NTLDR is missing

[rookie1010]

Hi
I have a 2 disk system comprising of a
WD 160 Gig ATA 100 IDE drive
Seagate 20 Gig ATA 100 IDE drive

all the stuff(data+OS) is installed on the main 160 Gig hard drive.

I had left my computer running last night, and when i looked at it in the morning, it had restarted itself and had come up with the black screen with the message
"NTLDR is missing"
i thought perhaps the windows xp had corrupted itself and put in my windows xp cd to repair the drive.
I have started installing but discovered that it can not see the WD 160 gigs anymore.

the drive is new, only about a month old. i hope it is not broken since all my data is stored on it.

it just might be the IDE cable. i am hoping so. but why would my computer reboot itself, i thought in case it did not see the drive, it would crash at that point, or something like that.

please can you guys help me

 

[petogaz]

this might help : http://www.computerhope.com/issues/ch000465.htm.

cheers.

 

[rookie1010]

thanks for the link
do you think my hard disk might have gone kaput?

 

[diggerB]

I wouldn't go so far as to suggest that... yet...

Is your WD hard drive being correctly recognized in the BIOS?

If 'Yes' follow the suggestions presented in the link Petogaz posted, but I would also try doing this:

Go into the Recovery Console (accessed by booting via XP CD-ROM and pressing R once it gives you that option) and type FIXMBR. This will replace the Master Boot Record. Also type FIXBOOT C: (or D: if that is where your WD drive is located) to fix that particular drive's Boot Record.

If the answer to my original question is "No", try replacing your current IDE cable with another known working one.

 

[rookie1010]

i did not check to see if my BIOS was recognising my HD. I went straight for install, and setup just offered to seup or R my second hard disk, which was a slave on the IDE. It did not see my main WD 160 gig hard drive. I will replace my IDE cable and see what the results are.

I could not check the status of my hard disk, since win xp was being installed on the second drive(Seagate 20gigs). the first drive, i.e. the drive in question, is warm to the touch.

 

[rookie1010]

i have fixed the problem, at least for now
i had the two drives in the following configuration
Western Digital 160 gigs in master
Maxtor(sorry i reliased it was a maxtor not a seagate) 20 gigs in slave.

some how the BIOS(would it be the BIOS) was not seeing the Master drive, and since the boot.ini was on the master hence i was getting nowhere.

now the funny thing is when i detached the slave, it could see the master. and everything was kool once more.

even funnier was i plug back my slave drive, and it oculd see both drives now.

i don't know if it was an IDE cable problem or something else, i remeber trying to install win xp on my slave once before, and it could not see the master, ages back, but next time aroudn there was no problem.

do you think it is the IDE or an IDE controller issue.


i have got my CD WR (Sony) on Secondary Master, the Windows XP recognises it, and i have also burnt some stuff using it. however Nero fails to see it. it continues in a loop scanning for IDE/SCSI drives.

 

[diggerB]

Most likely it is a hardware compatibilty issue. I have found that mixing HD brand names can be a troubleshooting nightmare. Especially when one of those brand names is Maxtor. The best thing you can do is to keep them on separate buses. Meaning, put one hard drive as Primary Master, and the other as Secondary Master, and put your CDRW as Slave to one or the other. Make sure you have ATA-133-capable cables on both buses.

Sorry... not sure about your Nero problem.

 

[rookie1010]

will put the hard drives on seperate cables.
how do i know if the cable is ATA133 compliant. i thought all IDE cables are no different.

is there also a difference between IDE and EIDE cables?

i installed nero 6 and it sees my cd wr, i burnt a cd.

 

[rookie1010]

i discovered that there were two types of IDE cables.
40 wire ATA 33
80 wire ATA 66/100
is the 80 wire ATA 66/100 good enough for 133 ?

i have made my hard drive a primary master
cd rom is a primary slave
my second hard drive is a secondary slave.