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Boot error (modified 0 times) drun Profile After installing a HD loaded with win2k I get an error on boot up. It says "NTLDR not found" when I pop this drive into my laptop it boots fine. I've tested the drive on 2 different GCTs using different cables (from badflash). I know the HDD is ok because it boots perfectly in my laptop. Any ideas or sugguestions? Please help, thanks, -Drun 08-03-2002 21:21:56

RE:Boot error (modified 0 times) drun Profile UPDATE: I ran format c: /s and was able to get the drive to boot up in the gct. I put the drive in another machine and copied the win2k cd to the hd. When i put it back in the GCT and tried to run the setup files from c prompt, it says setup cannot run in dos. I then put the drive in my desktop and installed win2k and when I tried booting it up in the GTC I got the same NTLDR not found error. What is the trick to get win2k on a GCT??? Thanks, -Drun 08-04-2002 13:55:58

RE:Boot error (modified 0 times) Spanqboy Profile Drun, With a properly formatted/bootable/sys'd HD installed in the GCT, try running WINNT.EXE (located in the \I386 directory) to install from a DOS prompt. Note, the WINNT32.EXE (also located in the \I386 directory) should only be used for installing from an existing Win9x session. spanqboy sends... 08-04-2002 21:18:45

RE:Boot error (modified 0 times) drun Profile Spanqboy, Without sounding like a total dumbass, what do you mean by a properly formatted/bootable/sys'd HD for a GCT? Using a desktop, I fdisked and formatted with the /s option, then copied the win2k cd to the drive. It booted to the c promtp and I was able to use your kick ass trick to run the setup from dos. But when the install process needed to restart it gave me the same "ntldr not found" error. This is driving me nuts!!! Any other ideas? Thanks for your help, -Drun 08-05-2002 03:48:37

RE:Boot error (modified 0 times) drun Profile I've tried setting up the HD with FAT16, FAT32 and NTFS, and I still can't get win2k to install passed the reboot where it says it can't find ntldr. Viewing the drive contents on a desktop, ntldr is on root at c: Also I've tried changing the bios setting on the desktop when fdisking and formating. I've tried auto, LBA, and user setting (using the amounts on the drive's sticker). As you can guess this has taken a hugh amount of time and I'm still at square one. If anyone has any ideas or understands the error I'm having , please help. I'm willing to try anything. Thanks, -Drun 08-05-2002 16:58:32

RE:Boot error (modified 0 times) Spanqboy Profile Drun, That's a weird one...you may want to check your BOOT.INI file (located in the C:\) to make sure that the boot disk is properly identified. On my system, it reads as follows: [boot loader] timeout=10 default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT [operating systems] multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT="Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional" /fastdetect C:\="Microsoft Windows" You may not have the [operating systems] section (I have a dual-boot with Win98). Otherwise, check this http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=KB;EN-US;q255220& Hope this helps. -spanqboy sends... 08-05-2002 22:09:46

RE:Boot error (modified 0 times) drun Profile Great info. Here's the deal. When installing win2k from a format /s and it needs to reboot, it then says ntldr is missing, there is no boot.ini file on the HD that I could find. But going to the link you posted had some interesting insite. I think that the HD (10 gig) being fdisk'd and formatted using a win98 boot floppy is the problem. the link says: This behavior occurs because Windows 98 installation was improperly cloned on a different-geometry drive and the following conditions also exist: -The system/boot partition is formatted with the FAT32 file system. -The computer boots using INT-13 extensions (a partition larger than 7.8 gigabytes with a System-ID type of 0C in the partition table). -The Heads (sides) value in the FAT32 BIOS Parameter Block (BPB) is inaccurate. This must match the geometry of the physical drive. So here is my major problem. How do I fdisk and format this 10 gig drive to have the correct geometry??? I'm more then willing to loose disk space if I have to fdisk without using INT-13 extensions, but I have no idea how to fdisk without using INT-13 because it is not an option that I was aware of. As far as I know, the disk is LBA udma 33 (i think). I have tried ntfs and still get the same error, so if MS is right, that means that my different-geometry drive is using INT-13 extensions. So how do I get this drive to have the correct geometry if I can't see the bios? and if I cant get the geometry right, does MS mean that if it is not fat32 and int-13 it will work with different-geometry ??? I was able to get win98 up and running using this HD on the GCT, then using an xcopy of the CD on the HD, I was able to upgrade win98 to win2k's install. When the install of the win2k upgrade needed to reboot I was back to square 1 when the error NTLDR is missing showed up (again). Thanks, -Drun 08-08-2002 04:40:13

RE:Boot error (modified 0 times) gr8_brit Profile Hi there.... Had a similiar problem with installing win2k onto my Iopener. I had a 10GB drive that worked fine under DOS & WIN9x, but Win2K would barf after the initial reboot! Drove me (more) nuts trying to figure it out!! I think that win2K does some strange disk mounting and my solution was to re-partition the drive with a small (600Mb) C drive and the rest as D. Then copied the win2K CD contents to C and told the install to go to D. That worked a charm! Now, you *might* be able to switch that around and set C as the bigger partition and D as the smaller. Then set D as the active partition (who knows?.... it might be possible with the right tools?) and boot from D and install to C. Alternatively (and this is convoluted but bear with me!) partition into three. Make C about 1Mb, D big and then E about 600Mb. Copy the boot bits to C, the CD contents to E. Set C as active and tell the install to go to D. When finished and win2k is up, go into the win2k system/disk management stuff and then remove E and re-allocate the space to D (I think you can do that?) Just some random thoughts... but the two partition thing worked for me. Cheers, gr8_brit 08-08-2002 12:00:29

RE:Boot error (modified 0 times) drun Profile Thanks guys for your input. I've tried all sugestions posted above and still no win2k. I now have 98 running fine, but I dont like 98. I started thinking that it might be the HD. running scandisk from a win98 msdos boot disk, it found several errors. What bugs me about this is that 98 runs fine. If only I was able to access the bios I think I'd be able to fix the 'ntldr is missing' error. The problem has to be 1) bad drive, but 98 runs fine 2) different-geometry drive when using 98 boot disk fdisk and format program. Anyone know if a linux partitioned and formatted drive might help, and if so can I get a linux boot floppy somewhere? Any other ideas? Thanks, -Drun 08-12-2002 23:59:32

RE:Boot error (modified 0 times) JediGeek Profile I don't actually have a GCTP yet, but I do know what the W2k problem is. Normally when W2k is installed on a blank hard drive (no partitions) It will create a partition of the whole drive -8MB. So it leaves 8MB of unpartitioned space. Recently I was installing W2k on a machine with the drive already partitioned and I had the same problem. So, I repartitioned the drive while leaving 8MB unused and then everything worked great. This should work with your problem. Hope this helps. 08-13-2002 18:11:48

RE:Boot error (modified 0 times) JediGeek Profile I just had another thought. Try putting the HD in another system with a CD drive. Boot off the CD and have it partition and start the install. (Actually delete the partitions and have the installer create the new partition.) After it's started copying files, (or you could wait till the first reboot) just do a quick format on the drive and then copy the files for the install back on and run the install. 08-13-2002 23:15:01

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