hi lads,hope sum1 can help,tryin 2 put win xp hard drive in2 comp,wen i turn on it says NTLDR missing,tryed 2 change bios but no joy,using win 2000 xp at mo,just tryin 2 up grade,i also tryed from win xp disk
You have to reinstall windows... Or copy the file from another computer that has the same OS and drag it into the system32 folder (or where ever its stored)
If you have a windows xp disc available, you can boot the computer to that disc and enter the recovery console. from the command prompt type:
copy (drive letter of your cd-rom):\i386\ntldr c:\. And ntldr is not in the system32 file, it is in your root directory (c:). If you want to copy it from another computer, you have to unhide the file. To unhide the file open up my computer. Than open up your hard drive. Click the "Tools" menu, click folder options, click the view tab, click show hidden files and folders, and uncheck hide protected operating system files (recommended). Hope this helps.
after you pressed "1", did it ask you for a administrator username and password, did it go straight to the command prompt, or did nothing happen. I am just a little curious.
This is common.. ntldr is the OS loader, and from what I remember was read only in 2000. It can't be overwritten by the XP version and so you end up with 2 files with the same name on the C:.. an illegal operation scenario.
Now if I remember this right the way we used to deal with this (XP recovery console is a waste of time.. it's 2000 that is faulty not XP) you have a couple of choices.
1. You can repartition the drive to blow everything off and then do a clean XP install from scratch.. losing any files you want to keep.
2. My favourite trick.. run the live cd of active@killdisk and only let it complete to 2%.. then install XP without doing a format. It should overwrite the C:\ root files and the windows folder while leaving most of the other data intact.
3. Boot a freedos disk (or a linux disk that allows ntfs read/write) and delete the offending file.. then as pointed out before copy the one off the XP disk.
