can something like that be copied on to a storage media?
thanks again for your help.