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Computer will only boot

Colin Brett

By Colin Brett
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chesters1 Member

chesters1

Posted
Posted (edited)

does it boot with the ext disk removed? ,are you sure you formatted the right disk?

Edited by chesters1

Believe NOTHING anyones says or writes unless you witness it yourself and even then your eyes can deceive you

None of this "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" crap it just means i have at least two enemies!

 

There is only one opinion i listen to ,its mine and its ALWAYS right even when its wrong

 

Its far easier to curse the darkness than light one candle

 

Mathew 4:19

Grangers law : anything i say will  turn out the opposite or not happen at all!

Life insurance? you wont enjoy a penny!

"To compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves and abhors, is sinful and tyrannical." Thomas Jefferson

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Colin Brett Member

Colin Brett

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does it boot with the ext disk removed? ,are you sure you formatted the right disk?

 

Yes I formatted the correct disk. The computer works fine once it's booted from the CD everything that was there is still there.

 

The HD I formatted to use externally works fine as well as an external drive.

 

Just won't boot as it did before I took the side cover off :wallbash: :wallbash:

 

Colin

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chavender Member

chavender

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Posted (edited)

did you use windows to format the external h/d or a third party software like partition magic etc ,as a third party software could of de-sellected the main drive as active and made the new drive active in its place ! if the settings wasn't right / checked.Is your main drive still C:\ ?

 

goto control panel >admin tools >computer mgmt > [ in the left hand plane ] disk mgmt wait for info too load ,right click the main drive and set to active .

 

 

alternativley the NTLDR file may of gone walkabout ,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 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.

 

boot up using the cd then search the cd for a copy of NTLDR (there should be one on there (or it wouldn't boot up) as its one of the three files required for windows xp to boot up ( NTLDR / NTDETECT.COM / BOOT.INI ) in fact if you find all three copy them all to the root folder (c:\ ) (just put them in c drive) remove cd > re-boot ......All should now be well [hopefully]

 

sod it i've attached the files in this exe package ,just download the zip file and unzip it then run the exe,it will put the three boot files onto on your c drive.

Xp_boot_files.zip

 

(i normally use a bootable floppy disk to do this ,by adding a instruction to the autoexec.bat file to run the exe file then re-boot)

Edited by chavender

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Chavender
I try to be funny... but sometimes I merely look it! hello.gif Steve

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Colin Brett Member

Colin Brett

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Posted
did you use windows to format the external h/d or a third party software like partition magic etc ,as a third party software could of de-sellected the main drive as active and made the new drive active in its place ! if the settings wasn't right / checked.Is your main drive still C:\ ?

 

I did use Windows to format & Yes main drive is still C:\

 

goto control panel >admin tools >computer mgmt > [ in the left hand plane ] disk mgmt wait for info too load ,right click the main drive and set to active .

 

Done that but all was Ok

 

alternativley the NTLDR file may of gone walkabout ,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 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.

 

boot up using the cd then search the cd for a copy of NTLDR (there should be one on there (or it wouldn't boot up) as its one of the three files required for windows xp to boot up ( NTLDR / NTDETECT.COM / BOOT.INI ) in fact if you find all three copy them all to the root folder (c:\ ) (just put them in c drive) remove cd > re-boot ......All should now be well [hopefully]

 

Not getting that message

 

sod it i've attached the files in this exe package ,just download the zip file and unzip it then run the exe,it will put the three boot files onto on your c drive.

Xp_boot_files.zip

 

Done that and no different apart from I now have lots of options to boot from

 

(i normally use a bootable floppy disk to do this ,by adding a instruction to the autoexec.bat file to run the exe file then re-boot)

 

Bo//ocks to it, I'm off to bed Thanks for your help

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Newt Member

Newt

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Posted

Look in your C:\ folder for a file named boot.ini (you will have to be set to view hidden and system files).

 

Open the file in notepad (NOT in a word processor). Copy the contents and paste them here. It should only be a simple text file of less than 20 lines (often just 4-5 lines).

 

I would expect to see something similar to this one (from my single drive laptop running XP-pro)

 

[boot loader]

timeout=30

default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS

[operating systems]

multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /noexecute=optin /fastdetect

" My choices in life were either to be a piano player in a whore house or a politician. And to tell the truth, there's hardly any difference!" - Harry Truman, 33rd US President

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chesters1 Member

chesters1

Posted
Posted (edited)

could be a bios prob something may have changed it to boot from cd? looks like the the boot.ini is corrupted as you say in some way

Edited by chesters1

Believe NOTHING anyones says or writes unless you witness it yourself and even then your eyes can deceive you

None of this "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" crap it just means i have at least two enemies!

 

There is only one opinion i listen to ,its mine and its ALWAYS right even when its wrong

 

Its far easier to curse the darkness than light one candle

 

Mathew 4:19

Grangers law : anything i say will  turn out the opposite or not happen at all!

Life insurance? you wont enjoy a penny!

"To compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves and abhors, is sinful and tyrannical." Thomas Jefferson

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Colin Brett Member

Colin Brett

Posted
  • Author
Posted
Look in your C:\ folder for a file named boot.ini (you will have to be set to view hidden and system files).

 

Open the file in notepad (NOT in a word processor). Copy the contents and paste them here. It should only be a simple text file of less than 20 lines (often just 4-5 lines).

 

I would expect to see something similar to this one (from my single drive laptop running XP-pro)

 

[boot loader]

timeout=30

default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS

[operating systems]

multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /noexecute=optin /fastdetect

 

Hi Newt,

Looked but can't find??

 

I found what you mean on my laptop so I know where to look.

 

Colin

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Newt Member

Newt

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If that file has gone missing it would account for exactly what you are seeing. It is only needed during the boot up process but without it, you OS can't load.

 

Try the instructions here and see if it helps.

 

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/330184

" My choices in life were either to be a piano player in a whore house or a politician. And to tell the truth, there's hardly any difference!" - Harry Truman, 33rd US President

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Andy_1984 Member

Andy_1984

Posted
Posted

like chester said, its more than likly its a bios problem. check your bios boot order

 

select hard drive as first then cd as second boot device

 

you can access it by pressing F2 or if you see an option stating press [whatever] for setup or bios when you first start the computer

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