What causes a NTLDR is compressed message?

You have been so kind as to help me get my computer up and running after I received a NTLDR is compressed message. What causes this? If it is something I did, I want to be careful not to do this again.
Thank you for sharing your expertise.

 

Greetings, sierra.

Glad you got your problem sorted.

The infamous 'NTLDR is compressed' message can be caused by a myriad of sources, such as power spikes, hard drive hiccups, poorly written disk defragmentation and diagnostics tools, etc. I would imagine there are even some malicious codes that could penetrate deeply enough to corrupt the boot files.

Bottom line: if I were in your shoes, I'd make regular backups of any important data. The problem may never be seen again, but I don't believe in coincidences - if a hard drive tries to warn me, I listen.

 

You can get this error if If you have compressed the hard disk drive using the Compress drive to save disk space option under the Properties menu for your hard disk drive. The boot drive should never be compressed.