ShortThrow
Baseband Member
- Messages
- 97
How do I go about finding the administrator password?
How to fix: NTLDR is missing, press any key to restart
What happened?
When your computer starts, the BIOS attempts to find the primary hard drive's active partition to read the first sector for the MBR (Master Boot Record), it uses that info to load the rest of the OS. For Windows NT4/2k/XP the NTLDR (New Technology Loader) takes it from there. If you get the "NTLDR is missing, press any key to restart" what's most likely going on is the BIOS either didn't look for the right drive, didn't find the right partition, it wasn't active, didn't find the MBR, or the MBR didn't list NTLDR in the right place, or the location of NTLDR changed.
If possible, try to change back whatever hardware or software change you just made (this could be as simple as leaving a floppy disk in the drive or you need to recheck the cables). (What if I made new changes that I want to keep?).
Make a NTLDR boot disk to get back into Windows.
The quick test to make sure your OS installation is still good is to create an MBR and NTLDR on a floppy disk and check your partitions, this disk will check many of the partitions for a working windows installation. Here are the instructions to do this:
1. Get a blank floppy (whatever is on it will be erased), and put it into a working computer (What if the computer doesn't have a floppy drive?).
2. Download fixntldr.exe onto a working computer (What if I don't want to download a file from a website I don't trust?). (What if my backup system is Mac / Linux or another alt OS?).
3. Run the fixntldr.exe file by double clicking it. Click OK to overwrite the blank floppy disc in the working computer, you should see some screens about writing a new floppy disk.
4. Do you remember if the folder you had your Windows installation in was named "Windows"? If you can't remember just keep going (What if it was not named Windows but WINNT like in NT4 or 2000?) .
5. Put the new floppy you have just created into the computer that gets the NTLDR is missing error message, turn the broken computer off.
Using the boot disk in the computer with the "NTLDR is missing" error.
Start back up the broken computer with the floppy in the floppy drive. Once your computer gets past the BIOS screen your computer should try to access the floppy drive and you should see a black screen with white letters that says: (What if I don't see this screen?).
1ST TRY THIS seleccione esto primero
2ND TRY THIS essayez ceci en deuzieme
3RD TRY THIS wahlen Sie diesen Third
4TH TRY THIS selezioni questo fourth
5TH TRY THIS selecione este fifth
6TH TRY THIS seleccione este sexto
7TH TRY THIS essayez ceci en septieme
8TH TRY THIS wahlen Sie dieses achte
9TH TRY THIS selezioni questo nono
10TH TRY THIS selecione este decimo
(I threw in some Spanish / French / German / Italian / Portuguese for international flavor.)
This file is set up to automatically select the "1ST TRY THIS" choice after 30 seconds. Try it first, if it was the wrong selection, you will likely get one of these three errors:
1. Windows could not start because file "<Windows Root>\system32\hal.dll was missing or corrupt
2. Windows could not start because of a computer disk hardware configuration problem. Could not read from the selected boot disk. Check boot path and disk hardware. Please check the Windows documentation about hardware disk configuration and your hardware reference manuals for additional information.
3. I/O Error accessing boot sector file multi(0)disk(0)fdisk(0)\BOOTSECT.DOS